Play through and download

the games from

ChessCafe.com in the
DGT Game Viewer.

Looking in a Mirror Doesn't Make you Uglier
By Derek Grimmell
Why We Lose at Chess, by Colin Crouch, Everyman Chess, 2010, Paperback,
Figurine Algebraic Notation, 192pp. $26.95 (ChessCafe Price: $20.95)
I don't know why so many outstanding chess authors come from the United
Kingdom. The climate is no worse than Russia's, the culture no stodgier than
the Scandinavian countries, the food no worse than, uh, well, hm. Perhaps it is
the food, at that. But whatever the reason, a large crop of tremendous chess
authors grace the British Isles, who have succeeded in making English (for
Pete's sake) the international language of chess.
Colin Crouch may not be the most brilliant among them, but he usually
deserves a close reading. His book Attacking Technique is a very instructive
and pleasant little book that will give the average player some valuable
pointers on attacking the enemy King. How to Defend in Chess is without
doubt the best book ever written on the topic. It ranks among that elite half-
dozen of books whose ideas and precepts migrated into my over-the-board
play instantly my ultimate test of excellence in any work.
His latest effort, Why We Lose at Chess, is a slim and rather quirky volume. It
is a games collection, with twenty-two of Crouch's selected games annotated
by the author. Nothing unusual there. However, unlike most such collections,
this one does not feature showpiece victories. Rather, these are twenty-two
games in which Crouch made many mistakes, and which he analyzed in an
effort to find and fix the causes of those mistakes. He groups his mistakes into
fifteen successive "tests" of four positions each, arranging them so that each
successive "test" occurs in a later stage of the game a novel idea, and one I
rather like, as a way to help the reader spot problems at successive stages of
the game. Let's look at an example.
White to play

[FEN "rnb2rk1/1p2qp1p/p2p2p1/2nP4/P2pPP2/
3B4/1P2NKPP/R1BQ3R w - - 0 1"]
Crouch presents the reader with this diagram and under it gives three choices:
A) 16.Nxd4
B) 16.Re1
C) Something else?
I encourage you to study this diagram for a couple of minutes. You will soon
realize that there is no tactical shot here, nor a positional breakthrough, a win,
a crush, an attack, or indeed anything interesting or enjoyable at all. Rather,
there is the chance to make some very plausible mistakes, losing an advantage
Purchases from our shop help
keep ChessCafe.com freely
accessible:

Modern Chess:
Move by Move
by Colin Crouch

How to Defend in Chess
by Colin Crouch

Chess Secrets:
Great Attackers
by Colin Crouch
patiently gained or acquiring some long-term problems that can make for a
very long and cheerless playing session. The pawn on d4 is hanging, but so is
White's on e4, and White's king is rather in the air after exchanging them. 16.
Qc2 guards e4 again, but 16Nxd3 17.Qxd3 f5 is worth pondering. 16.Re1
Nxe4+ 17.Bxe4 Qxe4 18.Qxd4 Qxd4 19.Nxd4 Nd7 and both d-pawns will
fall, leaving an even position. What is White to do?
This is only one of four positions taken from Crouch Peacock, a game that
is analyzed in its entirety through the four tests in which it appears. Naturally,
given Crouch's clever decision to make each test depict the situation at later
stages of the games, each position from Crouch-Peacock occurs in a different
test. Several other games make four separate appearances as well, while
others appear fewer times and a few only once. In each case, however, the
entire game is included in the book, with appropriate annotations. At the end
of the book Crouch gives overall summaries of each of the games sorted into
the following categories:
The very worst games
One-move shockers
Over-playing the opening
Simple tactical slips in the middlegame
Getting ground down
Messing up the endgame
The above diagram is from a game that Crouch uses to illustrate over-playing
the opening. The entire game does in fact illustrate that he played with dash
and lan, at least in spirit, while on the board he never had the slightest reason
to be so optimistic, and in fact gave his opponent every opportunity to play for
a win. Sometimes White just gains no advantage from the opening, and it's
important for the competitive player to recognize this. The game went on as
follows:
16.Nxd4? Nxe4+ 17.Bxe4 Qxe4 18.Nf3 Bg4

