Playing Horde Chess is not only about intellect, strategy, and deep thinking. It involves overcoming strong emotions – and fear is one of the dominant among them.
When the pawn structure is just a couple of moves from collapsing, or when the few remaining pieces struggle to hold against the mighty pawn storm, we react emotionally. We play faster, focus on a single move sequence, and get surprised by every opponent’s move. In summary, the exact worst way to play.
I noticed it happening to me recently, in my game against vitriol357, in the following position (I played as the pawns):
I could charge a high price for my opponent’s queen intrusion in the last couple of moves. Now I was nervous about losing all of the pawns, and felt a strong urge to just do something about this intrusion. It was a micro-fight-or-flight situation, when adrenaline is high and the body demands a reaction.
So I hurried up and played 44. b7?, hoping to make a promotion threat that will force the queen back to the defense. In retrospect, it is an obvious mistake. It breaks the long pawn chain g1 – b6, makes weak threats and causes massive loss of advanced pawns. But at the moment it was the only move I could think about since I planned it ahead and was eager to just play it quickly.
What I could do better? If I stopped to think I may prefer 44.f6, making new threats, or 44. e5, strengthening the advanced pawns. Or maybe I could see the best move in the position: 44. c7+! Ke8 45. b7
With the planning of only 2 moves ahead, I could reach to forced checkmate. It was somewhat frustrating to find this out later, but I learned my lesson: Next time I’ll be more aware of emotional effects and try to calm down a bit before playing.
