The psychological side of conditional moves.

Hey yeah, thanks for bringing OTB into this. I hadn't considered that there was a corollary between the two, but yes, if your opponant plays swiftly and instantly can respond to your move then it has the same effect. 

It seems intersting in your comment Chonley, that they didn't see it coming though, even with the conditional move :)

I'm glad that blowerd is aware of how they can be used to validate your moves ("If they are used against me I take it to mean that my opponent has thought I would do the best moves possible.  And I have." )

But doesn't it also mean that, as they have seen your move coming, you could be falling for a trap? Or that you are simply responding? I guess it of course differs depending on the game...

Well, perhaps it wasn't the easiest to spot, but here's how it went:

Now that I look at it, my g3 pawn needn't even be part of the equation, as my king also maintains the f4 square.

It obviously depends on the game.  But I only use them when 1) my opponent is playing and is only a few moves to checkmate, and there is only 1 possible legal move for the king or 2) if a move from my opponent is completely obvious due to trading of pieces or something like that, and I already know what my next move is in exchange. 

In OTB chess I sometimes make moves straight away in the same way, if its obvious what my opponents move will be, and what I want my next move to be after that. 

As for them being used against me, well sometimes they have, because for example during trades its obvious what move I will make.  Or if I'm a few moves from checkmate. 

Never have I used them to set a trap, or never have they been used against me because I have fallen for a trap. 

Firebrand, you wouldn't have had to think about that game anyway, if they were all memorized moves of yours.

My view is the same as Estragon's: You take a risk, with no real benefits. The only time I would use conditional moves (although I never actually bother with them), is for very well known moves in the opening -- for example, on move 1, doing a CM for 1...e5 after 1 e4, 2...Nc6 for 2 Nf3, 3...a6 for 3 Bb5, but I would never go far with that kind of thing. I don't really get affected by conditional moves psychologically -- when faced with one, I think either "It's because my move was forced and obvious," or "He's an idiot for taking the risk of using them here."

You may well never be punished for using them, but I know I would have a peace of mind never having to hope that I'm not punished for them.

And no, Firebrand, I am not telling you what to do . I am saying that in my opinion it is unwise (although only slightly); but you can feel free to disagree/do them anyway!

I have messed up games by missing a zwischenzug. So instead of waiting several days and then trying to remember what I was thinking, I just put in a conditional move.

Haha. But a safer way is to record it in your notes. By the way, I think the notes are a really instructive tool; if you write down all of the (critical) variations you were looking at, and how you evaluated them, it can be very enlightening to compare that to what the computer thinks after the game is over. If it turns out a position that seemed dangerous really wasn't, you can learn to be a bit more optimistic in those positions for example.

All due respect, but the way they are used here, there is zero risk to using them because the only time they are executed is when your opponent makes the move you have entered for them.

So there isn't any way they can be a liability because if your opponent makes a different move than the line you programmed, the conditional responses stop altogether. That's the "conditional" aspect of them.

I could see there being a risk if they were like premoves, where your next move is made automatically after your opponent's move is made, regardless of the move your opponent makes.

But that isn't how the conditional moves work at all.

In the correspondence chess, (Online Chess here), they only play the line you enter on the condition your opponent makes the move you enter.

So do you see how that negates any danger?

I am aware of those things, but there are certain risks that they wouldn't negate. For example:

1. In the middle of a variation, one of your moves turns out to be a blunder, but you are too late to fix it because your opponent already responded to it. It's plausible that if you had the position directly in front of you, you would be able to see the blunder and avoid it.

2. You do realize all of this before your opponent has made his move, but you forget about a line that you had set for CMs. As a result, you still play into the blunder.

Again, it's not to say that you are likely to be punished for using conditional moves, but I repeat: "I know I would have a peace of mind never having to hope that I'm not punished for them."

@Firebrand: What is a necros?

Ah, I see what you mean. Hey peace of mind is worth more than any time saved any way.

I think he means necros as in the resurrection of threads from the dead. 

I actually found this through the open seeks. One of the seeks was from a guy who wanted to learn by playing a 2000+ player. So I clicked on his profile, and was intrigued by this topic he posted.

I just think conditionals are a natural part of chess. We use them even when playing OTB: If he goes there, I go there.....

 @rooperi: Yeah, but when you're doing that, you're not actually committing to the moves you're thinking about. In OTB, if you're thinking in your head "if he does this, I will do that, then against this, I'll go here... oh crap, I obviously can't do that" you don't actually have to execute that blunderous sequence over the board

Unless, of course, you just type in the line for your in between move. 

In correspondence chess, I used to be known as someone who used  "if" moves often.  There is an art to using such moves and also you have to be aware of the dangers. There are positives and negatives for the person using such moves. 

