Wins From Inferior Position

Hi,

A friend and I were recently having a discussion and he argued that in chess "once you have an advantage, it takes an error on your part to give it away- not excellent play from your opponent who's behind to pull him/herself back into it"

I, of course, disagreed - arguing instead that high level chess is not a game decided by blunders, but rather by superior tactics and foresight. Could anybody point me in the direction of some high-profile games or simply any games played at the higest level (GMs, etc) in which play was arguably perfect on both sides and yet the player who had an advantage at one point lost without making a mistake?

Basically, I'm looking for games won by a player who was behind (in position, material, or both) in spite of the "perfect" or mistake/blunderless play of his opponent.

Thanks a lot.

Good positions win games

I recall a game where I was down a bishop for pawn and managed to claw my way back to a win. Of course I would like to think my come-back was due solely to my own talent, but it was no mistake of my opponent that gave me an opportunity to spring back.

Your friend's opinion seems to be that your opponent, once down, is helpless until you make a mistake, which seems to me to be post-rationalization for a loss he suffered.

Who was the dude that said, "The winner of a game of chess is he who makes the second to last mistake?"

I think he was pretty good.

@JimSardonic: Disagree with your notion of inferior.

In the diagram below White is not in an equal position. He is clearly inferior, being a whole piece down. Yet this position is a theoretical draw. White must play very accurately, though - the slightest misstep can lead to defeat. Black has it easy - all he needs to do is not lose material.

"Once you have an advantage, it takes an error on your part to give it away- not excellent play from your opponent who's behind to pull him/herself back into it."

Disagree with this also. You have to realize that "advantage" is merely a state of play at a particular period in time. For example one may have a lead in development.  Yet, given enough time, your opponent will equalize and your advantage will disappear.

The art of maintaining the advantage often requires precise, powerful play, rather than simply avoidance of error. This is why the average noobster wins a piece and goes to sleep, thinking that the game will win itself, and lose eventually. But the average master becomes more alert when he has the advantage; they even become willing to sacrifice material.

So the bottom line is: All advantages are temporary. If you don't use it, you'll lose it. But there are special types of advantages which tend to last longer (static advantages). And even these can be lost. For example, you may have extra pawns, but suddenly your opponent enters berserk mode and gives infinite checks with her queen.

• Extra Material
• Space Advantage
• Positional Bind
• Weak enemy pawn

Yeah, Once you have the edge, you have to go for the kill. Or else , it would slip ritht through your fingers!

Very much disagree with the last part. ^ Advantages are permanent with precise play. If I have more paterial and correctly trade off all the extra pieces without making blunders, my material advantage will last the whole game.

When you win material, say, you should not think "I need to play strongly to use my advantage" and attack. Instead, you first need to consolidate the position and make sure everything is safe. It does no good to have extra material if you are checkmated or forced into a draw.

That is avoidance of error. You don't need to calculate and analyze till your head hurts, you just need to make sure your position is solid and be on the alert for tactical cheap shots by your opponent. By knowing that you are avoiding positional error, you can then plan your attacks from an advantageous position and thus have a greater chance of success.

Absolutely not! That is the opposite of what you should do. That's how you set yourself up for cheap shots and get a draw from a won position.

@insanechess: Perhaps your material advantage will last, but this won't matter if you enter a Fortress Ending like the Philidor position. Or worse, a Q+P ending where your opponent magically wins out of an advanced pawn. Advantages are not permanent, not even with precise play. Although some advantages last longer than others.

When you win material, say, you should not think "I need to play strongly to use my advantage" and attack. Instead, you first need to consolidate.

Material is only one type of advantage. Each type of advantages require a different way of handling, and yes, consolidating is a common way to exploit a material advantage. Still, the way you consolidate is quite critical. I have often won games where I was a pawn down, but because my opponent spent so much time "consolidating", I simply pushed him off the board. While consolidating, your opponent can often take the initiative.

Yeah, Once you have the edge, you have to go for the kill. Or else , it would slip ritht through your fingers!

I will only agree with a modified version of your statement: Once you have the edge, you have to either grow it or turn it into a more permanent type of edge. The second is my favorite approach. But of course if you can see a direct kill, and are confident of your calculations, by all means go for it.

Uhm, in the R+B vs. R example, presumably the dominant side has given his advantage away by letting his last pawn to be grabbed/exchanged

@insanechess: By the way you are approaching chess as if it can be "solved". Which, it cannot.

