I do not, as a rule, go looking for a fight on a Sunday morning. Chess, if it must be played at all, should be approached with due caution. My game plan tends to be pretty simple: deploy the pieces onto sensible squares and hope that the coffee kicks in before anything interesting happens. Usually the opponent observes similar norms.
Vincent Keymer, 17, is one of Germany’s brightest talents, and he took me by surprise when we met last weekend in the Bundesliga. The opening moves were familiar, so I was looking forward to some stodgy manoeuvring while digesting my breakfast. But his pawn sacrifice with 14…Nf6 forced me to think. Taking it would grant him a mobile pawn centre and strong pair of bishops, but even on a Sunday morning, declining looked a bit too supine. I gulped my coffee and sank into thought. Half an hour later, I grabbed the pawn, and immediately sacrificed my bishop.
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