Chess Log: If You Want to Improve, Play Stronger Opponents

I played White:

1. e4 c5 2. ♘f3 ♘c6 3. d4 cxd4 4. ♘xd4 ♘e5 5. ♗f4 ♘g6 6. ♗g3 e5 7. ♘f3 f6 8. ♗c4 ♘8e7 9. ♕d5 ♘xd5 10. ♗xd5 ♗b4 11. c3 ♗a5 12. O-O ♕b6 13. b4 ♗xb4 14. cxb4 ♕xb4 15. ♘bd2 ♘e7 16. a3 ♕a4 17. ♗b3 ♕c6 18. ♖fc1 ♕b6 19. ♘c4 ♕xb3 20. ♘d6 ♔f8 21. ♖cb1 ♕e6 22. ♘b5 ♘c6 23. ♘c7 ♕e7 24. ♘xa8 b6 25. ♘c7 ♗b7 26. ♘d5 ♕f7 27. h3 ♘d4 28. ♘xd4 exd4 29. ♗d6 ♔e8 30. ♘c7 ♔d8 31. ♘b5 ♗xe4 32. ♗c7 ♔e7 33. ♖e1 ♕d5 34. a4 ♖c8 35. f3 ♖xc7 36. ♖xe4 ♔f7 37. ♘xc7 ♕c4 38. ♘b5 a6 39. ♘d6 1-0 {Black resigns}

For several months now I've been taking the advice given by the chess master in Guy Ritchie's magnificent, greatly-underrated movie Revolver: if you want to improve, play opponents who are better than you. Presumably there's some different advice for whoever happens to be the best chess player in the world at any given time. But this does not directly affect me. It's been some years since I've had any hope that I would ever become such a good chess player that it would be difficult to find stronger opponents.

But there is no question at all anymore that I am becoming a better player by playing opponents stronger than I am. Not all of my games are against higher-rated opponents, but I no longer limit the rating of opponents against whom I will play.

And I'm somewhat conscious now, because of watching that movie, of the huge role of the ego in the game of chess. The huge, negative role. Just today I played someone rated 700 points higher than I. 700 is a huge difference. So big that when he beat me it didn't change our ratings. Now, the thing is, I experienced the entire game as an unpleasant humiliation, when in fact it could have been a great learning experience, for the simplest conceivable reason: a player rated 700 points higher than I am presumably has some skills and insights into chess which I lack. But even after months of consciously battling my own ego at the chessboard I had great difficulty learning from the game, because my ego was objecting to my being trounced.

Along with the great advice about playing stronger opponents, I would add: don't resign. Don't give up. I don't always follow my own advice here. But I followed it in the game shown above, against an opponent rated about the same as I am. After 8 moves we each still had all of our pieces and 7 of our 8 Pawns. Then I made the simplest possible blunder on my 9th move: 9. ♕d5 gave my Queen away in exchange for a Knight.

But I didn't resign.

By the 14th move I had exchanged 2 Pawns for his black Bishop, on my 24th move I took one of his Rooks without exchanging anything for it, on my 33rd move I pinned his White Bishop, and on my 39th move, when he was down to his Queen and 7 Pawns against both Rooks, a Knight and 4 Pawns for me, after having chased his Queen all over the board for most of the game, I finally forked his King and Queen with my Knight, and, perhaps with ego-involved anger outweighing whatever else this game might have been able to teach him -- possibly, for instance: stay focused if your opponent blunders away his Queen on the 9th move of a game which had been pretty even until then, instead of letting it make you over-confident -- he resigned.

It Seems That Most People Who Saw Revolver Really, Really Hated It

I'm just saying that as a warning: I like the movie very much, but most people hated it. So don't take my positive review as a guarantee that you would like it. Don't go see it because of what I'm saying and then come back angrily to me because you hated it, because I warned you: most people hated it.

I've mentioned the film a few times already in this blog, in connection with chess: watching the movie has significantly improved my chess game.

