Schadenfreude - The Darkest Move in Chess

The joy in Kasparov was infectious and childlike. And it made me remember something I had heard months ago. Again, I have lost the source of the information, but I remember it was Judit Polgar playing some game (possibly also against Karpov) in which she had weakened a colour complex. And Kasparov was in hysterics. He couldn’t believe someone could play such a move. It had animated him. And it occurred to me that this type of move was perhaps Kasparov’s favourite type of chess move: the subtle mistake that he knew how to punish.

It was a move that afforded him the opportunity to show the whole world his superiority. To show them how good he was, and how inferior his closest competitors were at that time. Of course, I am guessing here. I’m sure Gary Kasparov knows exactly what his favourite chess move is. For all I know it might be 1.b4. That’s unimportant, what’s important is that it got me thinking about what kinds of chess moves bring people joy, about what kind of chess moves brought me joy, and about what that means about a person (if anything).

A few days after watching this clip, I got a text from my friend who started playing chess a couple of months ago. The friend in question is the gentlest vegetable farmer I know. And I know a significant number of alternative-type ‘hippy’ farmers - so that really is saying something. And that is why the nature of the text message surprised me a little. I received a nice image of a trapped queen alongside a caption that said (roughly translated from Spanish): “hahahaha I have murdered my opponent, and it feels so good.” I was shocked. I’ve seen this man sing to a tray of Kale seedlings. It was like watching Yasser Sierawan bite a child. It just didn’t seem like him.

So I looked into my own chess soul and I asked myself what kind of move I enjoyed the most.

And all I saw was darkness.

There are things in chess that have no place bringing joy to a man's heart - but they bring joy to mine. For a few days, I thought that sharing these things might make other people think less of me, believe me to be a bad person, and so I decided to write a blog post about them.

It’s about a chess move. A special kind of move. My favourite move. The one move that makes me feel happy. The one that brings me the most joy. It’s not a tactic and it’s not a sacrifice. It’s not a particular checkmate, nor a crafty stalemate either. This move is much quieter.

It’s a move you make in a winning position. A position in which your opponent has just one idea left, one chance at counterplay - a final shot. It could be a trick or a chance to complicate matters. The exact nature of the opponent's idea is unimportant. What’s important is that I’ve spotted it, and that I’ve found a way to stop their idea. To end their counterplay. A single move with which I remove the last vestige of hope from my opponent's heart.

It’s a move you ideally want to play OTB, so you can look into the eyes of your opponent when you make it. Because you don’t want to miss it. You want to be there so that you can see the exact moment that the realisation hits them. You can watch their shoulders drop. You can see the last sparkle in their eyes depart. Out of options, you leave them with no better move than to simply resign.

And I love it. It brings me immense pleasure. If you're playing online, you obviously can’t quite take the same joy from it. I like to imagine that instead of simply playing my move, I could have just PM’d my opponent a picture of me and my entire family smiling and holding aloft a trio of triumphant middle fingers.

There is a German word, one that doesn’t exist in English. The word is Schadenfreude. It means to take pleasure from another's pain. Frankly, it sounds better than Zugzwang. I have introduced it to my chess vocabulary. And so the next time it comes on the board, the next time I get to drive a silent dagger through my opponent’s heart, by forcing a queen trade into an easily won endgame, by blocking an open file that served as the last point of entry into my position, or by creating luft for my king when the only idea left is a back rank swindle - I will relish the opportunity to play for Schadenfreude.

Out of curiosity I asked chess Twitter what move brought them the most joy. And the answers were pretty broad. There were a lot of fun moves - hopeful sacrifices, a favourite opening. But there was a hint of darkness there, too - people falling into their cruelest opening trap or playing a move so confounding that it gets mistaken as a mouse slip.

Although I’ve never sang to my crops, I don’t yet consider myself (or my friend) to be an evil person. And yet, chess does illuminate in me a darker side. And perhaps, we all have that.

Personally, I can’t think of a better, relatively harmless way than our favourite (destructive) chess moves to express our inner darkness. So destroy on, my chess maniacs, free from guilt or shame. See you on the other side.

Hopefully you are not too disturbed by this post to consider hiring me as your chess coach.

Book a free 60-minute lesson with me today.

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