Why Calculation is Bad for You

We often use pairs of opposites when we talk about personality traits - kind or mean, generous or greedy. In What's Your Style in Chess?, we looked at some opposite pairs used to describe different styles in chess. This time, we'll dive into Calculation.

Calculating players tend to distrust or not paying attention to their intuition. They feel the need to calculate each and every line as deep as they possibly can, and as a consequence regularly end up in time trouble or fatigue. The main cause for time trouble is that they spend too much time on irrelevant lines. Lets do the maths: A standard position offers three plausible candidate moves on average. If each of those has three replies, we have nine different lines to calculate. After your next move, you have 27 positions to evaluate, but only one of them can actually happen in the game. So, if you spend one minute on each position, you have wasted 26 minutes on lines that didn't happen. How many times can you afford that in a single game?

All that calculation can also cause whatever intuition you have to wither and die, and that leaves you with calculation as the only tool in the box.

Intuitive players, on the other hand, tend to pick the candidate move that feels best, and just play it without further ado. Very soon they're half an hour ahead of their calculating opponent. However, this doesn't mean that intuitive players have an advantage. Intuition may provide quick answers to complicated questions, but they're not always right. Calculating players make fewer and less serious mistakes, so if they only succeed in managing their time, they can level the field.

In order to improve, both types of players must venture out of their comfort zone. Intuitive players must work on their calculation skills, and calculating players must learn how to trust and listen to their intuition.

Takeaway

We are what we are, but it's not a good idea to only play on your strengths. Every game requires both intuition and calculation, and to be a better player, you need to work on your weaknesses too. Intuitive players can work on their calculation abilities during their games, but it's harder the other way around. A good training practice for calculating players is to solve puzzles without calculating. Just stare at the position until a move presents itself. If it's the right move, move on to the next puzzle, and if it's not, take some time to figure out what went wrong.

 

Two Overly Aggressive Players

  In real life, I'm a rather peaceful and gentle person, but I bring none of that to the chess board. When the clocks are started, I'm immediately transformed into a vicious predator. It's strange, but I've come to terms with my chess personality, and I don't try to avoid aggressive play.

That means that my games often see me attacking and my opponent defending. The most common scenarios are either me making a blunder due to over-confidence, or my opponent cracking under the pressure.

Sometimes, however, I face an opponent even more aggressive than myself, and that can lead to really weird games where most of the moves should objectively be classed as mistakes. Here's a recent example, enjoy! (I should add here that my opponent is a very gentle person away from the board.)

Me - N.N. (Open Tournament, 2024)

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Bc5 The first sign of aggressiveness. Instead of the standard move 3 ... Nf6, Black immediately takes aim at f2.

The cautious player now continues with 4. e3, making the Bishop look rather misplaced.

 4. Na4 Chasing away the Bishop, but at a cost. The Knight has no future on a4, and must eventually return to c3.

 4. Be7 5. g3 An attempt to steer into my normal Reversed Dragon, but that requires d3 to be played first. Now Black take the initiative with 5 ... e4 forcing the Knight back to g1, but instead:

5 ... d6 6. Bg2 h5 Black is eager to get a Kingside attack, and once again misses e4.

7. h4 Be6 8. d3 Qd7 This looks dangerous, but it's not, unless White panics. White should now play Nc3, preparing a Queenside advance to discourage Black from castling long. 

9. Ng5 Bxg5 10. Bxg5 (hxg5 was better) 10... f6 11. Bd2 O-O-O

 

Black wants to use all his pieces for his attack, but underestimates White's threats on the Queenside. 11 ... Nge7 preparing O-O would keep the game equal, but now White is clearly better.

12. b4 Nge7 Too slow. Nd4 followed by Bg4 was the only way to keep the attack going. 

13. b5 Nd4 14. e3 Ndf5

Now White's attack breaks through before Black can organise their Kingside attack. Unless...