Okay, as long as I'm warning you about the movie, I should mention that it contains lots of violence, nudity and vulgar language. Lots and lots and lots of all three, so if those are things which make you not like a movie, then there's no point in you watching this movie.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to stop reading this blog post, because violence, nudity and vulgar language are not the interesting things to me about Revolver, and those interesting things can be looked into without seeing the movie, if it's not your kind of movie. The interesting things are: Kabbalah, and overcoming the ego.

Let's take the 2nd one first. This may be something that many or even most people are already familiar with, but it had eluded me until I watched Revolver: the concept of the ego as an enemy of the true self, the ego as an obstacle.

One of the things which the movie relates to the ego is the game of chess. Jake Green, the film's protagonist, played by Jason Statham, is released from prison at the beginning of the movie. He had done part of his time in solitary confinement in a cell between a chess Grandmaster and a con-man. Jake never saw either of them, but he did intercept many of the notes they passed back and forth, and he learned a little about chess. After his release, he becomes mixed up with a couple of loan sharks, Zach (Vincent Pastore) and Avi (André Benjamin), and plays some games of chess with Avi.

Before I ever saw Revolver, I had already noticed some of the ways in which ego interferes with playing chess. In some of my blog posts about chess I noted that over-confidence in my ability as a chess player leads directly to disastrously poor chess play. In Revolver, this interference is addressed much more directly. In the film, chess is one of the things which teach Jake about the ego. For example, the ego resists playing stronger players. It wants to win all of the time. Even though it's very plain to see that a chess player (or, as the chess players in the movie point out, a player in any sort of game) can only improve by playing stronger players -- which of course will involve a lot of losing, which offends the ego. In his games with Avi, after having studied chess in prison for years with not much else to do, Jake wins game after game, and after one of the many times Jake announces checkmate, Avi says with annoyance that he's not going to play Jake anymore.

But since watching the movie I'm playing stronger players much more, and surprise surprise, my game has improved quite a lot.

As I have written on this blog before, I've seen chess games where the very best players in the world -- Fischer, Kasparov and other world champions -- lost, analyzed by the world champion who lost. Whereas for the most part it's very unusual to come across games analyzed by the losing players. I keep analyzing games I've won, even though I realize how much my game could benefit from analyzing games I've lost. My ego is still directly interfering with my chess game to that extent, and I can see it, and I still can't bring myself to battle my ego that much. I believe I've analyzed a total of 1 game I've lost on this blog.

Oh well. Rome wasn't built in a day, and it's not as if I make my living from chess.

Revolver represents only the 2nd time of which I'm clearly aware in which a work of art directly, tangibly and immediately improved my life by explaining something about my own mind to me. The first time was decades ago when I read Gravity's Rainbow, which explained to me that paranoia consists of irrationally over-estimating the amount of attention other people pay to you. I just needed to remind myself that others had plenty of better things to do than participate in a plot against me, and poof, there went my paranoid tendencies.

Again, maybe that was everyday common knowledge to many or most people, but to me it needed pointing out.

Also, at the end of the movie several different people, not playing fictional characters, spoke about the ego. I think some of them were psychiatrists. One of them was Deepak Chopra, and he said something which I didn't find dopey. I like that. A few years ago, I was caught up in a feud between New Atheism and Chopra. In the meantime I have come to regard New Atheists as dopey. Who knows, maybe Chopra belongs on the long, long list of people and things about which the New Atheists are wrong.

The other interesting thing about Revolver is the Kabbalah symbolism: names, numbers, colors, mannerisms and other things refer to symbolism and archetypes of Kabbalah. I don't really know anything about Kabbalah yet, but the colors are purty, which I think is way cool, and the stories are interesting, whether they actually make sense or not. (And SOME of them probably DO!) I'm an atheist, but I've never let that spoil my appreciation of religious art.

