How to Win a Won game by Controlling Change

Time on the chess board is composed of turns. This time implies that changes in the position occur as a result of the moves made by the players. Furthermore, the rules of chess force the game towards irreversible changes: it is not possible to maintain the same position for a long time, not even the same pieces on the board. However, despite this inevitability of change in its strictest definition, any player would agree that many times the game enters a phase without major changes. This points towards a more practical and elusive definition of change in chess.

For the purposes of this text, we will focus on positions where one of the two sides can only make unfavorable changes. That is, it is not convenient for you to change the position. Generally chess literature refers to this type of position as 'without counterplay'. It is important to note that although if you do not have counterplay you are always at a disadvantage, it is not synonymous with a won position. The advantage may even be minimal. Here we can see some examples where the opponent doesn't have counterplay.

Example 1. Despite having an “extra piece” (the immobile bishop on a8), Black is paralyzed. The queen, rook on e7 and king on d7 are tied to the defense of e6. The bishop on f8 cannot develop to e7 without interrupting the defense of the knight on e6. And if the bishop on f8 does not move, the rook on g8 cannot get out either. Therefore, they only have waiting moves.

Example 2. Black has no favorable pawn break or push, and it is impossible to regroup the kingside pieces without losing the h6 pawn (Bd3-Rdh1). The knight on e7 has no square from which to be effective.

Example 3. The black king has nowhere to go to attack the white pawns, and the bishop on b5 simply cannot attack anything.

Example 4. Black's rooks have nowhere to play because White dominates the only open file, Black's knights have no way to maneuver to useful squares, and the bishop on g7 is useless due to the pawn structure.

Example 5. The black king is prevented from crossing the seventh rank by the white rook, so it cannot attack any pawn (the white king would prevent it anyway). The black bishop cannot attack anything. White can improve his king to attack c6 or the black bishop.

After seeing these examples, let's make some general considerations. In positions without counterplay:

• Only one player controls the change. That is, the opponent cannot convert his time into any advantage.
• The player who controls the change has plenty of time to carry out their plans. In certain cases, time may be limited only by the rules, as is the case with some endgames with clear material advantage (see example 5).
• There is an information advantage about the future of the game. The player with the advantage will decide when to change position.

From these considerations we deduce some practical advice for the player who faces an opponent with no counterplay:

• Due to the time advantage, the player with the advantage should not rush to change position, which is also painful for the opponent to endure.
• The advantage of time and information allows us to make false threats of change to which the opponent may react by changing the position in an unfavorable way or by placing their pieces in a worse position in the face of other possibilities of change that we can carry out.
• Information advantage can be converted to clock advantage. Because the opponent does not know when we are really about to change the position, there’s an asymmetry in prediction of what is going to happen on the board. That is, the rival must always be alert and calculating possible changes that only we decide when they will occur. This last point is of vital importance for quick games (bullet, blitz, rapid) and especially if there is no time increment per move.

How often do you win won games? What's your secret technique? Or maybe you are better at turning games around?

I’ll read you in the comments.

Best,

Juan