[FEN "rn3rk1/1p3p1p/p2p2p1/3P4/P3qPb1/
5N2/1P3KPP/R1BQ3R w - - 0 4"]
Crouch presents this diagram in a later test, and again gives us three choices:
19.Ra3
19.Ng5
19.Something else?
In analyzing the previous diagram, Crouch finds that 16.Re1! is the best
option. After 16...Nxe4+ 17.Bxe4 Qxe4, instead of 18.Qxd4, 18.Nc3! Qf5 19.
Qxd4, and White's centralized pieces and improved development confer an
advantage.
Crouch considers 16...Bg4 in response, but concludes that 17.Ra3 Nxe4+ 18.
Bxe4 Qxe4 19.Qxd4 Qxd4 20.Nxd4 again leaves White more actively placed,
about to double rooks and ahead in development. Black's best reply is 16...Qh4
+! 17.Kg1 Nxd3 18.g3 Nf2 19.gxh4 Nxd1 20.Rxd1 Bg4 21.Kf2 Nd7 22.Rxd4
f5.
The point is not that 16.Re1 wins, as the reader can see. The point is that this
choice puts the burden on Black to find the best reply, rather than leaving
White in arid positions or struggling for equality. His choice, 16.Nxe4, leaves
Black with nothing to prove and White a little uncoordinated after a natural
sequence of moves.
As I said, it's a quirky book, not really like any other I've seen. Yet it is based
on one of the oldest and soundest pieces of advice for the improving player:
analyze your own games. In that sense this book is really a piece of a strong
international player's personal notebooks. Most readers will already be aware
that Colin Crouch suffered a near-fatal stroke in 2004, which robbed him of
considerable mental speed and much of his eyesight. He has been determined
to regain as much playing strength as possible, and hopes to compete above
2400 ELO again. He relates how he gloomily expected to sink as low as 2000,
but has happily found his play has settled in around 2350. Yet, Crouch,
though partially disabled and no longer young, still has the competitive fire
that any international player needs.
So for an entire season, he kept track of his games, looking to isolate those
games that would illustrate his weaknesses. Most of his wins did not make the
list, although a few were lucky escapes that deserved closer attention. The
losses all deserved a thorough study. In the end he selected these twenty-two
games for his own purposes, to find and (as he hoped) eliminate his most
frequent and costly errors. For him to share his notebook with the general
public is a remarkable act. Yet it is also a model for any strong club player
who wants to improve further, on how to absorb each painful lesson
effectively, so that the lesson will not be repeated.
Among other things, Crouch is well aware that his mistakes tend to occur
around certain move numbers, something I had noted in my own play. For
years, I tended to lose games between moves eight and fifteen. It is a sign of
progress that I now lose games between moves fifteen and twenty-one. Self-
analysis leads to progress in many ways, one of which is by noting personal
struggles with certain phases of the game. Thus, in the old days I lost not
because of insufficient memorization, but because I did not understand
principles of effective piece development. Now I lose games because I don't
grasp correct principles of positional play. Every time I can push back my
"blunder horizon," another class of players enters the happy category of those
who blunder first.
Now, after reading this quirky but intriguing work, I have a much better
understanding of how to continue this process. Crouch has a much more fine-
tuned understanding of his weak spots than I ever will of mine. Thus, for me
to read this book is rather inspirational. Although I have not suffered a stroke,
the steadily receding nature of my birth year is subjecting me to similar
effects, such as reduced calculating speed and reduced energy. And I have
noticed an upsurge in tournament players who are middle-aged, having played
vigorously in their youths and then abandoned chess for careers, only to return
to their passion now that they have the luxury of time. This book is almost a
must-read for any player who returns to tournaments after a long layoff.
Confronting one's rusty play can be quite discouraging, but discovering ways
to remedy rust quickly is equally refreshing.
It pays to look in the mirror. Looking doesn't create the defects; it only
exposes them, so they can be removed. If you want a model of how to do this
yourself, from an author with great experience in the same difficult but
rewarding process, Crouch has written an invaluable guide.
Order Why We Lose at Chess
by Colin Crouch
Comment on this week's column via our Contact Page! Pertinent responses
will be posted below daily.
Readers' Responses
John from the UK - Hah! Amusing to see an American have a go at British
food.



[ChessCafe Home Page] [Book Review] [Columnists]
[Endgame Study] [The Skittles Room] [Archives]
[Links] [Online Bookstore] [About ChessCafe.com] [Contact Us]
2010 BrainGamz, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
"ChessCafe.com" is a registered trademark of BrainGamz, Inc.