How about choosing games venues such that they are close to busy & noisy main roads when you know that your opponent has normal hearing & you are almost deaf??

=>Huebner-Petrosian, 1971 Candidates. Perosian had BAD hearing was unaffected. Huebner quit the match cos he couldnt stand the noise. Hmmmmm......Could there be a Petrosian fan among the organising commitee??

Then again I dont know if you should trust advice from a chap who goes flying kites in a thunder storm

Woofwoof, 

You may enjoy Hartston's How to Cheat at Chess.  He discusses, in a lighthearted way, how to combat such aural attacks.  One is to hum the Slow movement of Mahler's 5th Symphony.  If you can do it in tune, all the better!  There are many other strategems mentioned in this book, but I do warn you in advance it was written for the adolescent male in all of us!

Alumbrado, 

You're right, but it's also about what to calculate and when, not just about being able to calculate deeply.  That's why I included it.  I was also going to include Kotov's books, but decided against them since they really have aged rather poorly.

Quote:


I think there's even a book named Winning with Chess Psychology, by Benko and some other fellow. It must be at least ten years since I read it, but some things have stayed in my memory. Like Benko taking credit for Fischer's  new opening repertoire in Reykjavik and the famous sunglasses story with Tal, just being a little joke blown out of proportion by the journalists present...

If you're interested in using psychology in chess, there's a great book by Nikolai Krogius, one of Spassky's seconds, called, appropriately enough, Psychology in Chess.  It may be hard to get now, but there are other excellent works out there.  Secrets of Practical Chess, The Inner Game of Chess, & Training for the Tournament Player by Nunn, Soltis, and Dvoretsky & Yusupov respectively are excellent sources.  Personally, when growing up, I read Hartston's How to Cheat at Chess!   Now that's a book that is for adolescent males only!

Another way to improve is to read the biographies of great players and see how they handled difficult situations and opponents.

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It depends and how you answer the following questions.

1) Are you intimidated against higher rated players.

2) Do you rise to the occasion against higher rated players, or do you play even worse than you normally would.

3) Do you offer draws against higher rated opponents when your position is better because of fear.

4) Do you disregard the opinions and games of players lower rated than you solely because they are lower rated than you.

5) Do you blindly accept the opinions and games of players higher rated than you simply because they are higher rated than you.

6) Do you know how to beat an opponet before a single move is made.

7) Do you know that the more you beat a particular opponent of similar strength, the more the wins become about psychology than moves.

8] Notice how an apparently invincible opponent when he finally loses to somebody, starts to lose to many different people. Example Karpov in his heyday and Kasparov. Kasparov broke Karpov's aura of invincibility, and Kramnik broke Kasparov's aura of invincibility. Psychology my man, amongst humans its as real an advantage as being White in a Steinitz Ruy Lopez.

9) Do you need the full contents of the book word for word to make a decision.

10) If you have 'Seven Deadly Sins' and still want another psychological book, then clearly you were not satisfied.

11) Are you a chess fighter, or do you offer draws at the first sign of chaos.

12) Do you have tells like in poker, these are little subconscious things you do when u think your position is better or worse. Like fiddling with your tie when worse, or jumping in your seat when better.

One last example of pschology in chess: Grandmaster  Mathew Sadler was White against Grandmaster Igor Stohl. Now for a Grandmaster, Igor has a very limited repertoire and slavishly sticks to the Grunfeld at all times. Mathew knowing this played a cruel psychological trick on him, ruthlessly designed to exploit such one dimensional thinking. Here is what he did:

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nd2!! A very nasty surprise for Stohl who specialises in the Grunfeld. Now clearly Black should simply tranpose to a very harmless line of the Kings Indian, but no, Stohl has already been defeated psychologically and folds like a wet lettuce.

Here is the rest of the miniature in full:

[Event "Bundesliga 9798"]
[Site "Germany"]
[Date "1997.10.??"]
[White "Sadler,Matthew"]
[Black "Stohl,Igor"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "E60"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nd2 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Ngf3 Bg7 6.e4 Nb6 7.Nb3!! There will be no Grunfeld type counterplay with c5 today folks 0-0 8.Be3 Bg4 9.Qd2 Nc6 10.Rc1 f5 11.d5 Bxf3 12.gxf3 Ne5 13.Be2 fxe4 14.fxe4 e6 15.dxe6 Qh4 16.Rxc7 Qxe4 17.0-0 Rad8 18.Rxg7+ Kxg7 19.Bh6+ Kg8 20.e7  1-0

One can only assume that the British GM read his compatriots book 'Chess For Tigers' and made full use of the chapter dealing with exploiting an opponent's repertoire.

Toppy