Pre-moving can be a powerful weapon, as the time gained by pre-moving can be decisive. Pre-moving can give you more time to think in critical positions, and at the same time can deny your opponent the same time. Even before time actually becomes a critical factor, a succession of pre-moves can create psychological pressure on an opponent, who may panic just at the thought of running short of time.
But like all powerful weapons, pre-moves can rebound against the player using them, especially when they are used recklessly. As we have discussed, there are pre-moves which are completely safe and should always be made, as a matter of habit. At the other extreme, there are nonsensical pre-moves which invite disaster. In between, however, are the difficult pre-moves which involve a certain element of risk. How much risk is justified is a matter of conjecture and hindsight; how much risk a player is willing to take is more a matter of style and personality.
In this chapter we look at some failed pre-moves, in the hope that these negative examples will illustrate some of the dangers of pre-moving, as well as offer some insight into how to exploit injudicious pre-moving by your opponents.
Pre-moving can be costly in different ways, as the examples in this chapter show. Perhaps the most obvious consequence of an ill-considered pre-move is the failure to meet an unanticipated threat. But pre-moves can also result in missed opportunities, as committing to a pre-move may prevent you from exploiting an unforeseen enemy blunder.
Except for the most conservative pre-moves, such as recaptures, pre-moving always involves a certain risk. The payoff for a pre-move is always certain, so the cost-benefit analysis involves comparing the time saved by the pre-move to the risk being taken and the severity of the consequences if things go wrong.
If there is a small chance of having a pre-move rebound against you, because only an unlikely move by the opponent will expose its weakness, that pre-move may well be worth making. Similarly, if the consequences are a lost tempo or perhaps a pawn, the risk may be justified, because the game will go on regardless. But if there is a serious risk of checkmate or significant material loss, pre-moving is probably too optimistic.
Our first example features several of the most basic types of pre-move blunder, where Black consistently pre-moves, without bothering to pay attention to what his opponent is doing.
This sort of instant play can be unnerving, but it’s worth remembering that no matter how fast your opponent moves, you can still win by checkmating before you run out of time.
White (1993) – Black (1939) [B01]
So far nothing much has happened in this game – on the board. But off the board, the story is different. White has taken nine seconds for his first 11 moves, while Black has blitzed them out in only three seconds, giving him a significant time advantage. Black managed this feat by pre-moving, but now he goes too far.
12.Bg3
Obvious and strong. White’s g3-bishop takes control of an important diagonal and forces Black’s queen back to his first rank, where it interferes with Black’s rooks. At least, 12.Bg3 should force Black’s queen back...
12...Bg6?
Another instantaneous pre-move, but a very ill-timed one. Of course Black wouldn’t have pre-moved 12...Bg6? if he had anticipated an attack on his queen, but White can hardly be accused of tricking his opponent. 12.Bg3 was objectively the strongest move, so Black has only himself to blame.
13.B×c7 Rac8 14.Bd6 Rfe8 15.B×e7 R×e7 16.Nd6 Ree8
Believe it or not, Black is still pre-moving, and has still only used three seconds for the entire game to this point! Of course, now that he is down a queen, time is his only chance. Like a gambler on a losing streak, he has to keep betting.
17.Nc4
Taking one of Black’s rooks was also good.
17...Nb6 18.N×b6
18...Rcd8?
Another pre-move.
19.Nc4 1-0
At this point Black, an unrepentant sinner, resigned, still ahead on time by almost 15 seconds.
In the following game, White trusts his opponent too much and pre-moves carelessly. As a result, he gets a nasty surprise.
White (2999) – Black (2474) [B23]
1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 d6 4.Bb5 Bd7 5.B×c6 B×c6 6.d4 c×d4 7.Q×d4 Nf6 8.Bg5 e5
9.0-0-0?
White was expecting 8...e6, not the positionally suspect 8...e5, and therefore pre-moved 9.0-0-0?, which turns out to be a horrible mistake.
9...e×d4 10.N×d4
In this position no one would fault White for resigning, as there seems to be little point playing on giving queen odds! On the bright side, White has managed to lower his expectations, so to that extent the pressure is on Black.
10...Be7 11.Nf5 0-0 12.e5!
As is so often the case in bullet, it is good to attack at all costs, even when down a queen.