For those of you considering watching Revolver -- remember, most people hate it, as I've warned you several times now -- there's a third thing I'd like to mention: Mark Strong, one of my very favorite actors. He gives the most brilliant performance in Ritchie's much-more-popular Rocknrolla, as the hard-as-nails Archie, and he gives the most brilliant performance in Revolver, as Sorter, a very quirky and extremely lethal hitman.

Chess Log: I'm Improving, Because I Watched Guy Ritchie's Film Revolver

The film has some very sound advice for the chess player hoping to go from poor to mediocre: play stronger players, and don't let your ego interfere with your progress. In the film, the stuff about the ego is said to apply to all areas in life. Tangible progress is much easier to measure in chess than in some other things.

5-0 blitz, I played White:

1. e4 e5 2. ♘f3 ♘c6 3. ♗b5 ♘ge7 4. d4 exd4 5. ♘xd4 a6 6. ♘xc6 bxc6 7. ♗a4 ♗b7 8. O-O h6 9. ♘c3 ♖b8 10. ♗f4 ♘g6 11. ♗g3 ♗d6 12. e5 ♗b4 13. e6 dxe6 14. ♕xd8 ♖xd8 15. ♗xc7 ♖d7 16. ♗g3 ♗xc3 17. bxc3 O-O 18. ♖fd1 ♖fd8 19. ♖xd7 ♖xd7 20. h3 ♖d2 21. ♖b1 ♗c8 22. ♖b8 ♘e7 23. ♗xc6 ♖xc2 24. ♗d7 ♖xc3 25. ♗d6 ♔f8 26. ♗xc8 ♖c6 27. ♗d7 ♖c8 28. ♗xc8 ♔e8 29. ♗xe6 ♘c8 30. ♖xc8 1-0 {Black checkmated}

Black's fatal mistake in this game was 21. [...] ♗c8. up until then, as far as I can see, the game was pretty even.

Another 5-0 blitz with me playing White:

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. ♘f3 cxd4 5. ♘xd4 a6 6. h3 ♘c6 7. a3 ♕a5 8. ♗d2 ♕c5 9. ♘xc6 bxc6 10. ♗b4 ♕b6 11. ♗d3 c5 12. ♗d2 e6 13. ♘c3 ♗b7 14. ♘a4 ♕c6 15. b3 d4 16. ♘b2 ♕xg2 17. ♖f1 ♕xh3 18. ♕e2 ♘h6 19. O-O-O ♘f5 20. ♗e4 ♗xe4 21. ♕xe4 ♖c8 22. ♕b7 ♘e7 23. ♘c4 d3 24. ♘d6 ♔d8 25. ♘xc8 ♘xc8 26. ♕xa6 dxc2 27. ♗a5 ♔e8 28. ♕xc8 ♔e7 29. ♖d7 1-0 {Black checkmated}

As early as 12. [...] e6 Black was cramping me with a strong Pawn storm, and by 16. [...] ♕xg2 I felt I was in some serious trouble. however, by my 22nd move I had achieved a strong counteratack. 26. [...] dxc2?? was a serious error on black's part, allowing me to begin the winning combination with double check on 27. ♗a5!

And yes, I'm aware that I'm continuing to let my ego interfere with my progress by continuing to focus on games I've won, which are flattering to my ego, rather than games I've lost, which might show me weaknesses in my play and allow me to improve tremendously. Grappling with the ego can be very difficult, even after you've become aware that that's what you're doing.

Another Annoying Movie Cliche: The Surprise Checkmate in 1

Recently I blogged about some movie cliches I hate, like how if a brand-new Lamborghini and a 30-year-old van are in a chase scene, the Lambo doesn't outrun the van, and how everybody always takes their coffee black.

