McCreadyandChess

A voracious soul in my youth, I read anything and everything whether I was sitting, standing, squatting, lying down, kneeling, on a bus, on a train, or even -wait for it- in class!!! Exhausting local libraries of their chess resources was once one of my hobbies, even though in years of schooling reading never seemed to have any real purpose or hold any interest. One of my favourite books back in the 80’s was, the late and sadly missed, Simon Webb’s Chess for Tigers.

It was he who first taught me the value of self-reflection in chess, and the importance of knowing your own strengths and weaknesses. He also introduced me to an important, though now possibly anachronistic, dichotomy in chess; that of playing the man and playing the board. What did he mean by such terms? Playing the man involves a more subjective interpretation of what to play, based on what your opponent is more likely to struggle with. Lasker was very good at this, and knew how to prey upon his opponents weaknesses. Playing the board is a more objective account of what to play, consisting of forming plans that the position itself dictates. If your position has a weakness, someone who plays the board may decide that the best move on the board dictates that it be defended, even though he may believe that his opponent is unlikely to attack it, for stylistic reasons -perhaps he is a veteran and plays conservatively. Similarly, if your opponent has a weakness in his position, someone who plays the man may chose to concentrate on it knowing that his opponent cracks under pressure easily, but also knowing that it isn’t the soundest continuation. Kasparov claims to have won several crucial games against Karpov by choosing a line which involved an active continuation, knowing that Karpov’s positional style would cause him to choose an inferior alternative.

It’s been over 20 years since Chess for Tigers was published and chess has changed much since then. Nakamura’s confessions at the recent London Chess Classic got me thinking about whether such a fundamental distinction can co-exist with the rampant pragmatism that not only characterizes but entirely dominates top-flight chess nowadays. During his interviews with the commentary team, it transpired that on two occasions earlier this year, Nakamura had seen the final position of his next game during his preparation for it. In such circumstances, its worth asking whether the option of playing the man is sometimes eliminated altogether in top GM play or whether it is somehow factored into pre-match analysis. Given that opponents are so more easily known these days, it is likely that playing the man has been subsumed into a tripartite approach involving man, board and machine; the dynamics of which are kept under password and key, consigned to internet folklore at best.

R.I.P Simon Webb.

MJM