How to get rid of yawns and chess views

To begin with, we’ll understand how yawns differ from views. In his book Secrets of Practical Chess, John Nunn wrote the following:

“Views and yawns are two varieties of the same phenomenon. If you have lost sight of anything and, thanks to a happy fortune, the consequences were not too serious, then you made a viewing; if the results are catastrophic, then you yawned. ”

From the foregoing, we can conclude that a yawn leads to a sharp deterioration in position, or obscenities. In amateur chess games, it is not uncommon for one of the opponents to lose the queen. Less often opponents “exchange pleasantries”, i.e. first one yawns the queen, then the second. Examples of such games are presented in the article “A game without a queen – play to the last.”
In the comments to the moves, yawns are indicated by two question marks “??” – “blunders”.
No matter how strange this may sound, grandmasters, who are among the best chess players in the world, sometimes yawn. We cited similar examples in the article “Errors and Yawns of Famous Chess Players”.

In this article, we decided to gather the advice of professionals to combat views and yawns.

Blumenfeld Rule
“Blumenfeld’s Rule” – the definition was invented and formulated by Alexander Kotov in his book “Secrets of Chess Thinking”. We give excerpts from this book.

“Many chess players’ mistakes have“ … one reason, and we consider this reason to be the most effective: most often it is the basis of the most rude views and yawns. Calculating a long option, the grandmaster, naturally, is afraid not to notice something, to miss any opportunity that might arise in a position in five to six moves. It is not so easy to see the subtleties and foresee everything from afar, therefore the chess player gives all his attention to that distant future position. And it so happens that already on the first move, so to speak, at the foot of the settlement tree, the chess player does not notice an elementary blow, the simplest threat. Remember, reader, how often this very reason was the main one in your chess mistakes. Personally, in my practice, such blindness, viewing what lies nearby, “underfoot,” is a frequent occurrence.

How to prevent this serious danger? Many years ago, we discussed this problem with a prominent Soviet master who did a lot to clarify the psychological laws of chess, Veniamin Markovich Blumenfeld. He defended his dissertation on the psychology of chess. Blumenfeld also complained that he often did not see “under his nose”, and argued that a similar phenomenon to one degree or another happens among the strongest among the strongest. To combat this serious scourge, Veniamin Markovich deduced the following rule, which I allow myself to call the Blumenfeld rule (let the reader not be offended by his long wording). Having finished the calculation of options, having run through all the branches of the calculation tree, you must first write down the expected move on the form. It is before you make a move! I watched many of my colleagues and noticed that most grandmasters first write down a move, then make it on the board, and only a few do the opposite. You need to write in full notation, calligraphic handwriting. Look at the entries of Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres – each letter, each number on their form is displayed very clearly. Writing down the move on the form, you are somehow distracted from the distant world of the future of your party, to which you just gave half an hour of precious time, and return to the world of the present, to the position on the board. And when you, having recorded the move, look again at the arrangement of the figures, it will no longer be a gaze of a science fiction, a gaze directed towards the future: you will begin to look at a position through the eyes of a fighter present in the tournament hall, a person who touches reality, clearly imagines the concerns of the present moment.

This was your first step back into reality. And yet, even then still do not move the figure on the board, do not rush. Spend another minute – then you will not regret it – and look at the position with the eyes of a beginner, as if you are not a grandmaster, not a master, but a beginner chess player. Mat in one move does not threaten me? And in two? My queen is not in battle, but the rooks? Am I yawning a pawn? Such an elementary check of the position will surely save you from viewing on the first move and will be a reliable reinforcement to the just completed in-depth study of the position. Following this rule, you will successfully combine the depth of thinking with practical accuracy and infallibility. ”

Following the Blumenfeld rule, after each move you need to look at the position with a new look and ask yourself basic questions related to your own safety:

Does the mat threaten in one move?
Does the mat threaten in two moves?
Is the queen under attack?
Are the rooks under attack?
Am I yawning a pawn?