OK, so this might seem like a bit of a rant about something rather insignificant and for that I apologise, but I really do want answers to some questions. I want to know if other people feel the same way as myself. I want to know if there is something I can do about it.

The problem I am having relates to being asked a question with clues to the answer that unintentionally completely mislead you. It's a problem that can occur in all aspects of life, but it seems to happen to me a lot in chess and that is what I'm going to focus on here. Specifically, when you're watching a video that suggests you pause to try to find the best move. This is usually accompanied by a statement or clue which for me regularly leads me to rule out the correct answer before I even start to analyse.

I post this now because of a video I watched today that again caused me to suffer from this problem and I'm simply sick of it. I was watching a St Louis Chess Club video on the Najdorf. No particular reason why I was watching it. I don't play the Najdorf (as Black anyway). It was just something to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLYgClRe-Q

The lecturer is talking about a GM game (posted below). In the position set up he suggests that you pause to find this amazing move, this crazy move, that turns out to be the obvious move. The only obvious move. The move that anybody and everybody would look at first. Well, the truth of that statement is one of the things I aim to find out with this post.

Watching that video I paused for about 2-3 mins at which point I completely gave up only to unpause and find that the actual move was the one I had expected to be played before he described it. The move that develops two currently hideous pieces and attacks the vulnerable White King. The move that upon hearing his description, I ruled out and looked at no further.

This kind of thing happens to me all the time. In fact, I seem to remember that a couple of years ago when I had another account here I stopped using Chess Mentor for this exact reason. The description of the move I was looking for (or title of the lesson) usually made the move harder for me to find than it would have been in say one of my own games. In the above game there was actually another such instance where the lecturer describes a move in a bizarre way (in the anotations above). On that occasion it was a Bishop sacrifice that I was expecting to be played before I even noticed that the Bishop was trapped (I hadn't seen that the c4 square was attacked). Bare in mind that I'm not a very good chess player, I'm really quite poor tactically and I don't know these types positions at all.

Does anybody else have this problem? Am I the one who is unusual here? In this particular example, do you agree with me that Nc7 was the obvious move? Agree with him that it was crazy? Inbetween? Whatever your answers are to the above, do you have any suggestions for me? Ways that I can put the description out of my mind or learn when to interpret it differently somehow? Anything? Thanks.

ChessOath wrote:

OK, so this might seem like a bit of a rant about ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLYgClRe-Q

The lecturer is talking about a GM game (posted below).

In this particular example, do you agree with me that Nc7 was the obvious move? Agree with him that it was crazy? Inbetween? Whatever your answers are to the above, do you have any suggestions for me? Ways that I can put the description out of my mind or learn when to interpret it differently somehow? Anything? Thanks.

It does sacrifice 3 pieces and leads to a strong attack on his own king before his own attack breaks through. Good for you if such 10+ move combinations are so obvious to you. Most players wouldn't have even looked past the loss of the third piece and the attack on their kings to see that the combination would pay off in the end.

You misunderstand. I didn't analyse it all. All I am saying is that when you see that position the first move you see is Nc7. It's the obvious move. Black has two terrible pieces and this move develops them both. I didn't analyse Qxc7 at all. I saw it, obviously, but at a glance it's a very unclear position. Nc7 is the obvious move to analyse. It's the move that jumps off the board at you. It's the move that I would play in a heartbeat in blitz. It's not some crazy move that's hard to see. It's the obvious move that just takes some analysing.

Thanks! It does feel better, right? That's nice to know.

ChessOath wrote:

notmtwain wrote:

It does sacrifice 3 pieces and leads to a strong attack on his own king before his own attack breaks through. Good for you if such 10+ move combinations are so obvious to you. Most players wouldn't have even looked past the loss of the third piece and the attack on their kings to see that the combination would pay off in the end.

You misunderstand. I didn't analyse it all. All I am saying is that when you see that position the first move you see is Nc7. It's the obvious move. Black has two terrible pieces and this move develops them both. I didn't analyse Qxc7 at all. I saw it, obviously, but at a glance it's a very unclear position. Nc7 is the obvious move to analyse. It's the move that jumps off the board at you. It's the move that I would play in a heartbeat in blitz. It's not some crazy move that's hard to see. It's the obvious move that just takes some analysing.

