Playing to win against a lower rated opponent

[Paul Cooksey]

I liked the spirit of the best games thread, but I don't have any really good games to show. However Bullock, Lee - Sands, Alan reminded me of an earlier discussion on playing for a win against a lower rated opponent.

The received wisdom on beating lower rated players is keep it simple and wait for a mistake. But we saw Kramnik playing much more aggressively than usual against lower rated players in the last year, and highly tactically against positional players, despite his normal style. I decided to adopt his approach last weekend, in the game below.

It is not a good game by my standards, or indeed most standards. Environmental factors conspired against me - second game of the day, the organisers struggling to keep the bar noise down in their new venue, and a wedding at the hotel I was staying at keeping me awake half the night. Still, it was an attempt to channel the spirit of Korchnoi, and I hope messy enough to be entertaining.

[Event "Rochester Open"] [Date "2012.06.17"] [White "Hall, David 180"] [Black "Cooksey, Paul 213"] [Result "0-1"] 1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 {An unwelcome choice given my intention to play a sharp game. I played soundly against the London system twice previously this season. The first time I self destructed, trying to create some imbalance having reached an equal but lifeless position against another 180. I also got a very dubious position against a 160 in an earlier round of this tournament, luckily winning an objectively drawn rook ending. So I decided I was willing to play riskily to get a complex position, even if it meant accepting a disadvantage.} c6 3. e3 Qb6 4. Bd3 Qxb2 {Don't try this at home kids! But for adults, objectively, this is a position where Black can grab the b pawn, and probably has to, to make sense of Qb6} 5. Nd2 e6 6. Ngf3 Qb6?! {John Watson has suggested that, having grabbed a pawn with the queen, it often makes sense to leave the queen where it is, disrupting the opponents development, rather than lose time retreating it. I thought about this in the game, and probably that was the correct approach. But I was concerned about 0-0, nb3, e4 and Bd2, trapping the queen. With hindsight, this is likely to only threaten a draw by repetition, and may be best play. } 7. O-O {I was a little more worried about e4, trying to reach a French type position where White's lead in development looks really threatening. But the straightforward London approach is good enough for an advantage too.} 7... Nf6 8. c4 Be7 9. h3 Nbd7 10. Ne5 Nxe5 11. dxe5 Nd7 12. Qg4? {Provoking the advance of Black's kingside pawns. Petrosian taught us to try to castle queenside in similar positions, so this only makes sense if Black's king can be caught in the centre, which it should not be} g5 13.Bh2 h5? {The computer points out Qb2. I understand how I missed this, somehow it is odd moving the queen back again. But I'd normally expect to see this move. I might have gone too far into strategic mode, working out how to get the set-up I did in the game. The irony is it is not a good set-up} 14. Qe2 Qc7?! {Not too late to change ideas and play Nc5, when the queen can be good on a6, as often happens in these d-pawn games. I was thinking of French patterns when I played, g5 intending to undermine e5, but not really appropriate in this position with the Bh2} 15. cxd5 cxd5 16. f4 b6 17. Rac1 Bc5? {Still not too late for Nc5} 18. Kh1? {I saw I was in deep trouble after fxg5 while White was thinking. I hadn't really taken this idea seriously, I think because White's structure is such a mess. But dealing with the threat of g6 sucks all the dynamism out of Black's position} g4 19.hxg4 hxg4 20. Qxg4 Bb7 21. Qg7 O-O-O 22. Qxf7 Rh6 {This is the sort of position I had in mind when playing g5. Objectively White is probably ok, but much easier to play with Black}23. Nf3 Rdh8 24. Rc2 Bc6 25. Rfc1 Kb8 26. g4? {Trying to find a direct solution, but too optimistic. Shortage of time, and adjusting to being worse make White's task even more difficult than it is on the board} d4 27. e4 Qb7 28. Ng5 Ba3 29. Re1 Bb4?! {Putting White's pieces on awkward squares, but messing about unnecessarily. The straightforward Nc5 getting on with attacking e4 is better} 30. Ree2 Bc3 31. Rc1 Qc8 32. Qe7 Nc5 33. Bc4? {White position is difficult, but this allows the breakthrough} Nxe4 34. Kg1 Nxg5 35. fxg5 Rh4 36. Bxe6 Rxg4+ {I was pleased to see this Rh4-g4 idea when I took on e4. There is something nice about the Queen defending the Rook through the Bishop} 37. Kf1 Qf8+ 38. Qf6 Rxg5 39. Rf2 Bb5+ 40. Re2 Bxe2+?! {Qf6 is mating. But practically Bxe2 wins so much material White will resign, which he does} 41. Kxe2 Rxh2+

