Don't draw too early!

First of all, have you checked out the Chess World Championship 2024 and all its games? If yes, the last round has already shown you an amazing example for not drawing too early. Who knows what would have happened if Gukesh had stopped the game at an earlier point for a draw? Who knows if he'd still become World Chess Champion?

If you want to check out a lichess article about that match, you can check this link out: Lichess (12.12.2024): "WCC 2024 Round 14: Gukesh Becomes the Youngest World Champion in History".

In this article, now, we will go to another last round match. It was the last round of the club tournament of my local chess club. We knew that either me or another player who had already played all rounds for that tournament would win our group. It was clear that I needed a win for a safe group win. It wasn't a 100% clear to me if a draw would suffice because the other player would have the same number of points as me and the second "rating" that this would be decided by after points was still depending on how the other players would play. I had a good chance for a group win with a draw but it was not clear. So, to put it in a nutshell, I needed a win for a safe group win.

Now, let us talk a little bit about my opponent. Before the tournament, I didn't even dream about winning against him. In our group, there were around 2 players with a way higher rating than me and that was unsettling to me. I had experience with loosing against one of them a year prior. Their national ratings were about 200-300 points higher than mine. In theory, I knew that ratings are just numbers and I also knew that my own rating is a bit low for all that I can do in chess. At the same time, I get scared by high ratings very fast. Before the last round of this year's tournament, I was lucky that I had already won against the other player of those two with a high rating. So, I knew then that winning against them was actually a possibility. I was still scared. because this must have been an "outlier", right? In my mind, there was almost no way to win against someone with that kind of rating again.

At some point, the game had to start. Already in the opening, I had to make a hard choice, do I want to sacrifice a pawn for better development and a safer king position? Or do I want to secure my central pawn and have an open g-line with an uncastled king? I was afraid but I gave the pawn.

After sacrificing that pawn for faster development and a safer king, I was even more scared. Somehow I wanted to win a game with a pawn less against a really good player? If I fucked up the development or if he was able to exchange enough pieces fast enough, he could go for an endgame with an additional pawn and I had no idea if I was able to stop him from doing exactly that.

A bit later, he offered a queens exchange. I tried my best to not exchange those queens. That would bring him a step more towards that endgame with an additional pawn. But our queens were both so centralized that I wasn't sure if he had a chance to force me to a queens exchange (or at least a move repetition). I gave my best and he stopped doing moves to offer a queen exchange.

Our kings both were still standing around in the mid of the board. Instead of doing anything for castling, I tried to attack his king from the side of the board where his queen wasn't standing around. For this, I had to sacrifice another pawn. In my mind, he couldn't take that pawn but I was well aware that he might be better in move calculation and knew more than me about that pawn. He took my pawn. That's when I calculated my moves over and over. If he didn't want to sacrifice his rook, we would come into a position where I was more or less sure to get a move repetition via enough chess moves by my queen. At this point, I had two pawns less than him and my queen was standing more or less in front of his king. The problem was that his queen was about to check out my uncastled king, too. Going for the perpetual check variation was the safer way in my mind. I could get a fast draw without having to go for chances. I also thought about offering a draw to not have to go for all the checks and maybe still do a wrong move in that line.

In that moment, I had the voice of one of my coaches and friends in my mind. He wasn't even in the room but I guess most chess players know this situation. In my mind, he told me to not draw too quickly. I was already with my queen in front of my opponent's king. "Is there any way to win this position?", the voice asked. I checked the position again. There was a way to threaten a checkmate. But for doing that, I had to move a bishop that was giving some security to my own king. One question with two parts had to be answered: Could my opponent do anything to stop the checkmate that I was threatening? A) Could the pieces around his king still stop the checkmate? B) Could his queen (and other pieces) checkmate me faster if I do that bishop move and not any move that goes with a check? it was clear to me that he had to sacrifice his queen for my bishop to stop the checkmate via question A. I was fine with that part. Question B was the tricky part. He could start with a line of check moves. His knight could join the party as well. For all checkmates that I found, I found a way to not go into that line with my king. The best way that I found was for him to sacrifice his knight as some point so that I had to take that knight with my bishop and, thus, moving my bishop away from that nice position of threatening mate. I wasn't sure if I could go back fast enough and mate him anyways but it looked that way. But even if not, I were to play with an additional piece for two pawns. The material was about to be on my side. I hoped for the best and did the bishop move, I threatened that mate instead of going for the draw. I had thought through all lines several times and I was relatively sure that he couldn't stop the check without sacrificing his queen but even if my calculation wasn't perfect, more material was going to be on my team!

What did my opponent do? He checked all lines in his mind and gave up. He saw what I saw. I checked the position later with Stockfish and Stockfish said that the best move for my opponent was to sacrifice the queen for my bishop. Yep, that's not what any of us wanted to do.

Can you see how I almost tried to draw a game that was totally won? A thousand thanks to the people who put enough effort in talking to me about chess that their voices are in my mind so that they activate themselves in certain positions. At the end of the day, this was won by doing enough calculations for tactic exercises in positions that looked very mate-y. So, tell me, have you already calculated some tactics exercises today?