Could Karpov's chess advice have helped Mexico and England in FIFA World Cup 2010?

Hello Everybody,

Chess is one sport where you can analyze your mistake at every step! In the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2010 fans say England lost to Germany and Mexico to Argentina after two controversial referee decisions! What if both Mexico and Germany knew how to remain calm?

At least that's what former World Champion Anatoly Karpov would say!

In an interview to Big Think Karpov spoke about remaining calm even after making a poor move and other interesting concepts.

Question: How do you remain calm after you realize you’ve made a poor move?

Anatoly Karpov: No, this is a very important and this is good question because many people would call back the situation, they missed chances, and then of course it will spoil the rest of the game. But it is concerning not only special situation during the game, but also the bad result of previous game for the next game you play. So, in my life, I tried and I succeeded in many cases to forget everything that was in the past.

So, of course you need to make some analysis and not to repeat mistakes, but it’s extremely important to accept situation like it is, the real situation, not with thoughts of regrets of what you missed and okay, two moves ago you had winning position now, you have to defend a difficult position and probably you might lose the game. So, this thought shouldn’t be when you play chess game. And so later on maybe you analyze and then you will, how to say, make some conclusions.

But during the game... and this is also very important part for chess education because chess is getting ideas how to accept the real situation and how to be objective. To be objective and to meet unexpected situations and to adapt to this immediately and to start to think and to solve the problems. You have to develop this. I don’t think it comes from your childhood or with birth."

So, what if Mexico and England had kept their calm instead of letting a controversial decision disturb their stability?

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com