Many people would briefly consider the move but most would reject it after realizing it loses the piece. Anand had to see it all before he played Bb3.

I'm sure Anand saw it all before playing it, no argument here. The rest of your post interests me though. You think that after seeing just Qxc7 most would would stop analysing? If that's even slightly true then maybe you're onto something. Personally, at my two or three second glance I thought that Qxc7 looked like it could well be a blunder. Qxc7 would terrify me as White. Of course at this point I was diverted by the lecturer's comments.

That game, Karjakin Anand from 2006 is a very famous game. If you search Google, you will find at least ten separate videos reviewing the game.

I'll bet that if you listen to all ten videos, not one will say that 24.. Nc7 is an obvious move, the first move that leaps to mind. 

Here is one by Kingscrusher that I am listening to now:

Chess World.net: Sergey Karjakin vs Vishy Anand - Corus 2006 - Sicilian Defence: Najdorf (B90)

/ You should not feel badly that you rejected it. When it comes down to it, it seems to me that it is a little ridiculous to be annoyed that you can not analyze as well as a world champion or to blame it on the announcer misleading you.  

Interesting question.  Possibly you parse the word "obvious" and "crazy" slightly differently from how the average person does.  Sure, it jumps off the page.  Sure it wins.  So, it is therefore "obvious" and not "crazy."  But, what the typical listener really means by "obvious" is not that it demands to be considered but that anyone could see it's right.  Maybe it does demand to be considered by no way can everyone see it's right.  And, by "crazy" they don't mean that it genuinely goes against principles (can't be so if it wins) but rather that it appears at first to go against principles and then turns out not to.

The best move is the best move, no matter what you call it. 

If you have a dog and call the tail a leg, how many legs does it have? Four, calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. - Abraham Lincoln.

While the situation doesn't necessarily match up, the quote still has it's potential use. One must learn to be confident in their decisions, "crazy blah blah blah move" is in reality just a way to get views, or an exageration, or an actual crazy move and you found it, gratz!

I just truly don't understand, if I find a move and I think it's good, I'm confident and cool (not overly confident, I like to always keep in the back of my head the idea that I'm wrong, so it doesn't shock me; fun fact for brain strength, samurai use to imagine themselves being killed in the worst ways to build strength so death isn't as scary.) and I just don't let the title sway me. 

Maybe I'm taking you too seriously, this is just a fun rant. But man dude, have some self confidence; you think something, don't put yourself down.

That's a good point. Maybe if I didn't take people quite so literally then it wouldn't matter if my interpetation of their words didn't line up with theirs. Maybe then I wouldn't have ruled out a the sacrifice I was looking at because I didn't consider it to be a crazy move. Hell, how could it be crazy, I was looking at it...

I know that's not exactly what you said. It's my take on a potential solution based off of your comment. It's hard to know if my interpretation of a word of phrase is the same as somebody else's at any given moment, but it is possible for me to not take people quite so literally. Would perhaps give me a better chance of not doing things like this. What do you think?

You're not taking me too seriously, thanks for the reply! You not truely being able to understand speaks volumes to me. I'm glad you put that in.

It's easy to misinterpret people yet I seem to have put so much more stock into having interpreted the lecturer correctly than the chances of me having seen a strong chess move. So much so that I instantly ruled out the move I had been looking at? I even completely gave up looking for the best move without coming back to Nc7. When I phrase it like it's very easy to see where you're coming from. If I had a lot of confidence in my ability to find strong moves quickly then there is no way that this could happen so I think you have a very strong point! I'll certainly bare this in mind from now on.

P.S. Love the Lincoln quote. Not heard that before.

I think you are probably right.  I have this same issue myself sometimes, especially when I was younger.  It's like the difference between logic and emotion.  People don't always use words precisely.  Sometimes they use them based on feel.  You just have to realize this and adjust, like it's a slightly different dialect of the language you are used to.