Delighted to lose - Mate in few

You teach your students all tactics, give suggestions. You play games with them. You watch them trying to get better than you. You start playing a game with your 8 year old student. All of a sudden you watch him smile and tell you that you will be checkmated. You sigh and continue playing but get checkmated in few...

I encountered such a situation today in practice. I played this game today (my rating swings between 1400 - 1500 just FYI) with one of my students, 8 yr old. He said you lost the game, well I couldn't figure that even when he said that. Ha! Black to move, Mate in few (you figure that out....!).

I have few posers to you:

1) Try solving this problem - Black to move
2) Tell me the rating of this tactic (Don't tell me I shouldn't be rated around 1400 hahaha.....)
3) I guess I have to admit and accept that this student is beyond my skill. He is 8 yr old and has been growing very fast in chess. What should I do with him?

Nevertheless, it is delight to see him do tactics everyday. It is a delight to see him yell that he solved XYZ puzzle while he does that. That is all one thing but I was delighted to see him show his skills in a game to beat me to pulp and laugh at me. I couldn't help but smile back at him......

Blunders and silence.....

There are blunders, there are bad blunders, there are worse blunders and then there are absolute blunders. I am just kidding! Blunders are blunders no matter which piece you lose. It could be due to oversight, it could be due to lost focus.

 

It is one thing to make a blunder when you are down in pieces and position and another thing to make a blunder when you are up. See below photo. White is up nicely and just has to push his pawns down. No big deal. No resistance actually! Comfortable position. Instead, blunders to take f7 pawn.

 

 

 

A one off mistake, right? Anyone can make a blunder, even Grandmasters have made blunders. What if the same player does make another blunder like this in the same tournament. The player is rated ~ 1300 FYI. So, this is not a beginner making such blunders.

 

I often see players getting restless having worked too hard. It is appropriate for every player to peak right at the tournament. If the player peaks before the tournament, then we can just sigh off. Sometimes if the players peaks off few days before the tournament, and then pushes too hard before the tournament, such blunders do happen.

 

What do you do when you see such blunders repeating in practice games? And then tournament games? What do you do? The ideal thing is to take few days off (= silence), relax in life, after that keep practice to a minimum and then play lower rated players in tournaments to win confidence. When you gain confidence, step in. The bad mistake would be to continue to test yourself in tournament games when you continue such blunders. You will lose badly and then it will devastate your confidence.

 

When you make blunders, silence is all that is needed. There is time to work hard, then there is time for silence, in life!