Making Sense of Mistakes

The hidden skill that separates masters from beginners

A huge difference between beginners and advanced players lies in how they think about mistakes. For beginners, mistakes are random and isolated. If something is completely random it can’t be addressed or improved. It’s almost like the mistake is something that happens to them, like being zapped by lightning. In contrast, advanced players look for patterns in their mistakes. They understand that many mistakes are the result of faulty thought processes that can be improved. Being able to connect mistakes in meaningful patterns and develop a plan to address the underlying cause is a key chess improvement skill.

Last week I wrote about using blitz to improve. To illustrate the process of finding patterns in mistakes, this week I’ll show a cluster of mistakes that I noticed in my blitz games. Let’s start with this position.

Black has just played g5 and is evidently planning to pry open my king’s position with g4. How would you react?

I played Ng1, preparing to meet g4 with h4, keeping the kingside closed. Still, this seemed like a fairly pathetic retreat and during the game I had the feeling there must be something better. This feeling was confirmed when I reviewed the game and the computer pointed out the best move by far is d4.

Of course! Isn’t “a pawn advance on the wing should be met by a counterattack in the center” one of the most famous chess dictums? Actually, in the fantastically entertaining book Move First, Think Later, Willy Hendriks casts doubt on this principle, even looking at a random sample of wing advances and finding that a pawn break in the center is rarely the best counter. Nonetheless, there’s a certain kind of situation where this works - when the wing advance is underprepared and the center is unstable - and this is exactly it.

What’s interesting is that I did not even consider d4, even though it should be the most obvious move. In Training for the Tournament Player, Artur Yusupov shared a piece of advice about game review that’s always served me well: Pay special attention to the moves you didn’t consider at all (as opposed to considered, but rejected). These are often clues to important blind spots. And indeed, I noticed a pattern of mistakes where I hadn’t reacted well to pawn thrusts on the wing.

Consider the following two positions, also from recent blitz games, where my opponent went for a wing pawn advance. How would you react?

Position 1: Another textbook example of a pawn advance on the flank when the center is unstable. Black should counter in the usual way with e5, or possibly even stronger, Rfe8 and e5 next move. Either way Black has a big advantage.

Position 2: In this case the best course of action is just to ignore the wing pawn and continue development with Bg7. If h5 0-0 hxg6 hxg6 White is not really close to threatening anything because he doesn’t have any attacking pieces besides the rook on h1. Meanwhile, he’s lagging behind in development, and now that Black controls the d4 square, preventing White from pushing the pawn to d4, it’s going to be tricky to get the queenside pieces out.

This one isn’t as similar to the position we started with in terms of the exact moves, but it’s relevant in terms of mindset: Do you react to your opponent’s ideas too passively or fearfully? In this case White’s “attack” is really just a bluff, so the best course of action is to ignore it, rather than reacting defensively with something like h5 or h6. In addition to specific chess maneuvers, identifying these broader mindset issues is also an important part of finding patterns in mistakes.

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As it turned out, I soon had the opportunity to use what I had learned. I ran into the same opponent and he repeated the line. Tough luck, buddy - you just ran into a guy who reviews his blitz games! This time I was ready to meet the wing advance more aggressively with d4.

12. d4 exd4 

The computer indicates his best chance was to go for complications with 12…Bxh3 13. Bxh3 g4, but this also favors White. By the way, 12…g4 would be met by 13. d5!

13. Nxd4 Nxd4 14. Qxd4 Qe7 15. f4!

Having gotten into the spirit of central pawn breaks, this move was easy to find. Black can’t capture because after 15…gxf4 16. Rxf4 he has no way to defend the knight, but it also can’t move without dropping the rook on h8. But this leaves him with no good answer to the threat of fxg5. White is already completely winning.

Until next time, may all your mistakes be connected.