Mindsets: Offense is the Best Defense

This installment introduces a new mindset when making strategies or playing as an individual. The concept requires one to remove their prior belief that by starting off with the ‘Leet Krew’ model or the ‘SAS’ model means we are in the offensive or defensive team. Prepare to charge up your flame throwers and your arsenals of insults for what you are about to read…

Offense is the best defense

As cliché as that may be, it makes sense in every aspect of gaming as well as in anything else. In business, when facing a possible hostile takeover from a dramatic increase in shares being bought by a specific entity, companies will often use a strategy known as a ‘poison pill’ to counter-attack the takeover. Likewise, in a game of chess, a ‘Defensive’ strategy shouldn’t really be called that. For those who remember from my previous article, or who those who have actually challenged me to a game of chess since the first installment, I am a Sicilian Defense player. But, if I ever had the authority to rename this style of play I would definitely call it the ‘Sicilian Aggressive-Defense’. By moving my pawn c5 and then using a variation of this such as the Dragon, Najdorf or Moscow, I am in fact fighting for center board and attacking instead of defending from attacks.

Out of my many years competing in chess within my home town in Hong Kong as well as international competitions hosted in places such as Singapore, China and Japan, I have played against some of the future talents that could very well be the next world champion. Out of all these competitors I have played, some defeat me because they simply outsmart me and think far beyond my reach, but even so, I’ve often kept my game and was able to tie a few board before losing. Other times, I lose due to lack of concentration on a bad day where my thoughts are clouded by the heavy fog of trying to remember the name of the girl from last night, along with the aftereffects of alcohol and sleep deprivation. Even in those occasions I often win or tie a board or two before losing. But never have I been mocked and embarrassed as badly as one event in my hometown Hong Kong. I lost three straight boards,  checkmated in all three games. People watched in astonishment as the potential gold medalist team’s second seat player lost game after game after game to a bench warmer.

Let me start with a little story telling…

It was another hot, humid day in Hong Kong and I was at the competition with the rest of my team early to warm up (yes, even chess players need to warm up their brains before playing). We were seeded #2 due to previous wins at other competition. For our first game, we were to play a somewhat mediocre competitor that had never really won a competition before. The team strategy we were using was to place the best player as third board to ensure a win, second seat (me) to continue to play second seat hoping that they put a weak player near the top seats as to save their fire power near the bottom seats. Before it started, I had a chat with the captain of the other team who once was the third seat of our club and he had told me that I would be having an easy win on second seat against their substitute. Happy as I may have been, I knew I couldn't take anything too lightly.

The referees came, and we took our seats and shook hands with our opponents. The guy I was about to play had hair down to his chin and had a weak hand shake. After winning the coin toss, I chose the black pieces to start second. The game started, and my opponent did a traditional French Opening. I followed with a Sicilian Defense follower by a Sicilian Moscow variation. After a few very early and unexpected exchanges, I was ahead on pieces and sitting comfortably with almost a minute more in time than he had on the clock. I was thinking about five moves ahead and was just waiting for a chance to fake a right board attack before I reversed the knights to pin his pieces near center board. In a game of advanced chess, if you’re ahead on pieces it probably will lead you to a win. Four moves later, my opponent shouted ‘Checkmate!’ a bit too loudly. My teammate stopped a second and stared at me; I turned around and stared back. Then I stared at the chess board before I turned again and stared back at my teammate. The referee confirmed it to be a legitimate win and my opponent was already setting up his pieces for another round.

Psychologically wrecked (psychology will be discussed in later installments), I had no clue what had happened. The other rounds that followed weren’t worth mentioning. I was psychologically exhausted and had already lost the match after the first round. The rest of my team won their matches and at the end of the tournament we had won the gold cup.

That night, I went home and analyzed this game. What I found out then was this: If I had played him years before the tournament, when I had just picked up the game of chess, I would have almost definitely won. What I had done was overestimate him (discussion of this mindset in future installments), and on top of that he was the most aggressive player I had ever seen. He did not care about his pieces; he only had one goal in his mind: to attack. By constantly bombarding me and putting me on the edge, he had made me totally unaware of his end goals, and more focused on defending myself. What I should have done was kept attacking and utilize the advantage I had gained. In other words, offense was the best defense at that time, and as we shall see, also in many other times.