Last night I saw Guy Ritchie's Revolver and liked it quite a lot, but it also gives me the opportunity to complain about another non-lifelike movie cliche, the surprise checkmate in 1. That is: a checkmate which the losing chess player didn't see coming one move before. And these were supposed to be advanced chess players. Grandmasters see checkmate coming inevitably many moves ahead, sometimes dozens of moves ahead. [PS, 7. September 2016: Since posting this, I've seen Revolver several more times, and I must point out that it is not clear, in any of the several games of chess played in the movie, that the losing player never saw the checkmate coming before the last movie. Sorry.]

In real life, sometimes the winning player will make the last move and say, "Mate in 6." Or in 12 or in however many moves it will take to end the game. Of course, the other player isn't required to resign just because the other player announces checkmate in however many. Chess players are never required to resign. But if they're both Grandmasters, chances are that the loser will see what the winner is talking about, if he hasn't already seen it moves before and has just been wondering whether the eventual winner already sees it coming too and isn't going to screw it up. Every now and then in world-class-level chess, the loser will play the game out until the end, until he is checkmated, but in such cases both players and and any advanced chess players among the onlookers know exactly what is coming long before the final move.

Ritchie handles this somewhat better in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Somewhat. Only somewhat. Because it is hardly unheard-of for a player to win a game by sacrificing his Queen. Only in the movies have advanced chess players never ever heard of such a thing, just as only in the movies does a customer in a bar order something no more specific than "a beer." (Well, okay: maybe in 1873, out on the American Western frontier, there was a saloon or two than only offered one type of beer, and only served it in mugs which were all the same size. Maybe. But you know what? Even in a Western set in 1873 it'd be refreshing to see someone ask a bartender whether the saloon had any good IPA.)

So how do you portray advanced chess accurately in a movie? Do you have to have actual Grandmasters on the set, or re-create Grandmaster games move for move? No. You could, but it might unnecessarily complicate things, and creating a good movie is a hell of a difficult complicated task under the best of conditions. The moviemakers aren't there to play world-class chess, but to present the illusion that the characters are playing world-class chess. Typically, in a movie chess game, the entire board position isn't visible, so keep it like that if you want to, because the point of all of this is the the illusion rather than the actual chess. But instead of the surprise mate-in-one as in almost every game of chess ever portrayed in a movie, have the eventual winner move and announce, "Mate in [however many)." Or have the loser do what Grandmasters often do in real life when they realize they've lost: think, then sigh or nod their head, and topple their own King, resigning. In a movie like Revolver, which portrays many chess games between two supposed chess geniuses with a third person looking on, it would be very easy to have the onlooker, realistically, be puzzled, and ask why the loser resigned, and have one of the players rattle off what the next 10 or so moves would have been, maybe throwing in a variation or two ("[...]not Queen to f6 because then Rook to b1, Bishop to to d3[...]" and so forth). It doesn't matter that the audience won't be able to follow it all, because in real life they wouldn't comprehend it either. Just have the onlooker, who is also a genius, but not a chess Master, listen politely and clearly uncomprehendingly to the 10-or 20-move explanation for the resignation, and respond: "Uhhhhh... Okay."

Easy to do. Easy enough, for extra-super-duper realism, to rattle off the analysis of a Grandmaster game from a chess book or a chess column, in which the writer, often one of the players in the game, explains the resignation by writing out what those last however-many moves would have been, often with variations. And easily, you make a good movie much better, because you don't take the chessplayers in the audience out of the suspension of disbelief, you don't give them a crude and entirely unnecessary reminder that this is make-believe, like a phone number that begins with 555, or a character who's supposed to be the world's greatest computer hacker who is mightily impressed by seeing some monitors rather than by hearing the specs of the computer before him.

Chess Log: On Not Wanting To Analyze Games I've Lost. Plus An Analysis Of A Game I Lost

All of the chess games I've written about on this blog have been games I've won, I think. I may have included a long game or two which I narrowly lost, but I doubt it.

I have noticed, in publications such as Chess Informant, that of the games commented upon by one of the players, the winners provide the commentaries much more often than the loser and much more often than either player in the case of ties. I have also noticed that World Champions comment on their losses much more often than other Grandmasters do.



