Earlier this week, I lost two chess games in a row. In so doing, I doubled my total losses in Online Chess! Though compiling a record of 48-0-4 has been both a challenge and a thrill, and I've worked and toiled hard along the way, I'm glad that these games are over.
Of course, I would have liked to have won. I competed as hard as I always do. But in both cases, I was outplayed. Each of the games finished in entirely different ways, which was interesting.
Here's the first game:
After this game was concluded, I analyzed it in Chessmaster. Even though my score dropped slowly and steadily throughout, Chessmaster said that neither of us made an error until move 39, at which point we both erred. That was it until the first serious error, at my 49th move.
The second game was played against an opponent whom I had already defeated three times in three tries! Here's the game:
I had never lost an Online Chess game in so few moves, nor with a sudden forced mate like this.
But I'm glad that I lost these games. Realistically, I have to lose games some time; it may as well have happened now. For years, I have been disciplining myself to better tolerate losing. For a highly competitive person, losing games can be a step in the right direction in terms of his maturity.