Sense of Danger

As I mentioned in yesterday's post (Sunday Book Review) I have been reading Amatzia Avni's Danger in Chess, subtitled How to Avoid Making Blunders.

When I played through a recent Italian Four Knights Jerome Gambit game that reached the following position, I thought about what Avni had written about "when the opponent plays badly in the opening."

comport - mrquestionmark
FICS, 2011

Suppose you play against someone who makes some silly moves, right from the start. He sheds material, or plays not in accordance with development rules, or he makes apparently self-destructive moves... Most chess players, when faced with such an enemy, tend to relax and expect an early success. It is a human trait to count on consistency in behaviour; if our adversary played weakly until now, so we reason, he is likely to demonstrate the same low quality in the following phases of the game as well.

This line of thought is devoid of empirical justification. Our opponent may possess poor openings knowledge, but still be a strong middlegame player. Or he may have deliberately made early provocations to lead us to think that our victory is assured.

Whatever our impression about our rival's level of play, we must stay on guard!

8.Qb3+ Kf8 9.Qf7 checkmate