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While most of us prefer to be on the attacking side, quite often we end up under the opponents pressure. In fact, the nature of the pressure can lie in the chess realm and/or in the field of psychology. By chess pressure we mean a long-lasting active play by the opponent, when you have to stay on the defensive. It can take the form of tactical play with sacrifices, or even a positional game with maneuvers that improve the position. In both cases you will be feeling like the defender of a besieged fortress. There are quite a few top players who greatly value initiative and like to put pressure on their opponents. Kasparov used to play like that. Shirov, Topalov, Sutovsky are bright examples. Their style is very energy-consuming, but extremely dangerous for their competitors.
Psychological pressure can be either legal, or illegal. Some people are so strongly motivated to win and focused on the game that one can feel that with one's skin. The energy can even be targeted at the board, not the person, but its still hard to withstand it. Thats why many people were uncomfortable when playing Tal, Fischer, Kasparov. Carlsen is an excellent example of a person whose aura is so strong that some players claim he has hypnotic powers. The rule of thumb in such cases is to trust in oneself and stay calm no matter what. By the way, facing strong players with high energy levels is a good test of your suggestibility. If you are able to handle the pressure, it means that your state of mind is strong enough.
Kramnik was asked if the grimaces and other gestures Kasparov used to make quite often when seeing an unexpected or inferior move were really part of his technique of putting opponents off balance. Vladimir said that many players indeed were disappointed by such actions and, trusting Kasparov as the supreme authority in chess, concluded that they must have blundered. On the contrary, Kramnik treated such signs as small victories: Maybe he has overlooked something, or he is upset about the strength of my move.
When Anand elaborated on the same subject, he mentioned that the primary factor behind Kasparovs chess strength was, after all, in his moves. If he had been a weaker player, people would have just made fun of his behavior.
Unfortunately, some chess players resort to illegal practices of putting pressure on the opponent. They can start making nasty noises, shake the table, stare at you aggressively non-stop, walk behind you and almost lean on you, etc. If you believe the opponent is misbehaving, you should consult the arbiter as opposed to making counter-moves or talking to your opponent (which is forbidden). Also, no matter how kind and intelligent you are, dont act as a martyr who can deal with anything: displeasure will grow and negatively affect your game.
Playing against a motivated and energetic partner is a real challenge. You should ensure your nerves are under control at all costs. Sometimes being too hot-blooded makes a person go berserk and self-destruct. Therefore, you should offer your opponent a chance to go wrong and try to use his energy against himself, martial arts-style. Stay alert and watch for counter-chances. Trust in your position and ability to handle it well. Some players even like to play cat and mouse with their opponents and let them dominate for a while. A bright example that jumps to mind is the legendary Viktor I will accept your sacrifice and beat you Korchnoi.
If you know in advance that you will be facing an active and energetic player, you might want to reconsider your opening choice and choose something uncomfortable for him.
Photo by Martin Chrz
To complete this article, I will show you one of my worst defeats ever - a recent game played at the Snowdrops vs Oldhands match vs Rafael Vaganian. He is a very strong grandmaster, ex-champion of the USSR, and a fierce attacker. Vaganian was obviously well-prepared and blood-thirsty in this game. I got problems out of the opening and, somehow bedazzled by his authority, failed to find the right moves at critical moments. Chess normally offers a few defensive chances during the game, but one should be calm and concentrated to take advantage of them.
My opponent lured me into his home prep (during the post-mortem he mentioned that they have been studying this line with 2700+-player Sergei Movsesian). Nonetheless, his play wasnt perfect, and theoretically I could have put up a fight. Alas, I played poorly, and missed a critical counter-shot on move 19 when I should have sacrificed my queen.
P.S. One of the important aspects of chess is creating interesting games that are appreciated by chess fans and professionals. While we all like to win and get nominated (e.g., Pogonina-Kursova, 1-0 became the only female nominee for ChessPros game of the month in November 2011), being a co-author is also an honor. While I don't have a very high opinion about the quality of the game I have presented to you, it has still made it to top-10 best games played in December 2011 according to ChessPro, leaving such eminent clashes as Nakamura-Howell and Anand-Kramnik (both played in London) behind.
Levon Aronian, the current world's #2 highest-rated player, won Tata Steel Chess super tournament with an impressive 9/13 score. His rating has skyrocketed to 2824, the 3rd highest mark in the history of chess (Kasparov's record is 2851; Carlsen had a published rating of 2835, other results can be found here). Even a loss to Carlsen in round 3 with Black and to Navara in round 11 with White didn't stop Levon on his way to an incredible performance. Now the rivalry between Levon and Magnus for the #1 spot on the FIDE ratings has become more intense than ever.
Another interesting fact that we have learnt during the Tata Steel Chess tournament is that Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian will play a 6-game match with a standard time control in late April. If a short draw (earlier than 30 moves) occurs, the grandmasters will play an additional rapid game to keep the spectators excited. This information is courtesy of Chess News.
Natalia Pogonina is lucky to have known Levon Aronian for quite a long time. They have been acquainted since junior European and World Championships. Today we would like to publish a few photos from Natalia's collection. Some of them are well-known; others are rare:
P.S. Levon Aronian's twitter is @LevAronian. Don't miss a chance to follow him and congratulate!
