Humiliate your opponent?

Alexander Alekhine stated that he enjoyed humiliating his opponents. Is this a common attitude among chess players? I don't feel this way, but I'm a fairly mediocre player.

I used to live in a small town, and the 2 best players in our club were expert level. I'll call them Player A and Player B in order to protect the innocent.

Players A and B agreed to play a 5 game match. Player A had been reading about Alekhine, and after winning the first game of the match told Player B that he was going to humiliate him in the match.

Player B was an easy going guy, but after the unfortunate remark he played with an intensity I'd never seen before. He won 3.5 of the 4 remaining points. Is it ego that motivates most players or something else?

At the highest level I think so.  That's what makes a competitor great, an intense will to win... and not just win, but crush the opposition.  It's no so much a malevolent will to cause hurt to others, but it's a very focused motivation to win absolutely.  Of course this isn't limited to chess -- you could easily find the same type of thing in any area of competition.

I think it was misguided for expert A to actually tell expert B.  Instead he could have tried to do it OTB.  I've definately had the same feeling though.  There was a player at my club who decided he was as good as me and I didn't agree.  He would make excuses if he lost and when I'd make a mistake he'd say "well players like us do that a lot."  I'm an easy going guy too, but it got to me.  I decided I had to beat it into him who was better.  If I ended up loosing even once it would get to me a little, and when I won it had to be absolutely crushing or I wasn't satisfied.  Finally after a month of scoring 85% or higher against him he stopped talking like that and I finally clamed down :) now I'm able to draw or loose a game against him without it bothering me.

Mind you I never said anything to him, although he probably picked up my intention OTB :).

actually, not a bad idea to humiliate ur opponents

also Fischers famous snicker when someone played a bad move .. I might have to do that :D

Stay humble. Think about it this way: If you didn't have any opponents that wanted to play you (e.g. at your school) then you wouldn't be able to have a game. There's no point in being number one in that case.

I'm definitely thankful that I have opponents, and I'm glad I'm not number 1 because then it woudln't be any fun.  I'm glad there are people in my area who can give me a good beating, and I acknowledge them as such.

That said, I'm also very competitive.  That doesn't mean rude.  I thank people for games and will ask where I went wrong after I lose and am willing to listen etc.  But while the game is going on I'm very focused in a "I'll crush you" kind of way.  Not that my style is agressive either -- I like to win with strategic themes like endgames and binds.

I think most tournament players feel the same way if not more so e.g. the top 10 for sure.

Chess is essentially a competition between two people as to who can out-think the other. With that in mind, it is the ideal ego smash zone. At the top level, you get people who can out-think lots of others, and thus they are more likely to have bigger egos, and thus bigger crashes. Having said that, the game is on the board, not over it, and it seems silly to be winding others up in an attempt to win. At the end of the day, it's only a game.

 I hope not. And you'd never hear such remarks from decent people like Anand, Kramnik and Carlsen (if he doesn't grow up to be another Kasparov). I personally find such attitude towards the game and your opponents pathetic.

Never get too cocky.

Talking about chess players with attitude? Suddenly I started thinking about this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsXLdCKmvI

Alekhine was a Drunk and a racist so nothing he is quoted as saying surprises me.

You have to remember not all great Chess players are pleasant people, Some are

If I was that good I would be very sweet to everyone, until the clock started to tick.

I find this sort of behavior offensive, and deliberately engaging in it as a means to gain an advantage doubly offensive.   I see some people advocating deliberately doing this, and I really dislike it.  Even the hint of it is enough to drive many people away from playing Chess.

Your opinion may differ. 

Once a newcomer came to our club who was quite good, clearly better than me. He beat me several casual games in a row, but what made it humiliating was that he laughed out loud at some of my moves--when he wasn't smirking at the rest. I castigated him for his rudeness and wouldn't play him anymore. Then came the annual club tournament and we were paired together in the first round. I played the Black side of my French Defense with grim determination. Soon I expanded on the queenside, won a pawn, then another. He resigned, left the building, and did not come back for the rest of his games. Indeed, he never came back to our club at all. Now, THAT is humiliation.

Much better to play to enjoy the experience of playing your best. If you need to humiliate your opponent, it merely reveals your own deep feelings of inadequacy.

Fischer and Alekhine were great geniuses of the game, but they were hardly adequate people.... lets face it.

I have no desire to reach the ultra competetive levels of Alekhine or Fischer so I play to learn about the game and enjoy it. I also try to encourage lower rated players after I've beaten them, no matter how badly they played. We were all rated 1200 at some point.

But at the tops of any sport it's all about competition. And wanting to crush your opponent is the motivation for many people. But they're in it for a completely different reason than I am.

Borrowing a bit from poker, it can be a good strategic move if you state that you are going to humiliate the opponent, if you think that it will dominate their thoughts and cause mistakes. Personally, I'm a competitive person by nature, but I'm not so forward-in-your-face that I would ever do that. Well, maybe in a street game, and then only if I was pretty sure I outrated the guy by 400 pts already, and only if he was sort of a jerk to start.

I don't play a style which lends itself to beating up the opponent's ego. I'm more likely to win a pawn, then force advantages because the opponent doesn't want to trade pieces, then win in the late middlegame or endgame. My chess hero would be either Karpov or Petrosian.

i was once insulted by a 17 or 1800 level bullet player here. something along the lines of "You're bad" after he beat me in a game on time.  I promptly offered a rematch, which i won by mate, and then another, which i also won by mate.  He then blocked me.  I was quite happy.

my point is, i don't verbally taunt people i play. ever. it's poor form.  I mean, if you humiliate someone on the chessboard by just completely outplaying them, then all you've proved is that you played better than them.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it humiliation.  I like to know I've given someone a proper roasting though.  If the chance to toy with them comes I take it.  It's educational. 

I mean, I probably can't even because I'm not skilled enough, and I doubt I would, but there's definitely something to it. It makes chess more like boxing or wrestling or something, where both players are hyping up the crowd, trash talking eachother.

From my reading Lasker did not seem to have this attitude; he seemed pretty good.