Are You Striving To Win Or To Not Lose?

I KNOW fairly well two players, who for the purposes of this post I will call Alan and Ray.

Both compete in congresses in Britain and abroad, and are roughly equally strong.

Alan currently has the higher Fide rating, but Ray has the better English Chess Federation rating.

Despite their approximate parity in playing strength, their tournament performances are very different.

Alan, as far as I am aware, virtually never wins a tournament, and rarely gets a rating prize, but then again he almost never has a stinker of a tournament.

Ray quite often wins prizes, either by topping a tournament or winning a rating category in an open event, but he also sometimes has a dreadful performance hundreds of points below his rating.

Alan usually opens 1.d4, and used to primarily play the London System, but also plays exchange variations of the QGD and the Slav.

As Black his main defence to 1.e4 and 1.d4, according to ChessBase's 2023 Mega database, has been 1...d6, which tends to avoid early tactical clashes of the pieces.

Alan seems happy to take a draw, especially against higher-rated opponents, even when there is lots of play left in a position.

The same database shows Ray exclusively opens 1.e4, generally preferring aggressive continuations, including the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit against the Scandinavian (1.e4 d5 2.d4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3), the Ponziani and 3.Nc3 or 3.e5 against the French.

Against 1.d4 he plays the Albin Countergambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5)  if allowed, or the Liberated Bishop if not (1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Bf5).

Against 1.e4 Ray has often played the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon, but has also played other Sicilian variations and the Scandinavian.

In my experience he almost never takes an early draw, insisting on playing out a game until the outcome is definitely decided.

I was reminded of these two approaches after friends at two recent tournaments, where I gained quite a few rating points, came up to me and said words to the effect: "I don't want to demean your results, but I wish my opponents made the sort of mistakes yours do, especially in the opening."

When this was first said to me, I did not know how to reply, but thinking about it afterwards I realised there are good reasons why I sometimes get 'lucky'.*

I generally play aggressively, and I try a wide variety of opening systems, which means both players are often on their own resources and under pressure from an early stage.

I also virtually never agree an early draw, even against higher rated players (not that many of them offer early draws), playing on until a position has been exhausted.

This can rebound on me, my round-eight game at Olomouc last week being a good example.

I suppose in an ideal world we would all combine the best of Alan with the best of Ray, and be solidly aggressive, or perhaps that should be aggressively solid.

Arguably, that describes Magnus's style.

The world No1 is known for being both solid and aggressive, and for playing out games to the bitter end.

He also has a wide opening repertoire, and I like to think in that respect I am a third of the way to becoming a new Magnus.

Then again I like to think a lot of things.

*You can learn more about improving your luck by reading David LeMoir's How To Be Lucky In Chess (Gambit 2001).