The importance of CCT: example #1 - Biel round 1

When constructing a practical thinking process, I used as a centerpiece Checks, Captures and Threats (CCT).  This simple idea - beginning any search for candidate moves with these three categories of forcing moves, in the order presented - in fact can have a huge impact on your ability to find "hidden" or non-obvious move possibilities in a position.  CCT should therefore be applied both to identifying your opponent's possible threats (ideally right after he/she moves) and to your own candidate move selection.  The previous linked post goes into more detail on the overall thinking process, for those interested.

Of course, a thinking process is only effective if it's actually used.  Some of my recent games have reinforced this fact to me, as it's all too easy to fall back into bad old habits of only actively considering "natural" appearing moves and not looking past things like "obvious recaptures" as occurred in Annotated Game #57.  Breaking old (bad) habits is only possible by constructing new (good) ones to replace them, so I'm making an effort to consciously apply the thinking process and especially CCT.  Missing good opportunities for onself (or an opponent's threats) is otherwise all too easy.

Being dismissive of the need, or simply being too mentally lazy to apply CCT, has been an issue for me in the past.  One of the ways I'm trying to combat this tendency is by selecting professional examples of where the use of CCT would have changed the outcome of a game.  It's also a useful reminder for the improving player that sometimes failure does not mean you are doomed to chess purgatory forever; even the top levels of professional chess are susceptible periodically to making these types of errors.

The first example is the following game from round 1 of the recently-completed Super-GM level Biel tournament.  Watch what happens on move 33, when it becomes obvious that neither Morozevich nor Giri had done the first C in CCT.  Morozevich would have immediately obtained a winning advantage by playing the only check available to him on the board, had he considered the move.

[Event "45th Biel GM"] [Site "Biel SUI"] [Date "2012.07.23"] [Round "1"] [White "Morozevich, A."] [Black "Giri, A."] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "D97"] [WhiteElo "2770"] [BlackElo "2696"] [PlyCount "101"] [EventDate "2012.07.23"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Qb3 dxc4 6. Qxc4 O-O 7. e4 Be6 8. Qb5 Bd7 9. Qc5 b6 10. Qg5 c5 11. dxc5 Bc6 12. Qh4 bxc5 13. Be2 e6 14. Bg5 h6 15. Bxh6 Nxe4 16. Qf4 Nxc3 17. Bxg7 Kxg7 18. bxc3 Qf6 19. Qe3 Nd7 20. O-O Rab8 21. Rfd1 Rfd8 22. h3 Bd5 23. a4 a5 24. Rab1 Bb3 25. Rd6 Bxa4 26. Ra1 Qe7 27. Ra6 Bb5 28. Bxb5 Rxb5 29. Ra7 Rdb8 30. Ne5 R8b7 31. Rxb7 Rxb7 32. Rxa5 Qd6 33. f4 (33. Qh6%2B Kxh6 (33... Kg8 34. Qh8%2B Kxh8 35. Nxf7%2B) (33... Kf6 34. Qf4%2B Ke7 35. Qxf7%2B) 34. Nxf7%2B) 33... Rb1%2B 34. Kh2 Nxe5 35. fxe5 Qd1 36. Qf2 Qh1%2B 37. Kg3 Rf1 38. Qxc5 Rd1 39. Qe3 Qf1 40. Kh2 Re1 41. Qd2 Qg1%2B 42. Kg3 Re3%2B 43. Kf4 g5%2B 44. Kg4 Kh6 45. Ra4 Rxe5 46. h4 f6 47. Kf3 Qh2 48. hxg5%2B fxg5 49. Re4 Rf5%2B 50. Ke3 Qg3%2B 51. Kd4 0-1" />