Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I – Objective Invisibility Chapter 1 – Hard-to-see moves A – Quiet moves
B – Intermediate moves The desperado
C – Alignment
D – Forgetting the rules
E – Quiet positions
Chapter 2 – Geometrically invisible moves A – Horizontal effect
B – Circuit Rook circuit
Bishop circuit
Queen circuit
C – Changing wings
D – Backward moves
E – Backward knight moves
F – Pin and self-pin
G — Geometrical moves
Part II – Subjective Invisibility Chapter 3 – Invisible moves for positional reasons A – Pawn structures
B – Weakening of the king’s defences
C – Unexpected exchanges
D – Unusual position of a piece
E – Anti-developing moves
F – Residual image
Chapter 4 – Invisible moves for psychological reasons A – Anticipation of the probable result
B – Blunders in World Championship matches
C – Forward moves in defence
D – Backward attacking moves
Test
Test solutions
Explanation of Symbols
Invisible Chess Moves
WINNER of the ChessCafe Book of the Year Award
“An excellent book that offers rare insights into unknown chess territory.”
Europa Rochade Magazine
“Highlights the limitations of the human mind and categorizes the typical sources of mistakes like missing diagonal backward queen moves. It has many beautiful examples with really amazing points. A real gem!”
Karsten Müller, author of ‘Bobby Fischer: The Career and Complete Games’
“An outstanding book.”
Lubomir Kavalek, The Huffington Post
“An entertaining and instructive book on an aspect of tactics that is not usually covered.”
Joe Petrolito, Australasian Chess Magazine
“The many training exercises make ‘Invisible Chess Moves’ a tactics training book and, what’s more, numerous games convey the beauty of chess.”
KARL Magazine
“Why is a certain move an ‘invisible chess move’? It can be for all sorts of reasons. I don’t know that it is all based on scientific research, but based on my experience I can understand very well what they mean.”
Richard Vedder, Schakers.info
“An interesting publication, quite different from standard books on combinations.”
Max Euwe Centre, Amsterdam
“In fact, this book is about the price you pay for thinking like a machine, for thoughtlessly following some general rules. Time and again it turns out that sticking to rules of thumb leads to chances missed.”
Hans Böhm, De Telegraaf
“A thoroughly delightful book, full of incredible examples that remind us how challenging chess can be.”
Steve Goldberg, ChessCafe
“It’s great to know about the types of ‘blind spots’ that occur in chess from time to time.”
Arne Moll, ChessVibes
“Exercises in the course of each chapter and an extensive test at the end of the book give the reader the opportunity to engage in an organized way with difficult-to-find moves, so one can get familiar with the instruction material.”
German Correspondence Chess Association
“There are lots and lots of games, extracts and exercises all devoted to why we miss moves.”
Ian Marks, ChessSchotland
“It turns out there are interesting cerebral reasons for overlooking winning moves, like certain geometrical patterns and the aversion to backward moves (..) A unique book.”
B.H.Wilders, Nederlands Dagblad
“The authors deserve the highest praise for the idea behind this book. Something quite original, and I enjoyed it enormously.”
Luc Winants, former Belgian Chess Champion
“An interesting attempt to cover new ground (..) All competitors should call here.”
British Chess Magazine
“A thoroughly original and entertaining argument about why chess players overlook simple wins (..) Through a series of tests Neiman and Afek ensure the reader gets the message even more forcefully.”
Cecil Rosner, Winnipeg Free Press
Yochanan Afek & Emmanuel Neiman
Invisible Chess Moves
Discover Your Blind Spots and
Stop Overlooking Simple Wins
Second Edition New In Chess 2012
Q New In Chess
First edition June 2011
Second edition April 2012
Translated and expanded from Les coups invisibles aux echecs (Afek & Neiman, Payot 2009) by Emmanuel Neiman
Published by New In Chess, Alkmaar, The Netherlands
www.newinchess.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher.
Cover design: Volken Beck
Supervisor: Peter Boel
Proofreading: René Olthof
Production: Anton Schermer
Have you found any errors in this book?
Please send your remarks to [email protected]. We will collect all relevant corrections on the Errata page of our website www.newinchess.com and implement them in a possible next edition.
ISBN: 978-90-5691-368-7
Introduction
While the strength of top chess players has grown significantly, they still often miss apparently simple moves. How can it be that players who are capable of calculating ten moves ahead for hours on end, fail to see a one-move win? More remarkably, in many cases both players make these oversights. Of course, it is always possible for a high-level player to make an elementary mistake. But normally speaking the probability of double blindness should be very slight.
