One of the most difficult things to get used to, in tournament chess, is the adjustment to a sudden change in the nature of the game.

Two masters will be sitting there, calculating and untangling long variations in a closed game with 8 pawns a side and White on top.  Suddenly one of the players overlooks a move, the game opens up .... and it may suddenly occur that Black is better (with the right to attack).  If two non-masters are playing, both will then play the next three moves under the impression that White is better and Black should defend...

It's simply hard to shake off the conditioning that has been applied to you for the last two-three hours and turn on a dime.  Great players do this, though:  they sit for those two-three hours and wait and wait and wait, and then an opening occurs and it's BAM!! take this with you, pal...

It's probably the most common way for a professional player to defeat a strong amateur.  Greater agility in adjusting to twists in the battle. 

This applies, of course, in boxing, wrestling, basketball, and other sports.  It's hard for a guy who has been winning, to adjust to the idea that now he has to cover his weaknesses and hold out for a while.  In Europe in 1944, an egotistical loser made the winners' jobs a lot easier by refusing to admit that he had become the underdog. 

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One one level, we fans have a hard time adjusting Tuesday.  We're sitting here punch-drunk, after a week's worth of yuuuuuuuuuu-glee losses.  But supposing this had been the second game of the season, following a Felix victory on Opening Day?

If you "adjusted quickly" to the nature of the battle, and viewed this game as though nothing had preceded it, what would you have seen?

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=== Greinke vs Snell ===

You might argue that Zack Greinke is, by definition, the best baseball pitcher in the world right now.  Think about it.  There isn't any such thing as a worse assignment for nine baseball hitters.

Greinke locked down the M's, giving away no walks, and no runs, but ... again, suppose this was the second game of the season, what would you have seen?  You'd have seen that, rather than mailing the game in, the Mariners dug their back spikes in and fouled him off the best they could.

The result being, that Greinke had to spend 119 pitches to cover seven innings.  The Royals obviously wanted this one, letting Greinke go 120, but the M's did manage to get into KC's bullpen.  In Kansas City they don't have $10M closers and $4m setup men.

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=== Sucker Punch ===

On another level, Tuesday's game was a gorgeous example of one side managing a change in game flow.  The moment that Greinke left the game, the Mariners put six straight runners on base -- while the Royals' relievers refused to recognize that their picking at the strike zone was digging their own graves. 

Granted, the key AB -- Lopez' deflected double -- was lucky.  But that doesn't take away from the fact that all six of those guys put professional AB's out there, despite the previous two hours' conditioning that the evening was going to end in a bad death.

Amigos talk about a manager's in-game moves.  Much more important is the ability to manage your players into competing hard when it's not fun to do so.  We've seen a whale of a lot of Mariners teams go up in that 8th inning whaling away and hoping something good happens.

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:golfclap: Wok,

jemanji