When You're Winning, It's a Whole Different Game

When you lose your fear of a rating, you can become that rating.



One of the most common problems beginning chess players have is 

that they do not know how to win when they are “up” a large amount 

of material. By this is meant that they are ahead at least the exchange 

(rook for bishop or knight) or more, and their opponent has no 

compensation. Even when they are ahead a full piece (bishop or 

knight), they often still do not understand how to capitalize on such a 

large advantage and give it all away.

Very few chess books contain much information on how to win when 

you are up a piece. That is because it is supposed to be “easy” and 

“common sense”, but unfortunately many players have never been 

taught this common sense, and therefore they draw or even lose what 

should be easily won positions. Moreover, when strong players fall 

clearly way behind against other strong players, they almost always 

resign since they know their strong opponents inevitable will win. 

However, weaker players spend a fairly high percentage of their  games 

trying to win won positions, so knowing the “technique” of how to 

play such positions is important.

1. Think defense first!
This does NOT mean play passively or not to consider offense. I also 

believe that “think defense first” does not mean the same as “play 

defensively”.

“Think defense first” simply means that the more you are ahead, the 

more likely it is that any reasonable plan of yours will win so long as 

you do not let your opponent win back material or generate an 

enormous attack. Therefore, HIS moves become MORE 

IMPORTANT than yours!

The further ahead you are, the less important your attack is and the 

more important your opponent’s threats become. Looking for which 

checks, captures, and threats he has is more critical than looking for 

the ones you have. So long as you do anything reasonable you can 

always win later with your superior force, but if you give that force 

away carelessly, you no longer have the superiority with which to win. 

Therefore, immediately after your opponent moves, take the time to 

ask yourself those questions you should always ask anyway:

a) Is his moved piece safe?
b) Why did he make that move?
c) What can he do to me now that he could not do to me before? 

(And what can he not do? For example, his moved piece may no 

longer be guarding something)

d) What checks, captures, and threats does he have next move if I 

don’t stop them? In other words, say to yourself, “Suppose I pass 

and make no move. If I were he, after that pass what move would I 

make next?”

Any candidate move you select which does not meet your opponent’s 

threats should likely be discarded.

2. Avoid The Seeds of Tactical Destruction

The Seeds of Tactical Destruction are piece patterns (discussed in

detail in a prior Novice Nook column) that lend themselves to a tactic

for the opponent, such as:

a) Loose, unguarded pieces (LPDO: Loose Pieces Drop Off),

b) Pieces on the same file, rank, and diagonal that are pinnable or skewerable,

c) A weak back rank or weak squares around the king with the queens on the board,

d) Pieces that can be forked by pawns or knights,

e) Under-protected pieces,

f) Overworked pieces that can be subject to the “removal of the guard” tactic, etc.

3. Get every piece into the game fast!

What good is being up a piece if your material superiority is not being used? I would like to have a nickel for every time a student was up a piece, but started attacking in such a way that his opponent’s pieces outnumbered his in the attacking area and the student ended up losing material. One good guideline is “Don’t start an attack until your entire army is ready” and another is “Don’t attack in an area where you don’t have superiority.” Think of being ahead material like coaching a hockey team on a power play. Would your correct strategy be to sit some of your players on the ice until the other team is back to full strength? That is how silly you look (in a strong player’s eyes) if you are up material but don’t develop your pieces to make use of your superior force. So just get all your pieces into the game every time and don’t hesitate or fool around before doing so. For example, if you win a queen for a piece early in the game, don’t use your queen to go around the board winning a pawn here or there! That is penny wise and pound foolish. You are already ahead enough

material to win easily, and winning more material is not only not necessary, but often loses tempos that enable your opponent to generate an attack. Instead, get all the other pieces helping the queen and your material superiority should soon prove quite decisive.

4. Avoid complications.

Don’t do anything fancy or clever. Keep it simple! You almostundoubtedly don’t need complications to win.

When Steinitz said, “If you have the advantage, you must attack” he was not referring to positions where you are up a piece or more! He was trying to say that if you have an advantage in space or time, you

must use that advantage to keep the initiative by being aggressive. But if you are way ahead in material, then your extra material will eventually guarantee that you can apply superior force to an opponent’s position, so being overly aggressive can actually backfire. Look at it this way: complications make it more likely for a human to make a mistake. Who has more to lose, the player who is winning, or the player who is losing? Of course, the player who is winning has more to lose from mistakes (or time trouble or whatever), so the player

with a large advantage should be striving for positions where big mistakes are harder to make. Contrarily, a player down considerable material is likely lost anyway, so he has nothing to lose and a lot to gain by creating complications where a big mistake is likely. As an example, suppose you are up a piece and your opponent attacks an unguarded bishop with a knight. Then the WORST thing you can do is counterattack one of his pieces, thus creating complications. Your opponent might be able to move his attacked piece and attack

another one of yours and then you would have two pieces attacked, and might have to lose all of your advantage! But if you just move the attacked piece to a safe square (preferably one where it is also guarded), that is usually much simpler and less likely to lead to the loss of your advantage.