15. Qf3? White couldn't resist setting up a battery on the long diagonal. Rb1 followed by c5 would secure the win. Now Black could save the day by 15 ... c5, a nice multi-purpose move that stops White's c5 advance, and also defends b7. Instead, Black tries to dismantle the battery:

15... d5?? 16. Nc5 Qd6 17. Nxe6 Qxe6 18. cxd5

18... Nxd5?? Black is in in deep trouble, but Rxd5 would at least avoid losing a piece.

19. Bh3 Qd6 20. Bxf5+ Kb8 21. O-O? Wasting time. Qe4 would kept up the pace.

21... g5 This move is a ghost, because both players now foresee a terrible onslaught on the Black King, while in reality there isn't one. Unless White helps, which is what happened in the game. But first, some floundering where neither player finds the right moves.

22. Be4 Qe6 23. Bf5 Qd6 24. Rfc1 gxh4 25. gxh4 Rhg8+ 26. Kh1 Ne7 27. Bh3 Qxd3 28. Bb4 Nd5 

 

White is still winning, but now it starts to slip.

29. Bf1? Qg6 30. Bg2?? Giving away the win. Bc4 was the only move.

30... Qf7?? Giving back the win. 30 ... e4 could save the game for Black. Surprisingly often a blunder is answered with another blunder, as this game demonstrates.

31. Rab1?? Another blunder, Rd1 was the right move. However, White still retains some advantage.

31... Rg4 32. a3? Now Black can take over the game with f5, but chooses a more "active" move:

32... e4?? 33. Qh3? (Qf5 wins) Rdg8 34. Rg1 Nxb4 35. Rxb4 f5 

White is a piece up, but how should White continue? The only move that promises winning chances is Qh2, but that wasn't on my radar at the time. Instead, I went completely lost.

 36. Rbb1?? Qf6?? 37. Bxe4?? Another triple blunder sequence! But now Black shook it off, and finished the game in orderly fashion.

37... fxe4 38. Rxg4 Rxg4 39. Rg1 Qxh4 40. Qxh4 Rxh4+ 41. Kg2 Rg4+ 42. Kh2 Rxg1 43. Kxg1 c5 44. bxc6 bxc6 45. f4 exf3 46. e4 c5 47. e5 c4 0-1

Takeaway

If you're an aggressive player, then go ahead and play aggressively. Just remember, you're increasing the randomness, and that means that both players will make more mistakes than in a normal game. So, against weaker players, it's safer to just wait out their mistakes before lashing out.

You've Got to Have a Plan

We hear that all the time, but is it really true? And what is a plan anyway?

The whole concept of plans is a mystery to many chess players, and that's probably because the word is used too loosely. Sometimes you see a sequence of calculated moves, and the author calls it a plan. Other times, someone says "My plan was to attack on the kingside". No wonder people get confused!

I find it easier to talk about goals and milestones. The goal is what you want to achieve ("my goal was to attack on the kingside"), and milestones are subgoals on the way there. Typical milestones are trading off a defending piece, and preventing counterplay on the other wing. Once your goal is set, the plan is the move sequence to get there, ticking off the milestones along the way. In other words, your goal is your strategical plan, and the moves to get there makes up your tactical plan.

How to find a plan

I common misconception is that you can make any plan you want in a given position. The truth is that it's not for you to decide, the right plan is already there in the position. Your job is to find it.

Talk to your pieces. Ask every piece and pawn about their dreams and ambitions, and how they'd like to work together. Eventually, they will reveal the plan to you. Talk to your opponent's pieces too. They might have enemy secrets to disclose.

Sometimes, there's more than one plan available. Which one to choose is a matter of your chess personality. If you're an attacking player, don't pick the consolidating plan if there's a good attack plan on the table. When you hesitate between two plans, there's often a way to postpone the decision by playing a move that fits both plans. Those moves are multi-purpose moves, but that's the subject of a future blog post.

An Example from the King's Indian

This position is the Classical King's Indian main line after the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7.