Assuming in correspondence chess you are able to chose your moves quckly then it makes sense to use "if" moves in sequences which are more or less forced. 

I'll take a quick stab at defending the use of conditional moves for a psychological advantage. (Of course, someone much older and wiser than me already once made the point, "I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves." -Bobby Fischer)

You can't miss any possibility because the moves only apply to situations where you control the outcome with zero risk.

For example, if you're white and you enter "If black plays Qf7 then white plays Qxf7#"  -- then if black plays some other move, the condition wasn't met so you are completely free (without any risk whatsoever) to play some other (any other) variation however you like.

And if you think you should play an in between move first, then you simply enter "if black plays 20...Qf7 then white plays 21. Bxg8 Qf7 

22. Qxf7#"

But say black didn't play any of those moves, well then the conditions don't apply and you get to take all of your moves back and play whatever you want.

So because you always have the exact same opportunity to respond however you like to any of your opponent's replies, you have no more risk than if you sat there at your computer waiting for your opponent to play the line. 

Anything you can do without the conditional moves you can do with them.

And there's no chance you can miss anything because if your opponent doesn't play what you calculated, then your move doesn't get played either.

As far as claiming your psychological advantage from conditional moves, you can do that easily.

It's like "getting inside someone's head" because you have proven by virtue of your conditional move made, that you already calculated where your opponent would move in advance. Therefore, you are proving to your opponent that whatever move he made, his move certainly did not take you by surprise, but to the contrary, you already calculated it and had well prepared the well calculated response to it.

Therefore, since psychological has to do with the study of the human psyche and how it works, the advantage is you have removed from your opponent the element of surprise as an attack weapon and have armed yourself with the demonstratable proof you have calculated his moves and answered them in advance.

Following this line of thought to its logical conclusion, if you already knew exactly what your opponent would do before the match, there would be no reason to play because no matter what he did, you already knew it and prepared a better move as your response. 

So the only reason to play it out would be to demonstrate this.

Well, when you played your conditional moves, that's exactly what you did. 

In Online Chess, your opponent does indeed see your conditional move because a big box appears on their monitor that says, "Your move has triggered a conditional move from your opponent." 

And then it makes the move. 

So it can be quite intimidating to the one 'being conditioned' lol.

Of course, bringing it back full circle to Fischer's quote, 

if all your conditional moves were inferior lines, then the only advantage you'll enjoy is getting beat faster.

When my opponent uses a conditional move I usually look a bit longer at the position than I normally would. 

It's fun to explaining to my opponent, I'm using ESP. I say it jokingly but it is interesting to mess with the definition of ESP.

Since I'm usually playing with a buddy and we don't use opening databases, it's nice to skip a some opening moves and get to the point of exploring a different variation. This is especially true with a longer time interval. Although, many times I've realized I made a mistake and had to dash back to change a move before my opponent moved.

If you have a kind of smart combination especially a mate, a multi-step conditional demonstrates it was no fluke. You can show off how far in advance you planned.

It does seem my opponent will sometimes avoid the natural move if possible, to through off my plan/conditional.

I think branching the conditionals would turning it into a different type of game. I don't think I'd like it as much.

I think a person would be foolish to think that a conditional move isn't a bluff of confidence. The most likely thing is that, desperate to get in a psychological effect, the player across from you thinks long and hard about where you are going to move. But this puts him at a disadvantage: he has to account for not only what's going to happen immediately on his move, but for many moves forwards.

As I have said earlier, if my move that had a conditional move response wasn't due to some obvious recapture, I don't think that my opponent is clever; on the contrary, I think that he's quite unwise. I simply don't find an unwise person threatening.

If I thought I had played 5 brilliant, unforced, moves in a row, and they were all predicted by my opponent, then sure, it might start getting a little creepy; but think about how much work your opponent would have to put in order to predict those 5 brilliant, unforced moves. I think that guy should be the one who is more scared than the person receiving the conditional moves, because if just one of those 5 conditional responses turns out to be bad or imperfect, he might suffer some heavy consequences, consequences that could have been easily avoided.

And of course, even if a person is psychologically sensitive, as mentioned by the OP, there are also positive signs anyway, such as the confirmation effect.

"If you have a kind of smart combination especially a mate, a multi-step conditional demonstrates it was no fluke. You can show off how far in advance you planned."

It's true that it's a good way to show off, but I'm not interested in the sort. Personally, my opponent's perception of how far I saw is not even the slightest of value to me, so in my view, it's still a risk for no real gain.

I think people read too much into it.

If I see "your move has triggered.....etc" my response is "so what?"

I dont even need to know that.