Overall I am not sure if I view this game as a success or not. I got the sharp position I wanted, but deciding I was willing to accept a worse position was a self fulling prophecy, and I was close to losing. The lesson I took was that I should learn a proper system against the London

[Roger de Coverly]

The received wisdom on beating lower rated players is keep it simple and wait for a mistake.

I don't really trust that. If you are higher rated, it's because you get better results. So you try to play to your strength. If it's red hot opening theory, you ask the question, even of a lower rated player.

The interesting one is when you spot your opponent using with success an infrequently played line. Do you avoid it or research it and then take it on? But then if your opponent has a preference for launching h pawns at the slightest excuse, do you avoid fianchettos? Also if you are facing a kind side hacker, do you try to avoid castling until you see which side their king will live?

But sometimes preparation consists of no more than looking up your opponent on the ECF grading list.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The received wisdom on beating lower rated players is keep it simple and wait for a mistake.

I don't really trust that. If you are higher rated, it's because you get better results. So you try to play to your strength. If it's red hot opening theory, you ask the question, even of a lower rated player.

Sure, but for some people their strength is simply waiting for mistakes and/or outplaying people from a level position. What I've learnt is that even against lower-rated players, you still need to negotiate the opening safely, especially if (like me) you are not that hot on opening theory. But then you can start to outplay your opponent as you simply ask yourself what was wrong with the most recent move, and try and exploit the inaccuracies. I've also learnt not to set obvious traps, as when they don't work it can be a bit offputting. One thing I did learn in a recent game was that development can be worth more than a piece. Rather than take a piece, I kept on developing, and soon won the queen instead due to mating threats.

[Roger de Coverly]

One thing I did learn in a recent game was that development can be worth more than a piece. Rather than take a piece, I kept on developing, and soon won the queen instead due to mating threats.

There's an old adage (Tarkatower?) which suggests that if you see a bad move, don't try to refute it because an even worse move may follow. Up to a point I trust it, although team mates complain that I will cash in an advantage for a favourable ending rather than continue an attack.

On the subject of endings, the advice to simplify when ahead on material is only conditionally true. You shouldn't simplify if you would lose the initiative in the process. After all if you have more pieces than your opponent, it should make it easier to deliver mate or win even more material.

[Joey Stewart]

I find I never have much trouble with positions when I have an advantage - it is getting one in the first place that is the trickier part.

My number one tip for beating lower rated players is play quickly but keep the position solid without allowing it to become too blocked. Then just wait for them to get into time trouble and crash and burn.

[Steve Rooney]

Many thanks for sharing that game, Paul. A good commentary in plain English gives a good insight into your thinking without the distraction of reams of variations

[William Metcalfe]

I have had a lot of success with my qb6 lines in the Benoni v the London system set up so i found your game of intrest Paul and thanks for the intresting and enlightning commentary

[Giulio Simeone]

Hello Paul,
surely you are much stronger than me (just some 300 ELO points!): still, I will try to made some observations on your game. Yes, you chose a rather risky opening: yes, probably it was better to leave the queen in b2, by moving it back in b6 you probably gave your opponent too much developing advantage ... moreover, you have already some difficulties developing your queenside properly, with the queen in b6 you cannot play neither ...b6 neither ...Nb6, and these difficulties increase. In my opinion, Hall ruined his game with three main mistakes: h3, f4 and g4, that is, the three pawns which were meant to protect his king!!

