Do you suffer from MGS?
Submitted by
on Mon, 06/09/2008 at 5:21pm.
This morning one of my opponents manoeuvred his knight into a position where it was about to become a game-winning advantage then, instead of moving to the square I feared, he forked my king and rook. The problem with that was that I played PxN and his noble Hussar died ignominiously. “Put it down to multiple-game syndrome,” he said.
Multiple Game Syndrome, MGS, is an ailment he and I share so I was able to sympathise. I imagine lots of people have similar problems. I have nothing but respect for those players who are able to maintain their form when they have 100+ games running at the same time.
Last year at the Sydney International the guy who was looking after the public chess area in the Mall outside the venue asked me to keep an eye on things while he went to lunch. I was walking about inside the tables that had been used for a simul during the morning when somebody sat down and asked me to play. When we started another guy sat down, then a very pretty girl. It was an offer too good to refuse and I couldn't say, “No”.
“Hey Ma! Look at me. I've made the big time. I'm playing a simul!”
It looks easy, doesn't it! But as a small crowd gathered around to watch me strut my stuff I managed to lose all three games. It made me wonder what sort of mental prestidigitation it requires to play twenty games simultaneously.
When we play multiple games on chess.com, especially when two or three opponents are on line together and are firing quick moves back at us, it's a bit like playing a simul. It's so easy, at such times, to suffer an attack of MGS and throw away a perfectly sound position.
There doesn't seem to be a solution, though I'd be interested to hear from anybody who has overcome their MGS and knows how to avoid the blunders.
Meanwhile I'm just going to have to wait till somebody develops a Genius Pill. When that happens, I'm going to buy a whole carton.
(The photograph shows GM Lajos Portisch giving a simul at Sydney's Maroczy Chess Club.)