Playing much stronger player

Hi all,

When you play a substantially stronger player, let say +200 ELO than yourself, what do you do? What do you expect?

Do you have a special opening, strategy?

Some gambit trap?

Just play as usual?

(on mental side) I personnally often loose drive and focus, is it the same for you?

I appreciate your feedback.

I try to find a database of their games. This can be useful. Then I try to play normally.

Streetfighter, I had an interesting example of this a few weeks ago. I was set to play as black in a tournament against someone who was 200 pts higher whose peak rating had been 200 pts higher than that! I often play the French defence. When I looked at his games he played the reti gambit every time against it [2.b3]  So I did some reserach on it. I lost the game but I missed an oppoirtunity to trap his queen which would have won!!

Thanks Streetfighter

Linuxblue, a gambit trap sounds very nice:)

It's true that when ever you have an edge against a stronger player, you get very highly motivate.

Assuming there's no time to prepare against the player, just play as you normally do. Only better, of course.

I try to play more agressively against stronger players, If you try to play too cautiously they will just grind you down while if you complicate things they might just slip up. I also try to stay within the opening book as long as possible against stronger players. That way you are playing grandmaster moves in the opening and reduce the number of moves in the game during which you can make a blunder.

I play solid lines. And more careful in the game. 

Play EXACTLY as I normally would.  Trying to find the best moves until I realize I am in trouble and then try to complicate things as much as possible

One thing I've always been told is to muddy up the waters. Strive to make things imbalanced and complicated (either via choice of opening lines or by choosing fuzzy + unclear paths when you are presented with a choice).  

Note that the converse is a bad idea, i.e.  to strive for simple positions, trying to trade pieces to get to a quick endgame etc. as you're going to get murdered because the stronger player is way more comfortable and skilled at simple paint-by-numbers positions than you currently are.

I'm not sure I agree with that, just play the board.

What if your opponent is tactically brilliant but not as good as you in simple pawn endgames? Maybe that doesn't happen so much at your level but still people have different strengths. I just won a game against a higher rated played trading pieces down with a pawn advantage. http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=56667614

I think if you start adjusting how you play based on the rating of the person in front of you it's when you make mistakes.