Do you see some point in 9.h3? I don't, with another move he could have attacked you more quickly, in these kind of positions a player can't allow himself to lose time. Then, I'm not completely sure that you manage to castle safely as you write on your comment on move 12th ... surely you won't after 14. ...Qc7, that puts your queen on the diagonal of the Bh2 and forces you to take with the 'c' pawn after cxd5. At this stage, while your queenside is still to develop, white could began to bother your king with Bb5 and Rac1. There are already many open lines in the centre, and white has still the e4 push at his disposal.

I don't think that white's e5 pawn is really in danger, thus in my opinion f4 is a mistake that, moreover, weakens white's king a lot ... it is here that black's later attack begins to take shape. He played ...Kh1 in order to escape from your bishop's gunshot, but in this way he allowed your ...g4 and after the exchanges your rooks were very strong on the 'h' file, where they temporaririly attacked and pinned the h2 bishop. We all see that g4 is a desperate trial to defend that bishop and to rearrange his pieces, but he definitely couldn't leave his king so unprotected, moreover your light squared bishop was already on the long diagonal!!

Obviously some (or all) of the remarks that I made may well be wrong, moreover as usual I analyzed the game without computer, I think it's a better exercise.

As for your starting topic, sometimes playing a lower rated opponent can be more difficult because usually you are pleased only with one result out of three ... when you see a variation that can lead to the draw, you are likely to discard it, like you did at the beginning of this game when you saw that your opponent could give a "perpetual check" to your queen. Moreover, when you play a lower rated opponent you are confident that in the long run you are going to win, and so often you are not inclined to take risks ... with higher rated opponents I quite often sacrifice pawns, with lower rated opponents usually I'm more prudent. Actually, they often make serious strategical mistakes and I punish them ... but "your" lower rated opponents are usually much stronger than "my" lower rated opponents, so we are talking of two different things!!

[William Metcalfe]

I have a question why do i play better against opponents rated 20/30 higher than myself is it because they play more logical chess or is it because the opening lines i am learning acually get played.
I still have a nasty habit of lossing games against players lower than myself i had stopped doing that.That was until Jan this year when i lost 4/5 games to players lower than myself its taken me 20 odd games to get those grading points back.I think i push to hard against lower players and put preasure on myself to win instead of playing on there errors.

[Roger de Coverly]

Do you see some point in 9.h3? I don't, with another move he could have attacked you more quickly, in these kind of positions a player can't allow himself to lose time.

As far as I can tell, White decided to keep calm and carry on despite the pawn loss. So h3 is very normal for London system players, the idea being to protect the dark square bishop from being exchanged by moves like Nh5.

White is hoping that Black has wasted tempi to put the queen on a square where it might be misplaced anyway.

In the opening, c4 is unusual, most of the handful of players reaching the move 7 position or similar have followed the idea used by Torre against Gruenfeld in 1925 (edit) which was to play e4 as feared by Paul (/edit). Against that, even more players as White have declined to give material away, by playing Qc1 or b3 as soon as the pawn is threatened.

[Roger de Coverly]

I have a question why do i play better against opponents rated 20/30 higher than myself is it because they play more logical chess or is it because the opening lines i am learning acually get played.

I think both can apply.

It's always possible to sucker people into tactics they didn't see coming. Here's an example in the Torre system from one of my recent games. Actually my grading advantage was only 10 ECF points.

[Event "e2e4 High Wycombe Major"] [Site "Uplands Hotel"] [Date "2012.03.18"] [Round "4"] [White "Kelly, AG"] [Black "de Coverly, RD"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "D03"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Bg5 Bg7 4.Nbd2 d5 5.e3 O-O 6.Bd3 b6 7.O-O Bb7 8.c4 c6 9.Rc1 Nbd7 10.Qa4 dxc4 11.Qxc4 c5 12.Rfd1 cxd4 13.Nxd4 Ne5 14.Qc7 Nxd3 15.Qxb7 Nxc1 16.Nc6 Ne2+ 17.Kh1 Qd3 18.Nb4 Qf5 19.Bxf6 Bxf6 20.Nf3 Bxb2 0-1

I can see the logic of his blunder. He didn't want to take on d4 with the pawn because some authors, going all the way back to Nimzowitsch consider it bad to have an isolated pawn. He didn't want to take with the Queen because of the potential for the discovered hit on the queen. So he took with the Knight, which loses a piece. Admittedly you have to calculate as Black to prove that Qc7 doesn't work. The Qd3 idea at the end is very strong, even more so if he plays Kf1 instead of Kh1. The opening set up by Black is deeply mainstream.

