Keep Your Head in the Clouds

Introduction

In a recent interview, RB Ramesh had a surprising answer when asked to highlight Gukesh's biggest strength as a player. To paraphrase, according to Ramesh the primary reason that Gukesh is so strong is not because of his exceptional calculation, not because of innovative opening preparation, but rather almost tautologically that Gukesh is so good simply because he thinks that he is "too good". He thinks he is good therefore he is.

A chess player's level of confidence can't be gleaned from their public facing personality. Players like Magnus and Kasparov are confident yes, but so are Wesley So, Matthias Bluebaum, Denis Lazavik and every single other player who has achieved a high level in this game. This does beg the question however: what comes first, the results or the confidence? The chicken or the egg?

It's not realistic nor practical to expect anyone to make any strides in chess just by lecturing them on the importance of confidence, that idea alone is more of a platitude than anything else. Instead I want to explore how a lack of confidence manifests over the board, and help you catch yourself if you realize you are falling into these habits.

Habit #1: Rushing

~The unwillingness to let your opponent play the game

All experienced chess players have, to some extent, a subconscious bias towards forcing and high tempo moves. This is not surprising, as developing this preference is part and parcel with becoming a functional tactical player. But there is a hidden cost when you become overly reliant on this type of move in your play. By railroading your opponent's choices, you rob them of the opportunity to make mistakes. Even worse, if you are not cognizant of it, sometimes the fear of one's opponent's plans becomes so strong that you may leave your position to rot just to feel like you are dictating the pace of the game for a few more moments.

It is the nature of chess that if you take care of the fundamental health of your position you will tend to have a surprising variety of resources available for dealing with whatever your opponent may throw at you. Lets take a look at a snippet of a game at I played at the US Amateur Team East where my opponent tried to call all the shots.

It's certain that Ne5?! was played not fully assessing the consequences of the forcing sequence that happened in the game, yet I suspect the underlying motivation for the move was largely psychological. My opponent, being a bit lower rated, likely felt uncomfortable about the trend of the game should he play as the position demanded and made a rash decision as a result. In the name of fairness, here is an example of me doing something even more baffling for precisely the same reasons.

In this game, I was the underdog. I was afraid that I wouldn't be up to the task of defending against black's constant positional pressure and as a result I cashed in the health of my position for a fleeting sense of control. I'm not saying aggressive chess should be off limits. But when you feel the urge to attack your opponent, to release the tension, just try to be cognizant of whether that desire has logic behind it, try to understand whether it is coming from a place of fear or confidence.

Habit #2: Checking Out Of The Game

~Letting your opponent walk a straight line to victory

The single most important component of effectively defending a lost position in chess is the naive belief that the defensive task will be successful. Without this belief it is far too easy to put up token resistance, you play moves to be annoying, you set traps, but your heart isn't in it. You don't really believe your opponent will make a mistake, and consequently you play moves without putting the effort in. For highly confident players any amount of tension in the position is an opportunity. There is no penalty for being optimistic to the point of delusion in an already lost position (I do want to add a caveat that defending the worse side of a theoretically drawn position requires a different mindset than what is being discussed here). In my personal experience, this holds even more literally in blitz, if I make the conscious decision to fight when I blunder into a losing position it feels like my odds grow to be better than they were even prior to the blunder.

I recommend everyone watch this hilarious interview by Matthias Bluebeam after his miraculous save against Vincent Keymer in the Grand Swiss. It undercuts my point a bit, but you know what they say, the exception proves the rule.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUKlqvW3nZ8

Once you have this belief (or fake it until you make it), what are the mechanics of making a comeback? We first need to understand the task from our opponent's perspective. What does a player want when they are cruising to a win? They want a passive, defeated opponent. And they want either a smooth plan that will eventually, inevitably win the game or a crushing tactical blow that ends the struggle without a doubt. Your job is to deny them these comforts, put in the effort to avoid simplification, identify their winning plan and throw a wrench in it at any cost, force them to be creative. Play the moves that you would hate to see if you were them. As their frustration grows the more likely they become to make a rash decision.

Lets look at a couple examples of players checking out too soon:

Note:

LeelaQueenOdds (a bot on lichess that you can find here) is the closest thing I've seen to the platonic ideal defender. I encourage you to try your hand against it if you haven't already. The level of play may be impossible to replicate, but it serves as a reminder that truly hopeless positions are rarer than we think.

Habit #3: Looking for a Checkered Security Blanket

~The fear of playing a wrong move

A term coined by Jonathan Rowson in Chess for Zebras, the checkered security blanket serves as an analogy for the striving of many players towards a mythical perfect and bulletproof opening repertoire. For my purposes I will define it to encompass any decision made out of the abstract desire to play the "right" move in the position.

How might this desire manifest itself in your games?

- When surprised in the opening, do you try to force through a plan you are familiar with instead of thinking for yourself?
- Do you reject candidate moves that appeal to you because they look unnatural?
- Do you go on tilt when your opponent is succeeding with "incorrect" or unprincipled play?
- Do you spend a lot of time deciding between moves in uncritical positions?

The checkered security blanket is a desire for external validation, the hope that we can erase our flaws by appealing to some higher power, by memorizing another Chessable course.

The reason why confidence is such a superpower for a chess player is because it allows you to move beyond this self doubt and play the moves that you believe in for reasons that make sense to you, without a need for external validation. Everyone makes mistakes, confidence isn't about believing you are infallible but instead about having faith you will be able to recover when you fall.