My System by ChesspatzerUK

My System by ChesspatzerUK

1.   Patzer preparation: Tournament pairing between rounds can be lightning fast and so the chance to prep can vary wildly. You'll get between 30 minutes to an hour during day rounds but if the next round is on the following day you can get really into it. Sadly for league matches it's highly unlikely you'll know who your opponent will be on a given night. You can look up roughly who plays for each team on which board as per previous rounds played but as any Captain will tell you there is no guaranteed line up per match. In both cases of league matches and day rounds during tournaments all you can do is be confident in yourself (You chose your openings for a reason) and turn up with a fighting spirit! Finding out last minute your opponent plays a line you don't really like playing against will just cast doubt on yourself, just play it and learn! No point half heartedly trying to master an opening you just made up over the board and try to win in 1 hour and 20 minutes of pure creativity. Just face your chess demons and make them your lap dog. The only way you'll ever improve dramatically is to play on in these uncomfortable games and then go away after and look at why you struggle against these ideas so much. For years I feared my opponent playing either the Caro or the French against my favoured e4. All it took was to actually look at some lines and gain confidence through nicking, sorry learning titled players ideas. This doesn't even have to be through reading through dry books of theory (yawn) there's plenty of good stuff online that's free. Just go to YouTube you'll be amazed what you'll find. This approach can also be used if you know who your opponent is the next day. Now is your chance to go over your lines before battle commences, it'll give you a massive boost of confidence when you're opponent plays what you expect with an arsenal of new ideas fresh in your mind from players way better than yourself.
2.   Defending losing positions: Ok this is a hard one but often the most rewarding! I like you when in a bad position tend to get very negative quickly. I see all the moves my opponent can make to make my position shatter, worse I even start playing moves that make it even easier for them to win. I've read like you have that people make miracle saves in desperate positions and I am shocked and in awe of these players. How comes they can save these horrible positions that I find myself in constantly and I never do? Well there's solution to the biggest problem, STOP BEING NEGATIVE! You are not playing against a computer, your opponent is fully entitled to blunder as much as you so give them a chance to. Let's see if they can play like Alpha Zero or for a human comparison Magnus Carlsen. Now being positive is step 1, step 2 is a little more fun! Ok so you're a pawn or maybe even a piece down. This is not the time to start fighting a heroic rear guard action where eventually we are worn down and extinguished. Now is the time to make the complication that we are going to confuse and worry our opponent with. Switch your mind from trying to survive to setting problems (Not a bad mindset for chess in general) I've said this in other sections, you are here to play chess so let's play! Ok maybe we need to give another pawn, who cares we're losing anyway right? Oh look they'll probably see this but there's a chance they won't (That's what we want chances!) If they miss that I've set a trap its game on! Setting your opponent more problems is now your goal and reason for playing on. If you set more than 1 problem then you're really enjoying yourself. Not saying you'll save every lost game, let's face it chess usually rewards the person playing better but sometimes it rewards perseverance too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-J2EEwPTJs
3.   Winning won positions: Ever heard the phrase, 'Winning a won game is the most difficult thing to do'? We'll that's rubbish the most difficult thing to do is Algebra, have you had a look at those math problems? Anyway the phrase is kind of true and I believe in my case at least it's because of storytelling. Don't get me wrong storytelling is one of the most useful aspects a chess player can add to their arsenal. It gets you dreaming about where your pieces should be and will start you along the road to finding combinations and mating attacks. The down side of storytelling is that you start believing that the game is won no matter what. This is true if you find a forced mate but apart from that maybe you just won a pawn with a nice combo or you can see your pieces are buzzing happily around your opponent’s King and the execution is near. However the game is not done yet (see Defending losing positions) At this point you need to try as hard as possible to resist the fantasy you create about telling your mates down the pub how you found a brilliancy and won. You've not yet got up and told your Captain that your game is done and bask in the glow of a job well done. You have not won the tournament and the BACS transfer isn't pending to get your hard earned loot into your account. There's still work to do! Do not ask yourself, ‘Why is my opponent not just resigning?’. They are sitting there working out how best to they can try to steal your moment of glory. This is the point where every move doesn't win and you need to sit down and work hard until that point is in the bag.