[Paul Cooksey]

(snip)...with lower rated opponents usually I'm more prudent. Actually, they often make serious strategical mistakes and I punish them ... but "your" lower rated opponents are usually much stronger than "my" lower rated opponents, so we are talking of two different things!!

This is an interesting point, but I think I disagree. In games with a stronger lower rated player, the serious mistakes might not be so obvious to everyone. However I think they are still obvious to the higher rated player, but not obvious to the lower rated player.

Here is another game where I grab a pawn, but with much less success. It is also a much higher quality game. I'd beaten two 200+ players with this line, following 7...h6 with a fianchetto, and surviving the standard f4-f5 attack. These games are not in the database, but GM Williams found the much stronger immediate h4-h5 idea pretty quickly over the board.

The interesting moment is 20...Be4. In the post-mortem I was explaining why I did not play the better 20...Qd4, which involved me miscalculating several variations. I would not have been surprised if Simon had corrected my calculations. He is the author of Play Like Tal, and I'm, er, not. But I was surprised when he said something like "Well yes, but if you give up the bishop now you might as well resign". (Something very like that, I think. If I remember correctly he was worried for a moment that I was offended rather than surprised )

I knew I was worse, but thought I was still in the game for a few more moves. In fact Be4 just a strategic blunder, by the standards of an attacking GM. Sometimes you give a lesson, sometimes you get a lesson
[Event "BCF-chT2 0809 (4NCL)"] [Date "2009.03.22"] [White "Williams, Simon Kim"] [Black "Cooksey, Paul S"] [Result "1-0"] 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 dxc4 5. e4 b5 6. e5 Nd5 7. a4 h6 8. axb5 Nxc3 9. bxc3 cxb5 10. Ba3 Be6 11. Qb1 a6 12. Nd2 Bd5 13. Ne4 g6 14. h4 Nc6 15. h5 g5 16. Be2 b4 17. Bxb4 Nxb4 18. cxb4 Qb6 19. O-O Bg7 20. Ra5 Bxe4 21. Qxe4 Rc8 22. Rc5 O-O 23. Bxc4 Qxb4 24. Bxf7+ Kh8 25. Rxc8 Rxc8 26. Be6 Rd8 27. Qg6 Qb6 28. Rb1 Qc6 29. d5 Qe8 30. Bf7 Qf8 31. Qe6 a5 32. Rb7 Ra8 33. Rxe7 a4 34. d6 a3 35. Qg6 Qc8 36. Rc7 Qf8 37. Ba2 1-0

[Giulio Simeone]

As far as I can tell, White decided to keep calm and carry on despite the pawn loss. So h3 is very normal for London system players, the idea being to protect the dark square bishop from being exchanged by moves like Nh5.

Yes, I already knew this idea in the London system ... in Rome there is a strong player from Peru that often plays h3 since the 4th or 5th move. Still, I'm not sure that it's a good idea, because usually the bishop is able to move away from f4 and the knight remains misplaced.

In Paul's game, moreover, white has sacrificed a pawn in order to get a better development: so he can't waste time, he has to get something out of the position before black can rearrange his pieces. A possible move is e4, that opens some central lines, and notice the fact that after e4, a move like ...Nh5 would be nonsense, because the bishop easily retreats in e3, on the same diagonal of black's queen.

[Nick Ivell]

What about Vlad against Luke in the recent Tal Memorial? Seems to me Vlad took a huge risk in that game in manoeuvring his king to the centre. An unjustifiable risk, from what I can make out. It stood to reason that Luke had great compensation for the pawn. The most important thing in chess? King safety!

Unless I've missed something...

[John Anderson]

Over the years I have had a number of foreign GMs (usually Russian, although Bogdan has done it twice) offer me a draw, always in an unclear position and I refuse, only to lose in short order. Clearly they could have just played on and patiently waited for my inevitable mistake so I firmy believe they are using the timely draw offer as a useful tool against weaker opponents.