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Psychology of Chess Mistakes: 7 Must Know Types

Written by Yury Markushin
Tuesday, 25 November 2014 23:45

Today we will talk about psychology of chess mistakes, or simply why do players make these
mistakes. If your goal is to improve your game, the first step you need to take is to identify the
mistakes you are making, and only then you will be able to prevent them. This is a translated article
originally published in Russian, and written by Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky in Chess Bulletin #17, a
father of Soviet Chess School. He discusses most common types of chess mistakes based on his
own experience and games against players such as Alekhine, Lasker, etc.

Every chess game is a story. It can teach us something new, if we know what to look for and how to learn from it. We can analyze a
game, identify where certain mistakes were made, and determine if the combinations were sound or not.

What we cannot do is to use a scientific approach to determine why these mistakes were made and how it can be avoided. We
can deeply analyze thousands of chess games, but it will be much harder to determine and classify the elements that are SUPERCHARGE YOUR CHESS
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If you make a comparison between chess and a physical sport, the second one is much easier to explain. For example, a sprinter
wins a 100 meter dash simply because he runs faster than competition. That maybe due to the fact that his muscle fibers are faster,
stronger, etc. making him run faster.

For chess, however, there is often no easy way to explain why one player won and the second player lost. It is much easier to get
out a chess board and review the game. We can say that one player made a mistake and lost, but often we cannot say why exactly
did that happen. If we cannot understand why a player made a mistake, how do we suppose to cure these mistakes?

The goal of todays article is to start classification of chess mistakes, to understand why they were made in order to learn from
them and to avoid (minimize) these mistakes in future games.

There are 7 general types of mistakes that should be considered when analyzing a chess game. All of these mistakes have
psychological bases. The first step in avoiding mistakes, is to learn where they come from and why do they happen.

1. Vanished Square
When a chess player calculates a variation, he needs to use his imagination, or rather visualization skills, to replay the variation in
his head first, to make a decision whether to play it on the board or not. In that case, the current position on the board does not help
a player with this calculation, but rather serves as a disruption factor.
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By looking at the board and calculating the moves in a head, it is easy to make a mistake, because the position has already evolved
but a player still relies on the position he sees on the board for the calculations.

Lets take a look at the following example:

Ilyin-Geneva, A. - Nenarokov V.

COMING SOON
 In this game black is in trouble,
they are in a mating net. Ilyin-
Geneva without much thinking
claimed a mate in 6. The line in
mind was the following mate:
1.Bf7 Kf8 2.Qh6 Kf7 3.Rf6? Like Page Share

Ke8 [White missed a very

4 friends like this
important escape square for the
black's king which leads to no
mate whatsoever. The game
ended in a draw after a long
fight. 3...Kg8!] 4.Qf8 Kd7
5.Qg7 Kc8 6.Rf8#

Chess Talk

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This is a similar type of mistake that is also very dangerous when one is calculating variations in his head. The Struggle for the Center
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Here is a good example of this mistake: there an option...
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Ilyin-Geneva, A. - Nenarokov V. In the 8th game, why 3 .. Nxe4
knowing that it is ...
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White has decided to open up
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1.Rf1 g6 2.Qe3 Ne7 It seems

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Many people will just say, it is

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because the b5 bishop was games position anand checkmate rating

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via a 'partition' e5 pawn. The

<< < + > >> white player did not realize that
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3. Forgotten Piece
This type of mistake is a pretty similar to the previous one. The only difference is that instead of the destroyed partition, there is a
piece that was for some reason missed.

Take a look at the following position:

Alekhine, A. - Blackburn, J.
 1.Nd2? That seems to be a
good development move, but it
completely ignores the main
threat. 1...Qa5 2.a4 a6 The
bishop is lost. Why did Alekhine
miss this 2 move combination?
He simply forgot about the
existence of his own bishop, he
said in his after the game
interview. If you*re wondering,
he was able to draw this game
due to his extreme creativity.

<< < + > >>

4. Natural Move
Playing natural moves and expecting to get a natural response from an opponent, often leads to a losing position, when one of the
sides in not careful.

Thats what happened in the following position:

Ilyin-Geneva, A. - Grekov, N.

Black decided to push the

b-pawn to launch a pawn attack
on the queen side castled white's
king. This looks like a logical
idea, and b5 seems to be a
natural move. 1...b5 Instead of
retreating the bishop white has
something else in mind: 2.de5
de5 Forced, otherwise black gets
a bad position. 3.Ne5 bc4
4.Nc6 Attacking the queen.
4...Qe8 5.e5! This is the key
move of the white's combination,
black's knight has nowhere to
go. The white is winning.

<< < + > >>

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5. Dangers of Having an Advantage

When a player senses that he has a better position, possesses some sort of positional or material advantage he gets relaxed and
misses his winning chances. It is a very often the case at chess:

Lasker, E. - Ilyin-Geneva, A.
 Here instead of simply
exchanging the Queens and
keeping his positional
advantage, Lasker grabs the
a-pawn. 1...Qa2 2.Ra1 Qb2
3.Rfb1 Qb1 4.Rb1 Black gives
up a queen for a rook, bishop
and a pawn. White position is
better now. White gets excited
and starts playing too
aggressively. 4...Rfd8 5.c4 Ne8
6.f4 a6 7.Kh1 Nc7 8.Qe3 Rb8
9.Rd1 Nb4 10.Qc3 a5 11.Ra1
b6 12.Qe3 e5 13.fe5 de5
14.Nf5 Bf5 15.ef5 Nc2 And
Lasker win the exchange and the
game. This is a punishment for
<< < + > >> being overconfident.

6. Beautiful Combinations Contest

This mistake is somewhat similar to the previous one. It happens when one chess player obtains some sort of advantage in the
game and instead of realizing it and winning the game easily, he gets obsessed with some sort of nice looking combination or a
sacrifice and loses the game.

There are many example of that, let's take a look at this one:

Y. Danyushevskiy - Ilyin-Geneva, A.

White's position is much better.

They have an advantage of two
bishops and can easily create a
passed d-pawn. However, they
decided to go for an unclear
checkmate combination. 1.Qe7?
Rf7 2.Qe5 Kg6 3.d5 cd5 4.cd5
Re8 5.Qd4 Now white is forced
to exchange queens and suffer
from an inferior position. 5...Qd4
6.Rd4 Black won the game after
few moves.

<< < + > >>

7. Unexpected Check
There are tons of games that were lost because of one unexpected check. It killed so many amazing combinations and saved even
more lost games. Here is a good example:

Kalyackin, M. - Ilyin-Geneva, A.
 White's position is much better,
so he is looking forward to win
the game as soon as possible.
Here comes the 'smart'
combination: 1.ef6 Bf6 2.Ne5
Qe6 3.Ba3 Rf7 4.Qb5 All
black's pieces are hanging.
4...Be5 5.Bd5? Qg6 White
missed this check which
changes everything right away.
6.Kh1 Be4 7.Be4 Qe4 8.Kg1
Qe3 And white loses to mate in
2.

<< < + > >>

Note: The text and annotations are adapted from the article originally published in Russian, and written by Alexander Ilyin-
Zhenevsky in Chess Bulletin #17 called 'Psychology of Chess Mistakes' in 1928.

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 November 2014 10:26

Comments

#3 01101001b 2015-08-07 11:29 +1

#1 es a mate in 3, right? :-/
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#2 Costello 2015-05-21 15:20 0

You like a lot Ilyn Geneva...i see...
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#1 Hasibtapan 2015-02-02 07:26 +1

Thanks.
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