How to play when you are hopelessly lost
In a chess game, keeping your composure is as least as important as playing good moves. “A won game won’t play itself”. So, depending on whether you are the attacker or the defender, concentration must be maintained throughout. I have a long history of not calculating my opponent’s moves, dating back decades.
The following game is an example of being on the losing side of an attack. I played my normal King’s Gambit and decided to play the awful 8. Ng1 which immediately got me into a lost position. The only questions was, “Could my opponent find the right continuation to put me away?”
Post-game analysis
This was a long, tumultuous game. I was lost all the way from the opening to the late middlegame. It wasn’t until the very end that I was able to equalize and then turn the tables on my opponent.
When I uploaded this to LiChess, it came back with the following computer analysis:
How in the world this came back with no blunders on my part is a mystery to me. We both made or fair share of mistakes, but let’s also remember that I am comparing our moves against a 3600 ELO chess engine. Doing so will always make a human’s approach look terrible.
How did I win this game? By not giving up. I continued to persevere. I was worse but I wouldn’t resign until I lost more material or if mate was inevitable.