 The main plans here a carved in stone - Black will attack the kingside, starting with Nh5 followed by f5, and White attacks on the queenside. The most popular choice is 9.b4, immediately declaring intentions.

If you don't like mutual all-out attacks, then the King's Indian isn't your style, and you'd do best to pick some other opening. Black must push forward on the kingside, if you attempt any other plan, you will be crushed (as long as White knows what they're doing). The same is true for White, you must advance quickly on the queenside, otherwise Black breaks through.

There are also secondary plans involving prophylactic moves to slow down your opponent's advance. The current state of the KID is that you can't completely ignore your opponent - at every move you must carefully balance attack and defence.

A third feature is the the pawn on d6 - it will become vulnerable as soon as the c-pawn moves. That's why we often see the manoeuvre Rf7 and Bf8. That Bishop move is actually one of the multi-purpose moves mentioned above, it protects d6 and at the same time vacates g7 for the Rook.

Takeaway

Don't make up plans from what you want to do. Instead, let the position tell you what you should do, and make plans from there!

What's Your Style in Chess?

Style is a combination of your chess personality traits and your self image as a chess player. The personality is more or less determined by your genes, and will not change much over time, although you tone certain aspects, such as hold back aggressiveness in order to play more solid.

Your self image, though, is made up by yourself and your environment, and can change a lot if that's what you want. A common factor is that your self image is affected by role models, books and videos, sometimes a bit too much. If you're a fan of Bobby Fisher, you might want to play in his style. If your natural styles are similar, it's all good, buy if the differ, you'll just end up playing positions you're not comfortable with.

At ChessPersonality, you can do a simple test of your style. Based on just 20 questions, it's not exactly scientific, but it will give you a hint. Below are my results (rather similar to Bobby Fisher's, by the way). What stands out here is the 100% Intuitive and 0% Calculating. That's absolutely true - I just hate calculations, and chess intuition is my biggest strength (and also my biggest weakness).

Another way to find your style is to play through games, both your own and other player's. Look for positions where you feel comfortable, and where the right moves comes naturally to you. Find out which openings produces these positions. These are the openings you should focus on.

Now look for positions you don't like. An uncomfortable position is one where you can't find any natural moves, and you don't feel good about the moves recommended by theory. These are openings you may want to dismiss for now (but you might have to study the later to become a more well-rounded chess player).

To wrap this up, here's a story from my early days. My very first chess book was Chess Openings by the German master Theo Schuster. That book did a fine job helping me to build my first repertoire, but it also caused me a great deal of problems. The biggest problem was that I, as Schuster recommended, played d5 in response to d4. Queen's Gambit is a respectable opening, but not in my style as I at long last found out. In the mean time, I got rather poor results as Black against d4.

The last (and shortest) chapter of the book was Indian Openings. It started with Playing these openings requires a great deal of experience, so I will just summarise them briefly. As I didn't see myself as a very experienced player, I ended my reading there.

Years later, I was just about to play my very first tournament when this weakness struck me. My white openings were okay, as were my defences against e4, but I had nothing to show against d4. When I brought this up with one of the top players at the club, he said "Play the King's Indian. That will fit your style perfectly." That was shocking, as I didn't now what "style" was, and Schuster already told me that Indian openings were for experts only.

But, being desperate, I went to the chess store to pick a couple of books on the KID. With little more than a week to the tournament, I started reading. Much to my surprise, I felt right at home. I could understand the plans, and the moves came very natural to me. As Lex said in Jurassic Park - "I know this!" Why didn't anyone tell me this before?

The tournament went well, two King's Indians scored me one win (against a stronger opponent) and one draw.

The King's Indian is since then a stable corner stone in my repertoire. Other openings have come and gone, but this one is for keeps.

Takeaway

Don't play against your style. It's easy to be impressed by brilliances in books and videos, but they may not be for you. Don't be fooled by book titles like Winning with the French. If the French doesn't suit your style, you might end up with Losing with the French.