12...Nd5 13.N×e7+ N×e7 14.e×d6 f6 15.d×e7 Q×e7 16.Bf4
White has improved his chances slightly by winning back some material, and he now has a knight and a pawn for his queen. But White is still in quite a bit of trouble, partly because Black can offer to exchange rooks on both open files, and partly because a queen is worth a lot more than a knight and a pawn. White plays on.
16...Rad8 17.Rde1 Qf7 18.f3 Rfe8 19.Ref1
To have any hope, White must keep some pieces on the board, even if this means giving way to his opponent. Black must be given a chance to err.
19...a6 20.b3 Rd7 21.Kb2 Rc8 22.Rf2 Bd5 23.Re1 f5 24.Bd2 Qf6 25.Rfe2 Bf7 26.Kb1 R×c3 27.B×c3 Q×c3 28.Re3 Qc7 29.R3e2 g6
Black has used his queen effectively, increasing his material advantage, and now has very little work left to do, but anything can happen in bullet chess! Still, with White having 40 seconds left and Black having 32 seconds, a miracle seems unlikely.
30.h3 Kg7 31.g4 f×g4 32.h×g4 Qc6 33.f4 Rc7 34.f5 g×f5 35.g×f5
White’s kingside pawn advance does nothing, other than possibly distract Black from finding a winning plan.
35...Kf6 36.Rh2 Kg7 37.Rg1+ Kf8 38.f6 Bg6 39.Rgg2 Kf7 40.Re2 Rd7 41.Kb2 Rd6 42.c3 R×f6 43.Rd2 Rf3 44.c4 Qf6+ 45.Ka3 Qc3 46.Rd7+ Ke6 47.Rhd2 b5 48.R2d6+ Ke5 49.Rd5+ Ke4 50.c×b5 Qa5+ 51.Kb2
Up to this point Black has maintained his calm, despite the obvious annoyance of White not resigning and being down on time (Black has 10 seconds left, as opposed to White’s 19 seconds). But now Black panics and blunders horrendously.
Black was looking for checks, but found the wrong one! 51...Rf2+ would have led to checkmate in five moves.
51...Qd2+?
Here we strictly adhere to our convention of never assigning two question marks to any move made in a bullet game. It is never easy to play bullet and mistakes should be treated charitably.
Note that White’s oversight involves missing a backwards move by White’s d5-rook. This theme recurs time and again.
52.R×d2
Tragically, White now simply has a winning ending. Black fights on, but he must have felt like the last of the SPECTRE thugs sent after James Bond, when all the others have failed. After all, Black had an extra queen for more than 40 moves, but now the battle continues with White having a material advantage.
52...a×b5 53.Re7+ Kf4 54.Rd4+ Kg3 55.Rd5 Rf2+ 56.Ka3 Kg2 57.Kb4 Rb2 58.Rg5+ Kf3 59.R×b5 Kf4 60.Ra5 Rf2 61.Rb7 Kg3 62.Rbb5 1-0
White had 13 seconds left, and Black had five seconds.
In the next examples, one player tries to take advantage of his opponent’s “pre-move,” only to find that he guessed wrong.
White (1905) – Black (1775) [A00]
1.d3 c5 2.g3 d6 3.Bg2
3...Bh3?!
Made instantly, in the hope that White has pre-moved. Unfortunately for Black, he hadn’t.
Foolish as 3...Bh3?! appears, this sort of move occurs frequently in bullet chess, and they work more often than you’d think. Players that try these tricks don’t really think they will succeed all that often, but they get a big kick out of it when they do – just as their victims are infuriated at their own carelessness.
4.B×h3!?
4.N×h3 is also good.
4...Nc6 ... 1-0
Black played on, despite being a piece down for nothing. The challenge for White was to avoid the psychological trap of thinking the game was over, either because he was winning or because Black was likely to give away more material. It is not always easy to guard against these very real psychological dangers. However, we won’t bore you with the rest of the game – White mated his opponent in another 23 moves, with 27 seconds left on his clock.
For those readers who don’t want to take our word for it that this type of thing happens fairly often, here’s another example, which might also shed some light on the psychology behind such suicide attacks.
White (2025) – Black (2193) [A00]
1.g3 d5 2.Bg2 (D)
A perfectly safe pre-move.
2...Bh3?!
Black again tries for a quick pre-move win.
