Maxims and Hints on Angling, Chess, Shooting, and Other Matters Part 6

V.

Sometimes--when, alas! you have lost the game--an unmerciful conqueror will insist on "murdering Pizarro all over again," and glories in explaining how that your game was irretrievable after you had given a certain injudicious check with the queen,[F] (the consequence of which _he says_ that he immediately foresaw,) and that then, by a succession of very good moves on his part, he won easily. You must bear all this as well as you can, although it is certainly not fair to "preach'ee and flog'ee too."

VI.

A good player seldom complains that another is slow. He is glad to have the opportunity thus afforded to him of attentively considering the state of the game. Do not, therefore, be impatient when it is your adversary's turn to move. Take as much time as you require (_and no more_) when it is your own turn.

VII.

If, whilst you are playing, your adversary will talk about the state of the game, it is very provoking, but you cannot help it, and the pieces will give you ample revenge, if you can avail yourself of their power.

VIII.

If the by-standers talk, it is still more annoying: they always claim the merit of having foreseen every good move which is made, and they sometimes express great surprise at your not making a particular move; which, if you had made it, would probably have led to your speedily losing the game--before which time they would have walked away to another table.

IX.

Almost every moderate player thinks himself fully qualified to criticise the move by which a game has been lost.--Although, if he had himself been in the loser's place, he would, very probably, have been check-mated twenty moves sooner than the opportunity occurred for committing the particular mistake, which he thinks he should have avoided.

X.

Amongst good players, it is considered to be as much an indispensable condition of the game, that a piece once touched must be moved, as that the queen is not allowed to have the knight's, or a rook the bishop's move.

XI.

Some persons, when they are playing with a stranger who entreats to be allowed to take back a move, let him do so the first time: then, almost immediately afterwards, they put their own queen _en prise_; and when the mistake is politely pointed out to them, they say that _they_ never take back a move, but that they are ready to begin another game.

XII.

Do not be alarmed about the state of your adversary's health, when, after losing two or three games, he complains of having a bad head-ache, or of feeling very unwell. If he should win the next game, you will probably hear no more of this.

XIII.

Never (if you can avoid it) lose a game to a person who rarely wins when he plays with you. If you do so, you may afterwards find that this one game has been talked of to all his friends, although he may have forgotten to mention ninety-nine others which had a different result.

Chess players have a very retentive memory with regard to the games which they win.

XIV.

If, therefore, any one should tell you that on a certain day last week he won a game from one of your friends, it may be as well to ask how many other games were played on the same day.

XV.

There is no better way of deciding on the comparative skill of two players than by the result of a number of games. Be satisfied with that result, and do not attempt to reason upon it.

XVI.

Remember the Italian proverb, "Never make a good move without first looking out for a better." Even if your adversary should leave his queen _en prise_, do not snap hastily at it. The queen is a good thing to win, but the game is a better.

XVII.

Between even, and tolerably good, players a mere trifle frequently decides the event of a game; but when you have gained a small advantage, you must be satisfied with it for the time. Do not, by attempting too much, lose that which you have gained. Your object should be to win the game, and the dullest way of winning is better for you than the most brilliant of losing.

XVIII.

If your knowledge of "the books" enables you to see that a person, with whom you are playing for the first time, opens his game badly, do not suppose, as a matter of course, that you are going to check-mate him in ten or twelve moves. Many moves called _very bad_ are only such if well opposed; and you can derive but little advantage from them unless you are well acquainted with the system of crowding your adversary,--one of the most difficult parts of the game.

XIX.

Some players have by study acquired mechanically the art of opening their game in a style much above their real force; but when they have exhausted their store of _book-knowledge_, they soon fall all to pieces, and become an easy prey to those who have genuine talent for the game.

Others do not know how to open their game on scientific principles, and yet, if they can stagger through the beginning without decided loss, fight most n.o.bly when there are but few pieces and p.a.w.ns left on the board. All these varieties of play must be carefully studied by those who wish to win. It is only talent for the game, combined with much study and great practice, which can make a truly good player.

XX.

Although no degree of instruction derived from "books" will make a good player, without much practice with all sorts of opponents, yet, on the other hand, when you hear a person, who has had great practice, boast of never having looked into a chess-book, you may be sure either that he is a bad player, or that he is not nearly so good a player as he might become by attentively studying the laborious works which have been published on almost every conceivable opening, by such players as Ercole del Rio, Ponziani, Philidor, Sarratt, and Lewis.

XXI.

Between fine players, small odds (viz. p.a.w.n, with one, or with two moves) are of great consequence. Between inferior players they are of none. The value of these odds consists chiefly in position; and in every long game between weak players, such an advantage is gained and lost several times, without either party being aware of it.

XXII.

Almost all good players (_and some others_) have a much higher opinion of their own strength than it really deserves. One person feels sure that he is a better player than some particular opponent, although he cannot but confess that, for some unaccountable reason, or other, he does not always win a majority of games from him. Another attributes his failure solely to want of attention to details which he considers hardly to involve any real genius for the game; and he is obliged to content himself with boasting of having certainly, at one time, had much the best of a game, which he afterwards lost, _only by a mistake_. A third thinks that he must be a good player, because he has discovered almost all the many difficult check-mates which have been published as problems. He may be able to do this, and yet be unable to play a whole game well, it being much more easy to find out, at your leisure, the way to do that which you are told beforehand is practicable, than to decide, in actual play, whether, or not, it is prudent to make the attempt.

XXIII.

A theoretical amateur, with much real genius for the game, is often beaten by a fourth-rate player at a chess club, who has become from constant practice thoroughly acquainted with all the technicalities of it, and quietly builds up a wall for the other to run his head against.

The loser in this case may _perhaps_ eventually become the better player of the two; but he is not so at present.

XXIV.