Tuesday, 19 November 2024

Lessons From Altea III: Ratingitis

AFTER taking a half-point bye in round three of the Cap Negret 65+ seniors, the following position was reached in my round-four game:
Black has just played 29...Bf6-e7!?
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US Fide master James Schuyler wrote the thought-provoking book, Your Opponent Is Overrated (Everyman, 2016).
Part of his thesis was that it is wrong to show too much respect for the player sitting opposite.
"We have a fallible opponent. He is messing up every game," Schuyler explained in the book's introduction.
"Even when he stumbles upon the right moves, it's often for the wrong reasons. I'd even go so far as to say he's overrated."
But there are two sides to this coin, and it is just as easy to fail to show your opponent enough respect.
In my round-four game Black had been under the cosh for much of the game, with Stockfish17 and Dragon1 reckoning White has a winning advantage in the diagram.
Furthermore, my ratings, Fide and ECF, were a fair bit higher than my opponent's, so I had few qualms about snaffling the e5 pawn with 30.Rxe5?! Rxe5 31.Nxe5, when White has won a pawn and threatens a devastating capture on f7.
What I missed is that after 31...Qf6 Black has protected f7 and is attacking both the undefended h4 pawn and the undefended knight.
True, I maintained an advantage with 32.Rd5!, but the advantage was much less than it would have been had I played the engines' suggestions of 30.Kg2 or 30.R1d3.
There can be little doubt that against a stronger opponent I would not have been so quick to dismiss 29...Be7!? as a mistake.
LESSON: arrogance in chess is as much a sin as undue deference.

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