Nowadays (in 2011), players calculate like machines, since they are used to working with powerful computer programs. Most of them work directly on a computer, thinking up their moves on a virtual board while keeping a small part of the screen open for a strong program that calculates and evaluates the positions. When a move that is natural for the human analyst is not taken into account by the computer, in most cases the reason will be that some tactic has escaped the attention of the human player. Before checking this with the computer, any ambitious player will check the line for himself. Most of the time he will find the hidden trick and thus make significant progress in tactics. So, a player who keeps training in the old-fashioned way, with a real board, nice wooden pieces, and just books and bulletins, will be confronted with tactically nearly invincible opponents and will have to adapt to a playing level that is considerably stronger than it was in the 1980s, before the age of the computer.
The present book deals with positions where a simple move is missed – often by both players. Our hypothesis is as follows: in chess, certain moves are harder to spot for a human being than other moves. For a beginning human player, clearly knight moves are more difficult to envisage than rook moves. With the rook, forward moves are easier and more natural than backward ones, and horizontal moves are frequently missed.
The chess geometry and the handling of each specific chess piece are difficult for the beginner, but they are no secret for the experienced player. Nevertheless, even grandmasters miss a backward rook move more often than a forward move, and for them, too, horizontal moves are harder to find than vertical moves (see Chapter 2
, ‘Geometrical invisibility’).
Also, a lot of elements in the games of experienced players are mechanical. In the opening: develop quickly and castle. In the middlegame: be careful with unprotected pieces. In the endgame: centralize the king. The quality of a player can be established by the number of such integrated principles that he knows. The stronger the player, the better he will be able to break such automatic rules if that is necessary. Professional players are always ready to take exceptions and paradoxical moves into account. Even so, in this book we will see many examples of missed opportunities, where such ‘illogical’ moves are not taken into account (Chapter 3, ‘Technical invisibility’).
Another difficulty lies in the psychological aspect of the contest. Sometimes a player may focus on the probable result of the game. According to his state of mind, he will expect to win, draw, or even lose, for example against a superior opponent. In such situations, moves that question the ‘normal’ result will be overlooked, even when they are elementary; they are ‘repressed’, like in Freudian theories about the unconscious. Here technical factors are overpowered by psychological factors. They may depend on the evolution of the actual game, earlier confrontations between the two protagonists, their status, titles, ratings etc. Such psychological cases of blindness are frequently reinforced by technical or geometrical difficulties; then a hard-to-find move will become an invisible one due to certain stressful circumstances (Chapter 4, ‘Psychological invisibility’).
Obviously, other objective factors can explain mistakes, such as, especially, a lack of time to think That is why we generally try to avoid showing mistakes from rapid, simultaneous and blindfold games as well as Zeitnot mistakes. We want to focus on games where both opponents had enough time to make a responsible decision.
The present book is organized as a treatise, but for each diagram the question is the same: What is the best move for White/Black?, and we can assume that probably the player was not able to find it in the actual game. For a good understanding of our theme, it is necessary to look for the right move for a certain amount of time–the same amount you would use in order to make a decision during a normal game. So before looking for the solution, try and discover the right move that Kasparov, Karpov, Kramnik, Anand, Topalov or Carlsen wasn’t able to find. Only then will you be able to figure out how ‘obvious’ it was.
Let’s look at some examples in order to specify what we mean – and what we don’t mean! – by an ‘invisible move’.
Question 1:
What is the difference between an invisible move and a blunder?
A blunder is a big mistake, like leaving the queen en prise in one move.
Petrosian,Tigran
Bronstein,David
Amsterdam ct 1956 (2)
A well-known example is this game where the Armenian player, in an advantageous position, did not consider the threat concealed by his opponent’s last move.
After
36. … Nd4-f5
Petrosian played the cool
37. Ne4-g5
and resigned after
37. … Nf5xd6
Instead, 37.Qc7 would have given White a decisive positional advantage.
This kind of mistake is called a ‘blunder’. There’s nothing much to say about it – it happens at all levels. Such blunders are frequently decisive for the result of the game, while invisible moves are frequently the result of a double blindness, and generally do not affect the final result.
Comp Deep Fritz 10
Kramnik,Vladimir
Bonn m 2006 (2)
Moments of distraction can happen to even the very best players. A more recent example is shown here. In this game, after a good opening Kramnik was constantly striving for the advantage. Black continues to press, forgetting that his opponent is threatening mate in one.
34. … Qa7-e3
After 34…Kg8 White would have had to save half a point by giving perpetual check after 35.Ng6 Qe3 36.Qd5+ Kh7 37.Nf8+ Kh8 38.Ng6+=.
35. Qe4-h7#
Still we can draw some conclusions from these two games: in both of them, the author of the blunder had been dominating throughout the game, and forgot to consider the first real threat of his opponent. Such blunders are not much unlike the positions we give in Chapter 4 (‘Psychological invisibility’), but their main characteristic is that they result from a kind of mental disconnection in a player, and the opponent will quickly seize the opportunity to take immediate advantage of it. We won’t be dealing further with this type of move, since there is nothing invisible about it.
The following game may be interpreted differently, even if the result and the way in which it is reached are apparently similar. Here the position is extremely complex, with both kings in danger of being mated. You need a certain amount of time to understand what happens, to establish the material balance and the various threats from the adversary’s forces.
