Measure your chess
aggressiveness
By Robert Morrell and Daren Dillinger (California Chess Journal April/May 2004.)
We all know that chess is a war game, and while some of us go at it on the boards like cerebral Rambos – always
punching, always finding some way to be aggressive and be in our opponent’s face! ...Others play too nice.
Imagine a game by Jimmy Carter or Mahatma Gandhi. How aggressive are you? Do you go for broke or dance
around waiting for an opponent to throw you a mistake? The following test is scientifically designed to rank
your aggressive tendencies on the board.
Check your answers with the score key at the end and see how you rate.
Early in the game, your opponent collapses of an apparent heart attack. His wife and children gather
round, and after exchanging tearful farewells with them, he looks up, and with life fading from his
eyes, asks you for a draw. In response, you:
A) Accept immediately.
B) Analyze the position on the board first.
C) Tell him that you wouldn’t give a draw to your dying mother, whom you love dearly.
D) Try to push him over the edge by announcing mate in three.
When psyching yourself up for a game , you visualize yourself:
A) Extending your hand across the board and wishing your opponent “best of luck”.
B) Crushing your opponent’s pieces with a hammer.
C) Strangling your opponent with your bare hands.
D) Ransacking your opponent’s village and carrying off his women.
You view your opponent’s pawns as:
A) Potential Queens.
B) The shape of his position.
C) Juicy morsels to be gobbled up.
D) Speed bumps.
You view your pawns as:
A) Potential Queens.
B) An integral part of your strategy.
C) Expendables in your kingside attacks.
D) Howitzer shells.
You will consider a pawn rush only.
A) When you have safely castled on the opposite wing.
B) When playing a lower rated player.
C) When you have more than a piece advantage.
D) When it is your turn.
Endgames are:
A) When the Queens are off the board.
B) Sometimes unavoidable.
C) When your opponent won’t resign.
D) Only for weenies who can’t finish off their opponents in the middle-game.
You are playing an eight year old, who leaves his Queen hanging in a complex position. He begins to
cry. Your response is:
A) Offer to stop the clock while he regains his composure.
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Irish Chess Journal