In true Hannah Montana fashion, everyone makes mistakes.

While that is not the only musical reference that can be made related to the varying options of Chess moves (cue “even the best fall down sometimes” by Howie Day), the point is that the best Chess player in history – i.e. Magnus Carlsen – is capable of making a blunder.

What exactly is a blunder? It is one of the worst, if not the worst, moves that could have been made by an individual based on a myriad of options. It leaves a player exposed and drastically affects the trajectory of the game. When playing someone who really knows what they are doing on the board, an opponent will immediately be able to take advantage of a blunder that may not be recoverable by the blundering player.

According to Mr. Robot, a popular show on the USA Network, where there is a Chess scene between two intelligent players, the number of moves increases exponentially by a significant margin only after a few moves.

According to the show, and online sources to back it up, after 3 moves by each player, there are already over 9 million possibilities of positions. After 4 moves each, there are over 288 billion possible positions. The number of positions for a 40-move game is greater than the number of electrons in the observable universe.

That’s a lot of possibilities and, therefore, a lot of moves to work out in your head. That is why the greatest Chess players of all time have IQ levels that are off the charts.

However, the greatest players of all time still make mistakes, even blunders. That is exactly what happened a couple weeks ago when Magnus Carlsen, the highest rated Chess player in world history, made a blunder against another top player in Hikaru Nakamura during a match between the two heavyweights.

As aforementioned, the best players immediately take advantage of a blunder, which Hikaru did without hesitation. Another reason why playing a human is better than a computer is a blunder can greatly effect the stress level of an opponent. The greatest player of all time was visibly stressed and emotional after a blunder. That is the beauty of Chess, in my opinion.

However, even for beginning and intermediate players, there are some things that can be done to keep your cool in the face of a blunder.

Think smarter, not harder. As someone who has made a blunder or 70 in my lifetime, the best thing to do is calm down and don’t rush your thoughts. Rather, go back to Emanuel Lasker’s principle of looking for a better move after you already find one you like. You have to be very careful after the blunder and think incredibly tactically and strategically to pull yourself out of the hole.

Try to stress the opponent. While this is not easy after a blunder, a combination of offensive, defensive, or unexpected moves can throw off the balance of your opponent, and may force them into a bad decision themselves, or at the very least will focus less on exposing your previous blunder.

Next week, we return to the battle of wits. Whether this will be Steven, Kohl, or a new opponent I annoy on the street to play me is yet to be seen. Stay tuned.