Known knowns, and unknown unknowns

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Some players make a point of asking their opponent for their grade before a game. I take the opposite approach, preferring not to know. My theory is that one should aim to be objective on the board, and that any information outside of the game itself is not just extraneous, but distracting.

It's a theory that has all sorts of problems. For a start, chess is a small world; and chess in North London even smaller. So after two or three years with Barnet, it's pretty much impossible for me not to have some idea of how strong most of my opponents are: I know either the opponent or his teammates.

That's a practical objection, but even intellectually I don't think I'm consistent. I believe that if my opponent is 'too strong' then I'll find myself intimidated and fail to play as I should. I also believe that if my opponent is 'too weak' then I'll not give him the respect that he deserves, and again not play as well as I should. Presumably I'm therefore obliged to believe that there's some optimal opponent somewhere in the middle against whom I am most likely to play my best chess... but that doesn't sound right at all. Certainly I wouldn't like to say who this perfect opponent is.

So anyway, I don't ask; instead I look it up when I get home. How disconcerting, then, to find that Opponent appears to unrated... where has he come from? Should I be pleased with my draw, or disappointed? Am I - horror - going to have to analyse the game itself to decide how well I played?

Here's my game, against an unrated opponent, from last night's 3-2 win at St. Albans (not 2.5-1.5 as kingscrusher reported - I wonder whether he forgot that I was there). The opening seemed satisfactory enough, but I carefully uncoordinated all of my pieces and then made a more serious error with 20. ... h6. Things continued to get worse and by about move 30 the computer is convinced that white's advantage should be decisive. No doubt it's right; but fortunately for me we humans will make errors, especially in a quickplay finish, and I managed to scrap my way to a draw.

Comments

kingscrusher said…
That was a very exciting endgame to watch David! It's great we managed to win that match - an important victory to try and stay afloat in Division 1 !

Sorry I got the match score wrong - your game was important :)

Tryfon
11 October 2008 at 01:44
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