4.   Intuitive sacrifices: Firstly you'll need to keep up your tactic training, many online tactic trainers are available for this just go to chess.com. We've all been there. Something doesn't look quite right about your opponent’s position. You start to get a feeling that a sacrifice may be on! You have 2 options here. Option 1. Firstly embrace the surge of emotion that comes with this. Ride that dragon and use the energy to start calculating lines. I've found that once I see something that could be spectacular I start telling myself a little story that goes like this: Blimey I think this will actually work, yes the more I think about it the better it looks. I imagine telling all my friends about this in the pub later and maybe some lucky viewers on my social media. I think I may actually be pretty good at chess and I should probably look at taking this game up seriously. My hand hovers over the piece that I want to throw into my opponent’s position. I want to see their expression as it dawns on them that they may be victim to some brilliancy. I have checked 1 or 2 lines and in them my move wins, my heart rate is up high (Not just because all the coffee I've drunk) but because I am just about to take a risk, all chess players want to win and the risk adverse will be cringing here. I play the move! Only then do I really start calculating properly. There's no taking it back that the harshness of chess. I've jumped off the cliff and am now hoping that there is no defense and that I will have a smooth landing in the sea rather than hitting the rocks. My opponent takes his time measuring up the responses. Will he see something I didn't? Heart rate still peaking, make a move damn you or better yet resign and make it easy on us both...Ok that's all very dramatic and to be fair this approach will lead to possible mental breakdown or heart attacks whichever comes first. In this example from a FIDE Open tournament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk9W3hEeb9A it was the wrong choice! Option 2: Don’t follow the temptation of option 1! I know it’s tough but sometimes you have to just take a breath and realise that you have turned up to play chess and you need to work hard and really try to find as many options for your opponent as you can, if chess was easy we wouldn’t play.
5.   What to do if you reach an ending: I'm in an ending, first feeling is shock, then mild panic followed by a sense of calmness and sometimes even boredom...My games are usually over by now, either by draw agreed with multiple pieces on the board or a fatal blunder has occurred during the Opening or Middlegame. I've seen countless games played around me usually in league matches or towards the end of tournaments, where there's not much to play for. Where games end way before the Endgame rears its head. The fear of the unknown grips us as we swap down to maybe just a Rook vs Rook and a few pawns or worst yet a King and pawn ending where one slip loses the game! Gone are the swashbuckling Middlegame tactics and exciting gambits in the Opening and what we are left with is a drab mop up operation or shuffling heavy pieces about. Well let's start with the mindset, first this is not the end of the fun! Endgames offer even more chances to find some brilliant combinations and mating attacks. Because of the lack of pieces around we can finally see much further into the position and actually start counting out moves say for a pawn race (saving trying to keep the position in your head as per a Middlegame) You've heard it all before so why would I be any different. The key to finding these combinations, mating attacks and to generally put your opponent under pressure is ACTIVITY. Get those rooks to the 7th rank, march that King up the board boldly, get those pieces buzzing around the opponent’s King. Just whatever you do do not sit their passively and let your opponent have all the fun! Ok there are some position you need to know but others have written about them, The Philidor rook ending, Building a bridge, Opposition and these things you will only really learn when you face them over the board. It’s all well and good reading Endgame manuals and of course if you can retain that knowledge then that's great. However nothing will get a position hammered into your mind like a loss, win or drawing by actually playing out the positions over the board. Again we need to embrace this unusual part of chess called Endings and learn to fight through all aspects of the game, I'll say it time and again you turned up to play so play it through to the bitter/sweet end!

1* (((5/2)-2)-(1-3)) / ((5/2)-2)