There is no human who can play "precisely", and in any case, playing "precisely" is a much higher standard than "not making errors". If you define keeping the advantage as "playing precisely" then you're actually agreeing with my position without realizing it.

Although I go one step further and claim that at times advantages may not actually be permanent, not even after precise play!

@heinze: Perhaps. Or maybe it was a pure R+B vs R+B ending, and suddenly one side stupidly blundered their bishop.

And yes, there IS one way to make an advantage last forever. It's called winning.

If you gain an advantage and immediately try to press it with forceful play, you will lose many games.

If your opponent squanders tempi or makes useless threats after winning ad advantage, then you can exploit this. That does not mean that he could have beaten you if he had played better.

Also, some advantages aren't even useful in certain positions. A space advantage, for instance, is a handicap if you have less material. A material advantage is useless if your pieces are not coordinating and focusing on targets. You must recognize what kind of advantages are exploitable as well.

For the record, I don't believe chess can be "solved." I don't believe there is a such thing as perfect play. However, there IS a such thing as a bad plan, and immediately trying to exploit an advantage without consolidation is a bad plan.

Like I said, it depends on your type of advantage. Some advantages are at best fleeting and you really need to press it forcefully to get anything. For example: bringing the first rook to an open file. These fleeting things are by the way much more important than so-called "concrete advantages", because they occur much more regularly and require real effort on the attacker's part.

I assume you're referring to entirely different situations, like the immediate aftermath of a successful pawn grab. In those cases, yes, batten the hatches and consolidate! Don't grab any more!

But what if you're in the attack, with the initiative in full swing? Many players will choose (correctly) to continue the attack, and ignore material offered by the opponent. Mikhail Tal was one such player.

One more situation: You're the exchange up, rook vs a knight. "Consolidating" would mean making sure all your pawns are defended - but then, you know that knights are such tricky things that you might still drop one anyway. Hence, I have been known to just throw a whole series of pawns, just to create one passed pawn. Because you see, the one thing knights suck at is stopping a pawn.

On the contrary, Knights are the best pawn-blockers in the game. A Knight on a square just in front of a pawn stops it in its tracks and simultaneously attacks many different squares.

As far as the attack goes, that's something completely different. If I see a mating combination I won't grab material or pull back to consolidate. However, not every attack is a "checkmate-or-die" situation. If I grab an extra piece and a few pawns, it might be better to trade the rest of the pieces off and go into a winning endgame. 

Dynamic  advantages, certainly, are far from stable. A lead in development won't last forever, for instance.

White has the advantage at the beginning of the game.  Hans Berliner believes that White can maintain that edge indefinitely, but most grandmasters believe that with accurate play from both sides, Black will eventually equalize.

A knight may be good at blockading pawns in the middlegame. Stopping passed pawns while an exchange down, though, is a completely different matter. Unless the King is close enough the rook will always drive the knight away. And it takes the knight many moves to successfully blockade the pawn again.

Meanwhile, a rook is powerful enough to zap a whole line of pawns, or at least prevent them from promoting. When finally the knight is driven to the edge (to stop your passed pawn), the rook can even trap or pin it.

Well, in your scenario I'd probably do the same thing. If I could get a passed pawn with my Rook behind it, there's not a whole lot of things my opponent can do.

In fact, I'd like to reiterate my statement. Let's compare the pawn-blocking powers of the pieces (endgame only):

• Bishop: Can simultaneously block a flank passed pawn and assist in attacks/pawn advances on the other side of the board. Can also guard a square from any point in a diagonal, which means that it can never be zugswanged
• Knight: Is ideal when blocking a central passed pawn. But blockading a rook pawn, for example, makes it look silly.
• Rook: Can block (but not blockade) a whole row of pawns, as long as none of them are connected. They sacrifice some attacking power when doing so, however.
• King: With many pieces the King is not ideal - he can be checked. However, the King is one of the only pieces that can both stop a pawn and also attack it.

Which is basically why I view the knight as a poor blocker of passed pawns. Flank passed pawns appear much more often than central passed pawns (although central passed pawns are more decisive), and a bishop is usually preferred as it can influence both sides of the board. But in the very simplified endgame, the King is one of the best blockaders as he can decimate an entire chain of pawns, with only minimal support from other pieces (to restrain them from moving).

Knight blockades, in my view, are much more useful - in the middlegame.