IM Omprakash Mohanty

Winners don’t do different things, they do things differently

In moden Correspondence Chess (CC), use of advanced chess programs have led to high quality games as well as an even higher number of draws. The day when Stockfish started using NNUE evaluations, things have changed a lot. Introduction of Alphazero and its NNUE based evaluation changed chess forever. Now even without a customised opening book, a program knows what move to play based on statistical probability of winning in a given position. Still a human playing with computer aid plays better than a unaided computer playing on high end hardware alone. Human mind creates strategies, plans and executes them but is often error-prone whereas a computer spits out evaluations based on its search and evaluation function to find best moves. Ordinary chess engines use a Minimax algorithm called as Alpha-beta pruning to select the best moves. Unlike such ordinary chess engines, AlphaZero or other advanced engines such as Lc0 are based on neural networks and use a search algorithm known as Monte-Carlo Tree search. More on that in another article.

There are still positions where computers lack the understanding to play for e.g. those involving material imbalances or a fortress type set up. In such rare scenarios, human mind surpasses computers in planning and execution.

Dr. Emanuel Lasker once said “I play the player not the board”. I find it very intriguing since it actually works. All the games I have lost in my CC journey were those where I was trying hard but there was no win or in dead drawn positions. Against a good player it simply doesn’t work, but against a beginner or a slightly inexperienced player it does work. Since getting a win in CC nowadays is so scarce, every win matters. Capablanca was right about draw death in chess, CC is nearly saturated as computer chess has taken away the beauty of CC altogether. Computers play nearly perfect chess so still it is fun when conjuring up a win. Sometimes understanding the opponent where he may go wrong does work. So luring an opponent where his skill can be tested is the key to win now. This may not work against skilled players though it is worth trying.

I am presenting two games here where I did the same trick to conjure up wins. In those games, I played aggressively so that my opponents’ defence had to be accurate. One minute error may lead to the loss of the game or winning chances too! As Dr. Emmanuel Lasker said “winning a won game is the most difficult task”. In this context, one’s choice of openings makes a key difference in CC.