And I've wondered whether this reflects one of the reasons they have been World Champions, one of the things which has singled them out from the herd of Grandmasters, all of whom probably could checkmate me 10 games out of 10 in 20 moves or less: chess is a game of mistakes. Doesn't it stand to reason that people who face their mistakes and carefully analyze what went wrong are less likely to repeat those mistakes than those who angrily turn away from their lost games and gloat over their wins instead?

Someone just handed my ass to me twice and I'm upset about it. I'll take a look at one of those games here. Can't guarantee I'll have any useful insights, because -- I'm upset and I don't want to do this.

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 ♕xd5 3. ♘c3 ♕e6 4. ♕e2 ♕xe2 5. ♗xe2 ♘c6 6. ♘f3 f6 7. O-O e5 8. d3 h5 9. h3 g5 10. ♘h2 g4 11. h4 ♗c5 12. ♘e4 ♗b6 13. ♗e3 f5 14. ♗xb6 axb6 15. ♘g5 ♘f6 16. ♖fe1 f4 17. d4 e4 18. f3 g3 19. ♘f1 e3 20. ♗b5 ♗f5 21. ♘h3 ♖a5 22. a4 ♗xh3 23. gxh3 ♔e7 24. c3 ♘d5 25. ♘d2 ♔f6 26. ♘e4 ♔f5 27. c4 ♘db4 28. ♖e2 ♘xd4 29. ♖g2 ♘xf3 30. ♔f1 ♔xe4 31. c5 bxc5 32. ♖d1 c6 33. ♗d3 ♘xd3 34. ♖c2 ♘h2 35. ♔g2 ♖g8 36. ♖c4 ♔d5 37. b3 f3 38. ♔g1 f2 39. ♔g2 f1=Q 40. ♖xf1 ♘xf1 41. ♔xf1 ♖f8 42. ♔e2 ♘e5 0-1 {White forfeits on time}

I played White. I noticed that Black was rated about 130 points higher than I, and I was thinking that I might gain some big points after 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 ♕xd5 3. ♘c3 ♕e6+, an opening I've seen quite a few times as White and which usually turns out well for me as I am able to develop faster than Black. But in this game, by 9. [...]g5 at the latest, I was already badly constricted by Black's pawn attack. It took me until my 15th move to get a Rook to e1, and I was never even close to checking Black's King with that Rook.

During the game it always seemed -- well, until the 30th move or so -- that I was just a move or two away from mounting a strong attack. But I never did. I wonder whether Black intentionally dangled what looked to me like openings: the diagonal from h5 to his King with 6. [...] f6, for example, or the diagonal from the other side with 19. [...] e3, in order to get me to overextend myself with attacks which weren't quite put together. I wonder whether Black was that far into my head, or if I was merely obliging him by played surprisingly badly.

By 29. [...] ♘xf3+ it was pretty much over, or maybe earlier than that, and it took me that long to become thoroughly discouraged.

We all already knew I was never going to be a Grandmaster. I can't guarantee that I'll do much analysis of my losses. It's really aggravating, just as brutal losses themselves are painful while they're happening. I don't claim to have analyzed this loss at all thoroughly. The next time I see 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 ♕xd5 3. ♘c3 ♕e6 I'll be more aware of developing my King-side pawns. I don't know how much of a difference that would've made in this game. It could hardly have made things worse.

PS, 21. October 2015: Recently I saw Guy Ritchie's film Revolver for the first time, and since then I've seen it a bunch more times. Among other other things, it deals with the involvement of the ego in the game of chess -- the interference of the ego with good play. Several times it's repeated that one must play stronger opponents in order to improve. (Also, the film has a bunch of Kabbalah symbolism. Did Guy get into Kabbalah because Madonna was into it? Or maybe vice-versa?) (It's also the only action-adventure crime drama I know which ends with talking-head appearances by several psychiatrists portraying themselves.)