Chess is a game of honor, you shouldn’t use chess tricks to win. After all, you don’t fight your opponent, but you fight yourself and struggle against your own mental limitations. To get better you have to beat yourself and change the way you think.
Psychological Chess Tricks
There are some tricks that can be applied but fair players wouldn’t do that.
- refuse to shake hands before the game starts
- smile complacently at your opponent
- get up from your seat and go behind your opponent and stare at his neck intensively.
- use chewing gum extensively
- whistling favorite melodies and songs
- write down a bad move clearly visible in your score sheet but make a better move later.
- turn down an offer for a draw in an unfriendly manner
- act desperately as if you have made a bad move, which is in reality a deadly trap.
- Or say: Don’t you feel well, you look sick?
- Pretending (using body language) to be bored about the position while preparing a cunning trap.
- start reading a newspaper
- taking out a big cigar, but just playing with it without smoking
- putting a cigarette behind your ear, if he is a non-smoker
- making funny faces
- pretending that you are a nervous wreck and making strange faces
- talking to yourself
- constantly eating and drinking
Counter Measures
If your opponent does that to you it is important that you relax and ignore all this and do some sort of meditation before the game to maintain a stable psychological condition no matter what happens.
If you get upset then you can’t think clearly. You must avoid getting irritated or annoyed at all circumstances as this will block your thought processes and you are unable to analyze a position clearly and then you might make a blunder and lose.
But sometimes hard measures has to be taken. There was an indian player who used a Bluetooth-Headset to keep contact to his helper who analyzed his position using a chess computer and gave him Chess Tips. The FIDE barred him from tournament play for ten years. The earset was discovered by FIDE Officials by chance when they walked around and passed him.
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