What you shouldn't do against a 2660
Something that doesn't quite happen every day: being paired against someone with 2660 behind his name. Yesterday, in the third round of the Hogeschool Zeeland Tournament in Vlissingen, The Netherlands, I had to play against the famous Polish GM Michael Krasenkow, the world's no. 48 and winner of the C group of this year's Corus Chess Tournament. Such a special game deserves to be annotated and published on ChessVibes, doesn't it?Unfortunately I couldn't prevent doing what most people do when they play someone higher-rated more than 400 points: from move 1 onwards I was overly impressed and as soon as he played a move I didn't expect, I got the feeling I was being outplayed. A wise man once said "you shouldn't play the opponent. Play the board." OK, that's something for next time.Replay the game in a new windowBy the way, don't get me wrong, I'm not playing the "Noble Apprentice" here, a notion by Jonathan Rowson in Chess for Zebras which means you act like you're so happy after you lost a game "because you learnt so much". OK, there's nothing wrong with learning, but the big lesson should be that you don't get distracted by your opponent's status and even more that during the game you should simply give everything you have in you to find the strongest moves!
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.
Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.
Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.
As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097
