Psychological Ploys

I know a guy that sometimes has his wife sit at the table where he and his opponent are playing. She is no detached bystander either. She studies the board and sometimes stares menacingly at the opponent. One guy confessed to me that he likes to wear tough looking muscle shirts to physically intimidate his chess opponents.  I saw another fellow who liked to pace back and forth like an angry bull in between moves trying to either psyche himself up or psyche out his opponent, or both. Have you observed or used any ploys in order to get an edge?

I don't know.  That's hilarious.  They'd all work on me. 

I would end up silently laughing and thinking about how strange and bizarre they are instead of where my knight would sit most comfortably. 

bidari, when i first started reading your post i didn't notice it was yours.  i was thinking to myslef i know someone like that too.  i guess we're thinking of the same person.

last week OTB, i stared at my opponent during several really critical moves in our game.  not sure if it helped but i did get the win.

ilikeflags, that's funny. Yeah we're thinking of the same dude. The stare tactic is interesting. Tal was famous for his stare over the board and people said it was intimidating.

mind games happen, even at high levels of play.  I don't play over the board much, but I would actually be happy if something like that happened to me.  It means the opponent is spending time of fooling around, not focusing on the board.

AfafBouardi, it is pretty funny. If I sense they are using such ploys intentionally, it always fires me up. Another common one is the slamming or semi-slamming of pieces.

or it means your opponent is really focused.  i get the idea that tactics might be a distraction for the person employing them, but i think something like staring or pacing can be helpful to many people when they need to focus.

or screwing the pieces into the board...

I have seen a lot of mind games in my over the board experiences.  I had someone try to play with poker sunglasses, another guy dressed as the mafia.  Many stares, although I am usually to focused for the staring to have any effect.  What else?  I had a guy sing while I was playing.  I have played many clock bangers, most are little kids.  I also played a guy who wears many weird hats.  My most recent experience was when a guy I played came in with a trench coat and a mad bomber hat.  That was interesting.

I can't say that I do not employ mind games.  Around some tournaments I am known as the Boat Cushion Man.

Is it my schizophrenia acting up or does ilikeflags have my picture as his avatar?

an oldtimer at my local club grunts and shifts his false teeth in his mouth--especially during the latter stages of a longer game.  if i know i'm playing him before hand i have to bring my iPod and head phones so i can't hear it.  it's really distracting.  not sure if he's trying to be annoying or just too old to notice.

If youre going to let staring....muscles shirts...and pacing distract you.  The you arent concentrating enough.

very observant.  that's pretty much the point isn't it?

I don't agree with trying to intimidate your opponent OTB by staring (or whatever).  Just play the game.

One of the hardest ploys is keeping yourself from giving something away.  Too many times after I make a move I find an interesting reply that would really give me problems or discover that my move is in actuallity a blunder.  It is difficult to sit there and not respond in such a way that lets my opponet know that there is a very good reply that he can make.

"Play the Board...not the clown."

- Fischer

I had an older guy I used to play with regularly who would pretend that he was was going to make a wrong move; he would bring his hand almost to touch the piece (we did observe touch-move) with a swing and then take it back. He would do this several times and in the end he would play another move. I asked him a few times to stop doing this but he wouldn't. I put up with it for a while, but once when I came back from the toilet and found that I had two dark-squared bishops and no light-squared one I stopped playing him.

seems like good advice. 

Ooh, that's my favourite.

I say j'adoube and unscrew them. And if it's a Knight, I make sure it faces backawards when I'm done. You won't believe how much that annoys some people.

that's awesome.