Excuses
I played rather a bad game on Monday. My first instinct, I'm afraid, is to look for excuses: I had a cold, the room was too hot, the ceiling was leaking... it's a bit pathetic, really.
As someone once said, "I have never had the satisfaction of beating a completely healthy opponent". (Google mostly seems to think that it was Amos Burn, but these things have a life of their own. Until I see Edward Winter confirming this, I regard it as unproven...)
The thing is, it's very nice to tell yourself that when you play badly that it's somehow 'not really you'; influences beyond your control stopped you from playing as well as you could have done. But this goes nowhere: even in the unlikely event that it's true, the conclusion should be that playing chess in anything other than peak health and perfect conditions is a mistake. The chess clubs wouldn't see much activity if we all believed that.
On the other hand, I do feel the need to explain my defeats to myself; and I'm not entirely satisfied with a purely chessy explanation along the lines of: "you should never have taken that pawn on e4, and Qxa2 was a horrible blunder". I'm a bit happier with "well, you misevaluated the position at move 13, and failed to double check the tactics later on". But still... why? On another day, you wouldn't have made those errors. Ah, but, that particular day I had a bad cold coming on...
As someone once said, "I have never had the satisfaction of beating a completely healthy opponent". (Google mostly seems to think that it was Amos Burn, but these things have a life of their own. Until I see Edward Winter confirming this, I regard it as unproven...)
The thing is, it's very nice to tell yourself that when you play badly that it's somehow 'not really you'; influences beyond your control stopped you from playing as well as you could have done. But this goes nowhere: even in the unlikely event that it's true, the conclusion should be that playing chess in anything other than peak health and perfect conditions is a mistake. The chess clubs wouldn't see much activity if we all believed that.
On the other hand, I do feel the need to explain my defeats to myself; and I'm not entirely satisfied with a purely chessy explanation along the lines of: "you should never have taken that pawn on e4, and Qxa2 was a horrible blunder". I'm a bit happier with "well, you misevaluated the position at move 13, and failed to double check the tactics later on". But still... why? On another day, you wouldn't have made those errors. Ah, but, that particular day I had a bad cold coming on...
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