3.N×h3
White spent two seconds on this move. Black might have thought this meant White was surprised by 2...Bh3?!, but in fact White was ready for it and was simply trying to decide whether to capture on h3 with his bishop or his knight.
3...Nf6 4.c4 c6 5.c×d5 2-0
At this point, Black disconnected and forfeited. Our view is that causing an opponent to disconnect from the chess server and stop playing altogether is worth two wins – hence the “2-0” result.
The fact that Black called it a night indicates that his suicide attack truly was an all-or-nothing effort. Black decided it just wasn’t much fun playing against an opponent who didn’t lose without a fight.
This game took nine seconds in its entirety.
The next game puts the previous two to shame, as pre-move blunders by both players collide.
White (2099) – Black (1913) [A01]
1.b3 g6
Black pre-moves his first move, since nothing can go too badly wrong. But 1...g6 probably justifies 1.b3 more than most other moves.
2.Bb2
White gets a bishop on the a1-h8 diagonal first, forcing either 2...Nf6 or 2...f6!?. But there is another possibility which White fails to anticipate.
2...Bg7? (D)
Black makes the basic mistake of pre-moving when his opponent was able to make a move (2.Bb2) which creates a threat. Sometimes the time saved on a pre-move is worth the risk of an obscure threat, but here 2.Bb2 was White’s most obvious move, so this is a case of pure carelessness.
3.g3?
One good turn deserves another! White, trusting that Black would respond sensibly to 2.Bb2, pre-moves 3.g3. Unfortunately for him, this not only costs him the opportunity of winning immediately with 3.B×g7 and 4.B×h8, but also allows Black to turn the tables completely.
3...B×b2 ... 0-1
White now played 4.Nc3 B×a1 5.Q×a1 and prolonged what could well have been a five-second game for nearly 25 more moves, before being checkmated as a result of his opponent’s massive material advantage.
One of the authors clearly recalls developing a morbid fear of fianchettoes when he was six years old as a result of exactly this sort of thing. Bullet brings out the child in us.
Moving to the middle game, we see more carelessness in the following game, where White pre-moves without realizing that his opponent has a clever rejoinder.
White (2176) – Black (2176) [A00]
After a well-played attack, White has achieved an easily winning position. With 15 seconds left, to Black’s ten seconds, what could go wrong? Let’s see.
35.Q×b7+!
A good start. White sees that he can win Black’s remaining rook. At this point, White is already bored and starting to think of the next game. With more time, a massive material advantage, his opponent’s king in a mating net and lots of black pawn moves to eliminate stalemate possibilities, Black’s continued resistance seems pointless and irritating. But in bullet you can never let yourself think this way.
After 35.Q×b7+, White contemptuously pre-moved 36.Q×c8, in order to win a little bit faster...
35...Rc6!
Of course! This might have been a smart-move, an attempt to defer the inevitable, or a very resourceful defensive try. We prefer the last explanation.
36.Qc8?
The ill-advised pre-move now costs White a whole queen for nothing, plus it lets Black keep his rook.
36...R×c8 37.Nd3 ... 1-0
To his credit, White successfully channeled his frustration and used his five-second lead and his (greatly reduced) material advantage to run Black out of time in another 20 moves, winning with two seconds left.
Here is another, more sophisticated example of a pre-move near disaster.
White (1917) – Black (1922) [A00]
1.g3 c5 2.Bg2 e6 3.d3 Nf6 4.Nc3 d5 5.e4 Nc6 6.Bg5 d4 7.Nce2 Be7 8.B×f6 g×f6 9.f4 f5 10.e×f5 e5 11.f×e5 N×e5 12.h3 Bg5 13.g4 Be3 14.Nf3 Qc7 15.c3 d×c3 16.b×c3 Bd7 17.d4 c×d4 18.c×d4 Qa5+ 19.Kf1 Bb5 20.N×e5 B×e2+ 21.Q×e2 B×d4 22.Nc6+
After a somewhat irregular but exciting opening, White has just played 22.Nc6+, winning Black’s a5-queen. Rather than resign, Black tries one last trick.
22...Qe5! 23.N×e5! 1-0
Why the exclamation marks for these obvious moves?
Black’s idea, which very nearly worked, was 22...Qe5! 23.Na5? (pre-moved) 23...B×a1, with a decisive advantage. White had in fact pre-moved 23.Na5?, so Black’s idea almost worked, but at the last moment White cancelled his pre-move and played 23.N×e5!
