A Grandmaster's Thinking Model For Chess Defence
Discover how to defend better in your chess games
Introduction
The importance of defending well in chess is a pattern in the games of both my students and the best chess players in the world.
As the saying goes in team sports, 'Offence wins games, defence wins championships'. This hypothesis holds in chess, forging a universal connection between these seemingly disparate arenas.
The Different Types Of Chess Defence
It occurred to me recently that we can break down defence into three main aspects:
1. Countering The Opponent's Threats;
2. Countering The Opponent's Attack On The King;
3. Countering The Opponent's Ideas In General;
Let's consider how our approach may vary in these three instances.
How To Counter The Opponent's Threats
1A. First, we should assess the opponent's threat. Otherwise, we don't have much hope of defending against it.
1B. Next, we should check if the threat is real. If so, can we ignore it by making an equal or more substantial threat of our own?
1C. If we don't have a great counterattack, focus on the most active ways of defending against the opponent's threat. (For instance, if they attack our f6 knight with g4-g5, our first instinct should be ...Ne4 or ...Nd5, not ...Nd7 or ...Ng8.)
1D. If we don't have a great defence, play the continuation that makes the slightest concession and continue displaying a resilient mindset, not being discouraged by unfortunate events.
This simplifies part of a model Charles Hertan wrote for decision-making in chess.
How To Counter The Attack On Our King
2A. We're going to go a bit more 'old school' here and start by figuring out how effective the opponent's attack is to begin. We can determine this by assessing these four factors:
- Attacking Advantages (attackers vs. defenders);
- Weaknesses Around The King;
- Initiative (flow of threats);
- Space Advantage Around The King
Suppose the opponent only has one of these advantages. In that case, we can be confident in our ability to defend our king, using an 'economical' defence that prioritises using our least valuable pieces (as a pawn is a far more dispensable defender than a queen).
If we return to the previous position:
We see that White has a space advantage around the king, and can develop a temporary initiative with 10.Qh5. He also has three pieces already in the attack, but we saw that Black could minimize White's edge with accurate play. (Which means that we'd be better off building up our attack with 10.Nd2, to ultimately have more attackers than defenders when we do make our assault).
We must be very precise when they have two or more advantages. (Which is where our calculation techniques come in)
2B. Constantly look for ways to counterattack and take back the initiative.
If we always react passively to the opponent's threats, we will give concessions, and eventually, they may make a threat we can't stop (a snowball effect).
So, we should constantly look for ways to shift the game's trend by successfully ignoring the opponent's threat or forcing the opponent to react by exchanging off their most important attackers.
Here is a nice example of this from CT-ART:
2C. Eliminate bad options to make tough decisions easier. If you are trying to decide what you should play in a difficult position, using the 'elimination' method can help narrow your choices to 2-3.
You can also use the 'worst case' method to stop your calculation in positions where you are surviving to save time for more important decisions or variations.
How To Counter The Opponent's Ideas
3A. Much like before, we should look for the opponent's ideas (e.g. 'What was the idea of their previous move?' or 'What new options were opened up by their last move?') if we want a good chance of seeing it.
3B. Many players must be more fixated on immediately stopping the opponent's idea. Instead, we should consider whether it's effective in the first place—can we ignore it or prepare a more effective notion in response?
In the above example, Ba3 is indeed a pretty annoying threat, as we can confirm by pressing the 'X' button on our keyboard to pass the move over to White in Stockfish. To be fair, Black could meet 2.Ba3 with the counterattack 2...Qa5, but after 3.Bxc5 Qxc3 4.Rd1 Rf7 5.g4, White remains clearly better, with a very strong attack:
3C. If the opponent's idea is quite effective and can't be firmly ignored, we can start to think about 'prophylaxis'—finding a way to anticipate it that also improves our position. (This is a move we'd be happy to play anyway.)
A good example of this is 1...Rf7, where we anticipate the Ba3 pin by getting out of the way in advance. Rf7 is also a fairly useful move for defending our kingside in advance of White's rook lift.
3D. If we can't comfortably meet our opponent's idea, we should seek the most minor concession possible. We can also look for ways to change the position (e.g. an exchange, change in pawn structure or a sacrifice) to shift an unfavourable trend in the game.
An example of this would be the move 1...Bb5!, which ignores White's threat of Ba3, but creates some interesting ideas:
Summary - Have Your Say
This model comes automatically to me from continual practice. But for most others, it will take considerable training to master each of these tenets (though it helps that the approach for all 3 cases has many similarities).
What do you think about this model of defence? Is there anything you'd add to it? Did any of the points make a significant impression on you?