P.P.S. Additional information & results of the B and C tournaments can be found at the official website.
Every year eminent chess players give master classes at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. Last year Natalia Pogonina was a speaker. Today you can watch a lecture and Q&A session by the legendary Judit Polgar:
Part I: Analyzing the game Polgar - Ikonnikov from round 2:
Runtime: 36 minutes
Part II: Q & A with live audience and online questions via Twitter:
Runtime: 31 minutes
Pogonina.com offers you a list of some of the best tweets from last week:
Sprinting to new records
Alexandra Kosteniuk: Getting faster: today I ran 5 km in 29 minutes. My goal is 25 min. My personal record is 21 min 30 sec, but I'm very far from it now! :)
Ilya Levitov: Here is my candidate (link to a video featuring Russian president candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky criticize harshly women). "Furcoats and high boots, furcoats and highboots - 30 years straight!".
Revenge on the football field
How about downloading new levels to chess?
Have we missed some of the best tweets? You can contribute to our next top-10 stories chart by retweeting the post you like and adding @Pogonina to the message so that we can see it.
Nowadays powerful chess engines have become routine assistants of competitive chess players. Both amateurs and professionals use them to analyze their games, prepare opening lines, evaluate certain positions, etc. Most websites that broadcast games also offer a built-in engine evaluation to make the viewing process more interesting for chess fans. Such mighty servants as chess engines are of great use, but they also pose a serious danger.
First of all, its very easy to lose ones own tactical skill if one starts following the computer lines without thinking for oneself. Secondly, quite a few players, even very strong ones, start worshipping engines and religiously trusting them. However, there are still blank spots in the evaluation mechanisms of the programs, so even at a large depth the first line of a program is not necessarily the best move. Also, when playing humans we have to try to pose as much difficulties before the opponent as possible, place them under psychological pressure. Meanwhile, computers dont know such things, and for them a king vs king position is evaluated the same as an insanely complicated draw that can be reached by making 20 one-and-only moves in a row.
Computer engines evaluate positions and offer an aggregate figure to show who is ahead. The number means how much better one side is in terms of material. Of course, in most positions material is not the only factor to consider, so the figure is derived by carefully weighing the tactical variations and positional factors.
Equality: =, from 0 to 0.26
Small advantage for White: +/=, over 0.27 and up to 0.7
Serious advantage for White: +/- over 0.7
Decisive advantage for White: +-, over 1.5
The signs for Black are similar (=, =/+, -/+, -+). A sign is used to show that Black is ahead. E.g. a -0.8 evaluation means that Black has a serious advantage that is equal to about 0.8 of a pawn.
In some theoretically drawn positions the engines might still be saying that one side is ahead. Therefore, in endgames one should be especially careful when analyzing. The only exception is the endgame (Nalimov) tablebases (6-men are available online; 7-men are harder to find; creation of 32-men would mean that chess is solved). Using those one can instantly find the mathematical evaluation of the position: draw or a win for one of the sides.
Here is an example from the recently played Karjakin vs Topalov game, round 7 of Tata Steel Chess tournament:
The strong sides of chess engines are calculation and defense. They can also come up with unexpected and bizarre-looking ideas in certain positions. The weaknesses (if we can say so about players rated well over 3000) are positional evaluation and long-term planning. Quite often a chess engine would be saying that one side is better for a series of moves, and then all of a sudden treacherously change the evaluation for the opposite.
I use chess engines to check all my games and openings. However, the final decision belongs to me. This is especially true for positions with a few more or less equal options available. In such cases its very important to understand the idea/plan behind each of the moves. The difference might become obvious only a couple of moves later. In such situations chess engines are of no use, so you should either rely on your own brain, or check out leading players games to make a choice. Dont be afraid to make a move that is not deemed to be the best by the engine.
Post-mortem: Robert Huebner and Natalia Pogonina. Photo by Martin Chrz
The instructive example of the above-mentioned principles will be my first game against former world #3 Robert Huebner from the Snowdrops vs Oldhands match (the second game was drawn as well). Most of the time the engine I have been using to analyze was claiming that the position is equal. However, by doing so it was neglecting some important features of the position. For example, after 20dc the computer still says the evaluation is close to 0, but a qualified human would tell you that White is better. Black is obliged to defend passively, while White has some plans associated with pushing the kingside pawns. Therefore, in human terms its a position for two results: either White will win, or the game will be drawn. Maybe with strong play the position is indeed drawish, but Black is the only side at risk.
Therefore, if you prepare for the game only by memorizing chess engines moves and evaluations, at some point you will get in trouble. Always try to understand the ideas behind moves and make sure you understand why the position is evaluated as it is. For us, humans, intuition and experience are more important than brute force calculation. A chess engine is a great assistant, but it can never substitute for using ones own brain in an over-the-board game.
Have we missed some of the best tweets? You can contribute to our next top-10 stories chart by retweeting the post you like and adding @Pogonina to the message so that we can see it.
While I don't have a very high opinion about the quality of the game I have presented to you, it has still made it to 
