Students often ask me about chess psychology and how to handle various tournament situations. Actually I have a very simple answer, but it seems so simple that nobody quite believes it. I tell them that they only have one job, which is to find the next move, and they should focus on that rather than anything else.

I came to this conclusion after decades of playing myself and watching others overcomplicate matters. People go into games thinking about their rating, prizes, norms and glory, in fact everything except what really matters. Even top players manage to do this and distract themselves during key games.

There was a great example of this in the Candidates Tournament in 2013. Going into the last round Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik were tied for first, yet they both lost their games. In the end it was Carlsen who qualified on tie break, going on to become World Champion by defeating Vishwanathan Anand. Yet it could all have ended very differrently had Kramnik not been distracted too.

Training Tournaments

This week's training tournaments feature lines from the French Defence, which are give both in the French Defence course and Building an Opening Repertoire:

Sunday March 9th at 5pm UK Time: French Advance with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Nge7

Sunday March 9th at 6.15pm UK Time: Colle vs Gruenfeld with 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.e3 d5

My Upcoming Events

Here's my schedule over the coming months, though it is subject to change. I often don't know until fairly late in the day:

April 4-14 2025: European Senior Team Championship

I'll be in the 50+ 1st team, apparently on board 3 of a team that includes Michael Adams, John Emms, myself, Steve Dishman and Graeme Buckley. Hopefully I can continue the good form from the World Senior Team Championships and help the team to one of the top places.

April 24-28 2025: English Senior Championships

I'm hoping to be invited to these and may now be eligible for either section. You can find details here. 

July 31st - 10th August 2025: British Championships
These have now been confirmed for Liverpool on these dates, you can find details here. If I get invited to play in the main Championships, I'll probably accept. Otherwise I'm eligible for both the 50+ and 65+ sections, and should have a chance of doing well in either.

There will probably be one or two events between April and the end of July, it's important to keep playing in order to maintain good form.

Twitch Channel

My new Twitch channel has new shows every Monday ('Chess Questions Answered), the Webinar on training tournaments and games is up on Fridays and another weekly coming soon. Please follow it if you'd like to get updates etc, all the shows will be available to Premium members in the Tiger Chess members area, even when they are no longer available on Twitch.

Have a good weekend.

Nigel