23.N×e5? (pre-move) would also be a mistake, because Black might not play 22...Qe5.
While the previous games serve more as reminders to the reader of the dangers of pre-moves, the following example shows just how much there is to think about in bullet.
White (2506) – Black (2992) [B23]
After a very tense game, with some mutual errors, White has 11 seconds left, while Black has 13 seconds. On the board, White has a decisive advantage, although many moves remain to be played, which means time is likely to be an increasingly important factor.
From a logical standpoint, Black seems to have only two moves which make any sense. The first is 63...Rf8+, throwing in a check in order to surprise White into losing some time. The second is the more obvious 63...K×b4, which threatens to capture White’s a5-pawn. But this is bullet, and there are other considerations, especially pre-moves.
White should be expecting 63...K×b4, which is Black’s most natural move. White has two reasonable replies to 63...K×b4: 64.Rd5 and 64.Ra2. Of these two moves, 64.Ra2 is more natural, as then White can just push his a-pawn until Black stops it. Whether Black captures White’s a-pawn or not, White’s king will attack Black’s g6-pawn and the ensuing play will be simple. If Black captures White’s a-pawn, this will result in an exchange of rooks, which makes things even easier for White. If he doesn’t, Black’s rook will be tied down and White won’t have to worry about counterplay.
Given the time left to each player (11 seconds for White; 13 seconds for Black), time is crucial and therefore both sides are looking to pre-move.
Putting two and two together, Black concludes (mostly by instinct) that White is likely to pre-move (because 63...K×b4 is the obvious move) and that 64.Ra2 is the most likely candidate move (because rooks belong behind passed pawns and because White’s a5-pawn would be in need of protection after Black captures White’s b4-pawn).
Black therefore plays to exploit this possibility.
63...Kb3!
64.Ra2?
Black guessed correctly! White does indeed pre-move 64.Ra2?, and as a result Black winds up being the only one with a rook in this rook and pawn ending. This shows why anticipation is so important when the game comes down to a mad scramble.
64...K×a2 65.h5 g×h5 ... 0-1
Black went on to win the king and rook vs. king ending 11 moves later.
We now shift from looking at taking advantage of the opponent’s pre-moves (or trying to), to examining pre-moves which prevent the exploitation of an opponent’s mistake.
Generally, the consequences of this type of pre-move mistake are not as severe, and often are barely noticeable, but in certain situations they can be costly.
White (2002) – Black (1916) [A40]
1.d4 g6 2.Nf3 Bg7 3.Bf4 d6 4.e3 Nc6 5.Be2 Bd7 6.0-0 e5 7.Bg5 f6 8.Bh4 Nh6 9.c4 Nf5 10.Bg3 h5 11.Nh4 N×h4 12.B×h4 0-0 13.h3
In this position, Black would very much like to activate his kingside pawns with 13...f5, increasing the pressure on White’s d4-pawn and also threatening to bury White’s h4-bishop under an avalanche of black pawns. The only problem is that White’s h4-bishop pins Black’s f6-pawn, so 13...f5? will be met by 14.B×d8. Or will it?
13...f5? 14.Bg3?
With 42 seconds left, White was apparently so ready for 13...g5 that he either pre-moved 14.Bg3 or just reacted to Black’s 13...f5? as though it was 13...g5. Now Black reaps all of the advantages of 13...f5 without any of the disadvantages (and there was really only one drawback to 13...f5? – the immediate loss of Black’s queen).
14...f4 15.e×f4 e×f4 16.Bh2 N×d4 17.Nc3 Qg5! 18.Bf3 B×h3 19.Kh1 B×g2+!
Having gotten away with 13...f5?, Black digs deep and makes some good moves.
20.B×g2 f3 21.Bh3 Qh4 22.Bd7?
White has 27 seconds left, but fails to find 22.Rg1, although even if White had found this resource, Black would still be winning.
22...Be5 0-1
In the next examples, the culprit is the pre-move’s poor cousin, the smart-move. Smart-moves are even more likely to blow up in your face than pre-moves.
In this completely balanced position where neither player has used more than ten seconds, White makes a one-move threat.
White (2488) – Black (2569) [A41]
16.Nc5!? e4?
