Turning The Tables: How To Survive A Losing Chess Game

Losing is no fun! Unfortunately, all chess players end up in lost positions sometimes. The best ones know how to escape as often as possible and steal draws and wins from busted positions. Here are the techniques you need to know to be a chess Houdini.

Table of Contents

• Create Chaos
• Know Your Draws
• Repetition
• Insufficient Material And Fortresses
• Stalemate
• Speed Chess Tricks
• Conclusion

Create Chaos

When you're losing, the normal course of events is for your opponent to wrap up the victory soon. Your job is to throw a wrench into the works however you can. When you're facing a human opponent, with the clock ticking, if you force them to make enough hard decisions, it's almost inevitable that you'll get a chance to turn things around. 

Chess superstar GM Magnus Carlsen doesn't usually let one blunder cost him a game. In this classical encounter, he dropped a piece early on and just continued his attack as if he didn't see any issues.

Despite the successful outcome, Carlsen admitted after the game that he had simply blundered a piece in the opening, yet he kept a positive mindset. He thought, "Let's play a few moves... see what happens." A short while later, Black was still doing well, but he had allowed Carlsen to get counterplay as well as some hope. Here's the full post-game interview.

In this desperate situation from one of my games, I gave my opponent a wide set of seemingly winning options. Can you find White's smoothest path to victory here?

Did you spot the winning line? My opponent saw a chance to win material and probably relaxed a bit too early. Check out how the most natural continuation ended in disaster for White.

Make things complicated, and your opponent will likely give you plenty of opportunities to get back in the game!

Know Your Draws

Do you know all of the different ways to draw a chess game? When a win seems impossible, you'll want to determine which draw is the most likely way to save the game. 

Perpetual Check / 3-Fold Repetition 

If your opponent's king can't get away from checks, it won't matter how much extra material they have. In the desperate-looking position below, GM Hikaru Nakamura found a clever escape to draw the game.

Insufficient Mating Material And Fortresses

The good news when you're facing difficulties is that chess has a wide drawing margin. If you're in trouble, you can often simplify to an endgame you know how to hold. The simplest plan, when you're down by less than a rook, is to run the opponent out of pawns. An extra bishop, knight, or even two knights isn't enough to force checkmate without the help of other pieces.

In the game below, Black has a material advantage, but White can remove the remaining pawns and force a draw.

There are several well-known setups in which the dominant side can't make progress despite a material advantage. These positions are called fortresses, and it's good to know a few basic defensive setups to save tough positions. 

Carlsen once said that he doesn't believe in fortresses, but in their 2016 world championship match, GM Sergey Karjakin used them to hold several bad positions. In this one, down two bishops against a rook, Karjakin spotted a way to reach an endgame where rook pawns and an extra bishop that can't control the queening square aren't enough to win. This is a variation of one of the most common fortresses and one of the most frustrating for the better side.

Stalemate

Stalemate is probably the most fun trick to survive a lost chess game. You can be down several queens, but if there are no legal moves and your king isn't in check, then you get just as much of the point as your opponent. You can set up stalemate tricks by ensuring that your king has no safe moves and then sacrificing all of your remaining mobile pieces. It's also a great way to get brilliant moves in Game Review!

The players agreed to a draw after 43.Qh8+. If the game had continued with 43...Kxh8 44.Rh3+ Kg8 45.Rh8+ Kxh8, the game would have ended in a stalemate.

Speed Chess Tricks

Not every trick to survive a lost position needs to be fully sound. Especially in speed chess you can take advantage of your opponent's lack of time to induce mistakes. IM Eric Rosen is a specialist in his favorite endgame trap.

You can also present your opponents with challenges that are theoretically doable but impractical given the time constraints. 

I once had a bullet game against a stronger player and managed to sacrifice my knight to eliminate his final pawn and reach the position below. The engine demonstrates that it's forced mate, but my opponent had no interest in trying to prove it. You can check the game below to find the mate in 91 moves that White can force. It's a fun line to study but it doesn't matter at all for the result of an actual game.

It doesn't need to be something as complicated as two knights against a pawn mate to be worth making your opponent prove their technique. In fast games, it's always worth making your opponent show that they can handle a knight and bishop mate, even at the master level. At the amateur level, other checkmates like king and rook against king still must be demonstrated as there are plenty of opportunities for the winning side to go wrong, especially under time pressure.

Conclusion

There's no need to panic when you're in trouble in a chess game. Look for ways to create chaos, force a draw, or just trick your poor opponent. Surviving a lost position is often even more satisfying than a clean victory.

What do you do when your back is against the wall? Let us know in the comments.