UK Schools - Last 8 :-)

[Andrew McHarg]

Unlucky guys! Should be proud of your achievements! 8)

[Mike Scott]

The score was emphatic but, from what I heard, most of the games had chances for our players. I have not seen the games but it does sound like that most games were competitive but were lost because of missed chances or tactics. I know Jonny was particularly frustrated because he felt he had initially out played his opponent and then missed moves he should have found to improve the position only then to miss a tactic that was not fatal perhaps put him on the back foot. The game went the distance but I know he feels he should/could have done better.

The point I am getting round to making is that we hear this sort of story so often with juniors (actually seniors as well!) - about how well we compete only to miss out because of the odd move here or there. We appear to be able to play good chess moves as well as our higher graded opponents but make more mistakes. Is this simply chess: the difference between good players and very good ones or is it what goes on in the lower graded players head based on the grading difference and a sense of not being good enough?

I make this point to reiterate my feeling that coaches should spend as much time on teaching players how to maintain concentration, self-belief and how to spot the bad move as how to find the next best move. My fear sometimes is that if we over emphasis how close we were to winning we are fooling ourselves.

Any thoughts on how juniors should prepare for taking on strong players?

When preparing for the match we decided that Jonny's opponent was likely to play something tactical - like Evans Gambit and we debated whether, if he knew the critical lines, to take up the challenge or aim for something more solid and avoid the tactics (and perhaps frustrate the opponent into taking a risk) or simply play his normal game?