There are lots of people out there who will try to teach you how to play good chess, but I’d like to take a different approach - by taking you through a recent online game of mine and showing you how to play spectacularly badly.

Now, you may be thinking that it’s easy to play chess badly - but oh no, I’m not talking about trotting out a bunch of crappy random non-sensical moves that lead to a fast annihilation. I’m talking about a different type of failure altogether. The type of failure where you start out actually playing well and winning, and then piss it all away in magnificent fashion. That is something that takes talent.

The game in question took place at Chess.com, with thirty minutes allotted for each player Your humble narrator was playing white under the moniker of FuriusSpurius, rated at 929, whilst my opponent, Bluemarlin434, playing black, had a higher rating of 969. Fore those none too familiar with chess ratings, these represent high beginners just a few rungs on the ladder shy of a glimpse at intermediate. Crap, in other words.

As we go along, watch the evaluation bar on the left side of the board, which indicates who is ahead, and notice the wild swings as the two idiots stumble from one extreme to the other.

I opted for the London System as my opening, selected from my vast repertoire which consists only of the London System. This opening is wonderful for less talented players, because it enables one to quickly develop one’s pieces without having to even glance at what the enemy is doing. That’s the way I do it, anyway. To dazzling effect, as my rating testifies.

OK, so let’s join the game after the opening deployments. Take a look at Position 1. Everything going according to plan, and the evaluation bar on the left is showing that I have a slight advantage. As the red arrow indicates, I want my opponent to foolishly take my horsey with his horsey. Why? Because once he’s done it, I will take his horsey with my prawn, which will then force out his other horsey if he doesn’t want it to get taken too. I can then begin an attack on the right side of the board. (“Horsey” and “prawn” are technical terms, don’t worry if you’re not familiar with them).

Much to my delight, poor Bluemarlin434 fell for it, and all transpired as I had intended. And, even better, instead of moving his second horsey back to safety, he blundered it right into the sights of my crafty queen, making me a piece ahead and now in a good position, as the evaluation bar shows (see Position 2). Oh how superior I was feeling, leaning back on my gaming chair with a smug look plastered all over the front of my head, thinking I could actually play chess or something, and that I was surely destined to soon leave behind forever the minnow leagues I had been labouring in for so long.

Now, let’s skip ahead to where I start to show my talents in earnest. Talents for being a crap chess player, I mean, of course.

Well, the projected assault on the right didn’t transpire, but things opened up nicely on the other side where I had shredded the defenses around my opponent’s king, leaving him well and truly in the brown and slushy. Just look at the evaluation bar! (Position 3) How could I possibly lose from here?

Now might be a good time to introduce one of the key concepts of being a successful crap chess player. Any fool can be in a good position and then blunder by not seeing a chance that the opponent has. Tunnel vision is very common in the lower echelons of the game. No, what takes real talent is to note the chance that the opponent has, be totally aware of it, but to plough on with your plan anyway, not because you have calculated out all the moves and know you can’t fail, but because it ‘kind of seems like you have enough bits in the right part of the board that some sort of checkmate is inevitable.’

Now look at Position 3 again. I knew full well that my opponent’s queen could take my bishop for nothing, free, gratis. But I didn’t care! Surely the overwhelming power of my other bishop, the rook, the queen and my passed prawn up at the top could take on this naked king cowering in the corner. In fact, let that free bishop serve as a distraction to tie up his queen!

And so, dear readers, can you guess what my next move was? Can you find the devastating thrust that was enough to push my name into the Anals of Crap Chess? Yep, I moved the prawn at the top up one more square. If you asked me now to explain my rationale behind this striking move, I wouldn’t be able to fully articulate it, but I suppose therein lies my genius.

The astute among you will see the immediate problem with my prawn push. The enemy queen could then take the rook in the bottom left for free, putting me in check, and then enabling her to sweep up and remove the passed prawn at the top. So I lost three pieces. For nothing. Nights. Nada. Rien. (Position 4 shows the aftermath: note the amount of white now showing in the evaluation bar - lolz).

The weak-willed and lily-livered would have just given up after this stunning turnabout, but if you want to be truly crap, you must continue, no matter the vicissitudes of Lady Fortuna! And thus it was that another exciting, shocking sequence of moves began to unfold that would make this game a Crap Classic.

For very soon afterwards, Bluemarlin434, despite having an overwhelming advantage, decided to play that boldest of chess moves, the fabled Botez Gambit. Some of you, even those very familiar with chess, might not have heard of this. In a nutshell, the Botez Gambit is a shocking psychological move in which a player sacrifices their queen for no apparent tactical or material gain. Let’s take a closer look (see Position 5).

In moving his queen down to check my king, my opponent has decided to allow me to remedy the situation by liquidating the threat with my own queen. Notice that the evaluation bar has now swung massively back in my favour.

However, I decided to meet this challenge by deploying the even rarer Botez Gambit Declined : Suicide Variant, in which I pretended not to see the gift, and instead solved the problem of the check by moving my king down behind the prawn at the bottom, leaving my opponent free to remove my queen from the board - et voila! - I resigned, sure in the knowledge that I had played one of the best worst games in my chess career! (See Final Position).

I hope you have found this game instructive and that it inspires you to strive to be a truly crap player like me.

I think we can summarise what it takes to bring the game to this level as follows:

1. Start off by playing credibly and get yourself in a winning position.
2. Become smug and complacent, then achieve a totally losing position by ignoring obvious threats.
3. Get to another winning position, preferably by sheer luck, then proudly throw it away as if winning were beneath you.

Now you’re going to have to practice a bit to get to the kind of level I’ve displayed here, but believe me, it’s doable. It’s only taken me a year of serious play to get to where I am now, so there’s hope for all of you.

HOW TO BE CRAP AT CHESS

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IN PRAISE OF SMALL CHANGES