This horrendous move seems inexplicable, but in fact it’s not. Black anticipated 17.R×d4, and had clicked on his e5-pawn using smart-move. The recapture 17...e×d4 would then be automatic, but Black’s time-saving strategy backfired.
After 16.Nc5!?, Black’s e5-pawn followed orders and made the only legal move it could: 16...e4 (the smart-move 16...e×d4 was impossible, because White hadn’t captured Black’s d4-rook). This left Black’s e6-bishop hanging and Black’s d4-rook unprotected, turning a blunder into a catastrophe of Biblical proportions.
It need not have happened. Had Black pre-moved 16...e×d4, he would have saved just as much time had White played 16.R×d4, but would also have been safe after 16.Nc5!?.
It goes without saying that if White anticipated all this, he’s a genius.
17.N×e6+ 1-0
The next smart-move blunder just speeds things up.
White (2145) – Black (2107) [B24]
After being on top for most of the game, Black has frittered away his advantage and finds himself facing destruction down the f-file. His only hope is time, but White has 23 seconds left, against Black’s 26 seconds, so it’s a faint hope. 32.Qf7+ Kh8 33.Q×g6 is now decisive, but White crosses up his opponent by playing a weaker move.
32.Qf6!? Kh7
While this move loses instantly, a question mark is not justified. Black must have triggered a smart-move by his king, expecting 32.Qf7+ Kh8 (32...Kh7 as a pre-move would be illegal after 32.Qf7+). Because White played a different queen move, Black’s king automatically went to the only legal square available.
Since 32.Qf7+ won, and Black would also lose after 32.Qf6 Q×f6 33.R×f6, it isn’t quite fair to call 32...Kh7 a “blunder,” but it illustrates the risks of smart-moving.
33.Q×d8 1-0
Some mysteries remain, as in the following two games.
White (1943) – Black (2106) [B06]
Black is happy with his opening, as his pawn phalanx gives him a positional advantage. With time not yet a factor, Black advances where he is strongest.
15...c4 16.Ba2 b4 17.Nd1?!
17.Ne2 was better, although Black would still have an edge.
17...b3
The materialistic 17...Qa5 18.Bb1 Qa1, followed by 19...Q×b2, was even better, but Black is playing purely by positional instinct, and attacks the base of White’s c2-d3 pawn chain.
18.Bb1 c×d3?!
19.Ba2?
One way this move can be explained is that it is a not-so-smart smart move. After 18...b×c2 (which was objectively stronger than 18...c×d3?!, as played), the “smart-move” with White’s b1-bishop is 19.B×c2. But after 18...c×d3?!, 19.Ba2? is the “smartest move,” because it’s the only move.
Another explanation is that White expected 18...b×c2 and pre-moved 19.Ba2, but this doesn’t make sense, because 19.B×c2 is the only sensible reply to 18...b×c2.
It’s always possible that 19.Ba2 was just an inexplicable mistake, resulting from “operator error.”
19...b×a2 20.c×d3
A pre-move, or has White just lost it?
20...a1Q
This is very discouraging development for White.
21.Ne3 Q×b2
Black keeps his new queen.
22.Ng4 0-1
In our last example, Black is losing, but the way in which he loses is hard to fathom.
White (2394) – Black (2184) [A00]
After what was obviously a very unusual opening, White has achieved a winning position. He is a pawn up but, more importantly, he is about to win Black’s unfortunate h7-bishop.
With time about equal (both players have around 40 seconds left), Black’s only chance is to stir up trouble on the queenside, and to that end he has just played 16...Nd4, threatening 17...N×c2+ and 18...N×a1.
White should put his king to work and calmly defend with 17.Kd1, but instead he plays an unexpectedly weak move, which is met by an even weaker response.
17.c3?
17...Q×c3?
It is actually hard to figure out the genesis of this mistake. Our best guess is that Black anticipated 17.Qc3, and pre-moved 17...Q×c3? Alternatively, when Black saw that something had moved to c3, he may have assumed it was White’s queen. Finally, it’s also possible that Black was disgusted with his position and decided to resign in this manner.
18.b×c3
Maintaining the pin on Black’s h7-bishop.
18...Nc2+ 19.Kd1 N×a1 20.g×h7 1-0
Pre-moves are a part of bullet, but players who play with fire can sometimes get burned...