Only one move wins for White, and it is very difficult to find. Another move loses immediately, but it is much more natural – precisely the move Züger played.
Züger,Beat
Landenbergue,Claude
Chiasso ch-SUI 1991 (9)
1. Qe5xg3?? Qh2-h1#
The winning line was difficult to calculate, and even more difficult to imagine. It begins with 1.Rg7+! Bxg7 1…Kh8 2.Rxg5+ Kh7 3.Qe7+ and mate. 2.Qxg7+!! Kxg7 3.Bxf8+ Kxf8 4.Nxh3.
Analysis diagram
We have reached a strange position where the black queen is trapped while the black knight cannot move without allowing Nf3, winning the queen. The game will now be a race between the black king and the white pawns, all other forces being occupied in the southeast corner of the board. 4…Nxh3 would threaten mate but 5.Nf3 defends… and wins the queen!
4…Ke7!? And now the simplest solution is 5.Nf3 Nxf3 5…Qxh3 6.Bxh3 Nxh3 may be stronger, but the knight ending is completely lost. 6.exf3
The lone black king will find it impossible to deal with all of White’s passed pawns.
In this case also, White was mated in one in a winning position. Yet the invisible character of the winning move is more pronounced here, because it is difficult to see that after the capture on g3 White is mated (see Chapter 2 on the pin). The element that gives this mate its invisible character is the double pin on White’s minor pieces that protect the h1-square.
In this book, we will look for several reasons that can explain why a strong player like Alger can be mated in one in a winning position, which does not happen so often to an international master!
Question 2:
What is the difference between an invisible move and a mistake?
Mistakes are part of the game. Among very strong players, they are frequently the result of a momentary incapacity to concentrate. Isolated errors or omissions do not interest us. They are frequent and depend mainly on the level of the players and the complexity of the position.
Here we show such a mistake, which pertains to the omission of a very visible candidate move.
Leko,Peter
Bareev,Evgeny
Elista 2007 (2)
Black is attacking with an impressive concentration of forces on the kingside, and misses a quite natural win.
The game continued 28…g5 29.Ng4 Bd6 30.g3 Nh5 31.Ne3 Bxg3 32.fxg3 Rxf1+ 33.Nxf1 Rd1 34.Re3 1-0 Leko-Bareev, Elista 2007.
28. … Nf6-e4!
29. Re2xe4
If 29.Ng4 Black makes use of the pin by 29…Ng3! 30.Ree1 and now the simple 30…Rd2−+ with multiple threats: 31.Bc1 Ne2+ 32.Kh1 Qxh2+ 33.Kxh2 Nxc1 34.Rxc1 Rxa2 or the more sophisticated 30…Bd6!? 31.fxg3 Bxg3 32.Qh1 Qc5+ 33.Re3 Rd3−+ (not 33…Rxf1+ 34.Kxf1 Rd1+ 35.Ke2 Rxh1 36.Nf6+ with a mess) is crushing.
29. … Rf5xf2
And wins (30.Rxf2 Rd1+ and mate).
Analysis diagram
Such a missed opportunity simply demonstrates that one of the two players was not at his best in the game at hand, which does not belong to our theme.
We also exclude mistakes like those made in the calculation of long
variations, caused by the difficulty of the position and/or tiredness after a long and hard-fought game, like in the following excerpt.
Gelfand,Boris
Shirov,Alexey
Bazna 2009 (9)
Some moves require deep and accurate calculation. In this position Gelfand preferred to play an endgame two pawns up, rather than sacrifice four and win:
58. f4-f5!
58.a4 was tried in the game but led to a draw after 58…Bxa4 58.f5.
58. … e6xf5
58 gxf5 59 h5+−
59. e5-e6 Bb3xe6
59 fxe6 60 Kxg6+−
60. h4-h5 g6xh5
61. g5-g6 f7xg6
62. Kf6xe6
The promotion square is located in the ‘bad’ corner, but White wins by denying the black king access to the drawing zone.
Gelfand told us that he had seen the whole line, but had mentally ‘misplaced’ the bishop. On this subject of blunders and chess blindness, several high-quality works have already been published. We’d like to mention the excellent Blunders and Brilliancies by Moe Moss and Ian Mullen, a remarkable collection of missed opportunities, also very valuable for training purposes at club level.
62. … Ke8-d8
63. Ke6-d5 Kd8-d7
64. a3-a4 Kd7-c8
65. Kd5-c6 1-0
Other errors are more relevant for our book because they rely on the application of a general rule. Many players repeat such faulty applications of rules.
Vyzhmanavin,Alexey
Lerner,Konstantin
Lvov ch-URS 1984 (11)
This is a clear draw due to the position of the black king, which is too far away to assist the passed pawn. White logically approached the pawn with the intention of capturing it quickly, but in so doing he forgot about a classical trick.
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