Seeing Ghosts! How Emotions Can Cloud Your Judgement During A Game

How often have you played a terrible move, only to look in the post mortem analysis and asked "what was I thinking?!"

I recently finished 1st* place in the U1400 section of an OTB classical G 45 D5 tournament. Going into the final round, my opponent and I were the only two players who had scored 3/3. I had made a mental note to myself that if I made a draw, I would at least tie for first place. I am still not sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

I was playing the white pieces when we began into the familiar territory of The Ruy Lopez. My opponent was playing reasonable moves, but this tournament started at 10 in the morning. It’s about 4:30 in the afternoon as this game is taking place. Fatigue is setting in, along with the undeniable presence of high emotions.

I am still working on managing my emotions during tournament games, and during this tournament specifically, I put a lot of pressure on myself to win. This was the first OTB tournament where I had won the first 3 rounds in at least 2 years, and I really believed in myself to take home a perfect 4!

I spent many hours on prep, working with my coach, and practice games along with hundreds of puzzles in the last few weeks leading up to the event. As I completed the 13th move of the game, activating my queen and connecting my rooks, I realized my e pawn was under defended.

My opponent had not captured my pawn right away because he was clearly giving it some thought. The pawn wasn’t entirely free. Black needed to be careful because he was not finished with his development. I have lost many games grabbing poison pawns before completing my development only to lose a piece or more in return.

My opponent captured the pawn. I looked at a tactical continuation that held onto the initiative and noticed his queen's knight was undefended.

My plan was to try and string together threats.

I had pondered one line where I would sacrifice my dark square bishop for a huge attack. I noticed that the main defender of his kingside, the king’s knight, was gone. My opponent had created a hook on h6 for me to bite into in order to begin my attack. Being down a pawn already, I was having racing thoughts.

These racing thoughts are ghosts that plague chess players in tense moments.

The simple 15. Bd5 was a fork.

I had not yet emotionally recovered from a perceived material loss with no compensation. It is common for players to get stuck in a panic after the shock of an unexpected blunder.

I tunnel visioned the first idea that I saw. I needed justification for the pawn I had lost, and in my naivety I missed the simple fork.

Nevertheless, my opponent blundered again!

Perhaps fatigue was getting the better of both of us. I triple checked that I wasn’t getting checkmated by force, and then I captured his knight.

I could see the light leave my opponent’s face. I knew I was better, and probably winning.

At this point, I simply needed to convert. I dropped my queen out of the enemy camp and built a battery with my bishop. I had thought perhaps my opponent would trade queens, because the other defensive options were either risky or flat out losing.My opponent gave me a taste of my own medicine when he too went on the attack.

I could see his idea. If I capture his bishop with my g pawn my knight is no longer defended. He would capture my knight with his queen and my king would be left open.

I hadn’t calculated concretely enough to realize this wouldn't have worked out in his favor.

I was once again pressured by the ghosts into thinking that if I accepted his bishop, I was going to get perpetually checked.

I saw a continuation that would make my pieces more active and opened up the d file for one of my rooks. I also made a mental note to deal with the dark square bishop protecting the d1 square.

The continuation went as I had planned, and I won his piece back with my queen.

The d file was open and I noticed black’s king only had one escape route; the light squares attempting to cross over the d file. I could re-activate my bishop connecting my two rooks and force checkmate!

My opponent had given me carte blanche to convert into a winning endgame.

I can see in retrospect the most simple continuation was to capture his bishop first with my knight then proceed with the conversion.

I rushed with a silly checkmating attack because I had not seen the defensive utility of his dark square bishop.

I was blinded by a different ghost this time. I was riding a high of winning the tournament with a perfect 4/4.

My “forced checkmate” was blocked. Plus both my queen and my light square bishop were en prise.

I dropped my queen back. He attacked it once more and I began to panic. I realize this is objectively unsound, but 6.5 hours into playing for the day my emotions continued getting the better of me.

I was seeing flashes of rook sacrifices on the h file for forced checkmate. I was particularly afraid of the queen and rook doubling, plus the pinned dark square bishop was adding another attacking resource to my weakened dark squares.

At this point I was 10 mins behind on the clock, and I was sweating. I was up a piece with a simple conversion only a few moves ago! I reckoned I could sacrifice the exchange to move my queen into the action with check, and if he had decided to trade queens, I would be better in the endgame with 2 minor pieces and a rook vs the two rooks.

Or so I thought...

In my panic, I had forgotten about all those pawns my opponent had nabbed. Two pawns is often enough to justify an exchange sacrifice. Three pawns is often better for the side winning the pawns, but I did not stop to consider these things.

With the clock ticking down, I went for the liquidating line. When the dust settled, I looked at the board and thought “I'm worse”.

My opponent had so many extra pawns that my bishop was biting on granite. His pawns were storming down the board while he was about to double on the h file and win one of my minor pieces.

The only way I could’ve saved a draw was to win at least two pawns, and even then I’d be lucky.

I activated my king and my opponent didn’t double his rooks. Before my opponent played his 35th move he looked up from the board and asked “want a draw”?

I continued to think for 3 more minutes and recalled some of my past experiences. There were at least half a dozen games where I was equal and was offered a draw. Out of stubbornness I often turned the draw down only to lose quickly after. I am glad I decided to accept this time.

My last round opponent and I were the only two players with 3.5/4, but I took first due to tiebreaks.

While I am glad I did well in last weekend's tournament, I can’t help but reflect on the emotional battles I fought through during my games, with the final game being the most challenging of all.

I have work to do overcoming these challenges for the tournaments to come. Hopefully you all can conquer your own emotional ghosts as well, not only during games of chess, but whenever these phantoms cloud your better judgement. Happy studying!

If you enjoyed this article, don't forget to leave a like! Feel free to comment about a time you had a difficult game and struggled with seeing ghosts.