Play for Draw and Win!

I know this sounds like a name of a book, though I'm not sure how many copies it would sell!

Jokes aside, I was inspired to write about this phenomenon by the game Wang Hao-Nepomniachtchi from the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg in 2021. Of course, there have been many examples of this scenario and you can find a lot of high-level games that have ended one way or another.

Playing Black and needing not to lose Nepomniachtchi chose the Petroff Defence. At the time it was still a rare choice in his repertoire, but now we know that it was his planned main defence for the match with Carlsen later that year. Ever since then, he’s been very successful with it.

Wang Hao chose to transpose to the Exchange Variation in the French, obtaining a symmetrical position with the bishop pair. From Nepomniachtchi’s perspective, he was safe and solid and playing for a draw (or not to lose).

Here psychology comes to the fore. It is easy to get lulled by the safety of the position and start to play passively, conceding little by little. Probably this was Wang's hope, that Nepomniachtchi would agree to small concessions in order to make a draw and he would get his chance both on the board and psychologically.

Nepomniachtchi didn't fall in the trap. He continued to play "normal" chess. He was vigilant, and this was the key, as he said after the game, that he was aware of the possible long-term problems Black may face because of White's pair of bishops. So he didn't relax and tried to prevent that from happening.

The key moment when it comes to "turning it around" arose in the following position.

Black is harmoniously placed and for example Kramnik's suggestion of 26...Nh7 followed by ...f5 and ...Nf6 would have been a guarantee that Black will never lose. In this way, Black would have obtained what he set out to.

However, the secret to winning when playing for a draw is to sense the moment when there is a chance to play for more. And Nepomniachtchi managed it! He felt that White's pieces are not very harmoniously placed and that he can safely introduce more tension in the position. He played 26...Rac8 and followed it up with 27...c5, giving himself an IQP but maximising the activity of his pieces and exposing White's pawn on c3.

It requires a lot of self-confidence to go forward and accept some weaknesses in his own position in a situation when everything is safe and there is no need for it, but playing for a win always implies some risks!

In a way, Nepomniachtchi's decision to open the game with ...c5 reminds me of the 6th game of the match Carlsen-Caruana when Caruana outplayed the World Champion thanks to the same pawn break in the same structure.

In the above position Caruana played 21…c5! and took over the initiative.

Not without some help from Wang Hao, Nepomniachtchi went on to win the game. White couldn't adapt to the situation of having to defend after getting accustomed to the comfortable psychological state of "pressing without any risk," based on the assumption that the opponent "only wants draw" so he would not try for more or risk a weakness or two.

It is possible to play for a win even when "playing for a draw". The main problem is psychological, you must never recoil and start making concessions, hoping to draw from a position of weakness. Then you will most certainly lose. Play normal and solid chess, just like Nepomniachtchi did.

Sometimes you may not even want a draw, you can play in a solid manner and wait for your opponent to get frustrated and make a mistake. Then you pounce. There are quite a few players who play like this and I can assure you it's very frustrating to play against them!

P.S. Today’s video is about playing, not so much for a draw or for a win. It features a setup (or “scheme” as they liked to call it in Russian literature) against the Sicilian. I first saw it in Shereshevsky’s book “The Soviet Chess Conveyor” some time in the first part of the 90s, but as an Open Sicilian player I never used it. However, I used it with great success with the black pieces against the English Openings! With the white pieces, it won’t promise an advantage, but it’s quite playable if you just want to play and avoid theory. Take a look and leave your comments and if you like it, consider subscribing to my channel!