Contemplating loss

Contemplating a lost position is a bit like having sauce down your shirt. It is annoying in itself, but worse, it often comes with a sting of embarrassment. We chess players are a proud lot, and losing is an affront to our dignity.

And what do your dining companions make of it? You might jokily draw attention to the stain, to pre-empt the suspicion that you hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. It is one thing to be clumsy, but quite another to be thought dopey as well.

The chess player wrestles with a similar urge. A true poker-face is a rarity, and I suspect that is because most of us don’t even try. A vigorous shaking of the head, besides expressing genuine despair, is also an oblique way of saving face. It says ‘Touché! Yes, I am undone, but I know it now!’ Of course, the ultimate ‘mea culpa’ in chess is to resign the game. The act can seem like ripping off a plaster — best done quickly, to minimise the discomfort.

Nonsense! To be convinced of this, one need only see a few examples of games which were resigned when a draw (or even a win) could be achieved by force. Surely a little dour plodding in crummy positions is a price worth paying to avoid that tragedy?

Around 100 cautionary tales have been collected in a slim new book with a title that tickled me: Oops, I Resigned Again (Russell Enterprises, 2021), written by the Australian grandmaster Ian Rogers. This literal catalogue of errors is presented as a collection of puzzles, each recounted with an anecdote that frames the situation through the eyes of the victim.

Rogers cites, as one inspiration, my favourite tactics book from childhood: Blunders and Brilliancies by Ian Mullen and Moe Moss.