Winning mentality

Hi everyone I want to tell you something about winning mentality. I personaly think that this kind of mentality is very important in every day life, in other sports and also in chess. I was training basketball for about 7 years and in that time I was encountered with guys who had flawles tehnique, exelent atletic abilites, great shoots and all that sometimes wasnt enough for win against me and my team, why? Reason is simple, some of those guys didnt have a winning mentality.

But what dose winning mentality realy means? Is it when you win every game? Is it if you are undefeteble? I dont realy thinks so. From mine personal perspective winning mentality is when you never give up, when you fight until your last breath, when you literaly bite your oponent for win, when you give last atom of strength just to win. Easiest thing in the world is to be satisfied with the lost game, lost oportunity. You can say, well he is much better then me, I got no chance for win and if you think like that you will lose, no metter what sport are you playing.

Now lets come back to chess. All of you guys who read this, especialy U1800 players, probable make some blunders in your game after which you said to yourself  ''O my God, what did I do'', or something like  ''I am an idiot, I've got winning position and now I am lost'',  ''Thats it I am resigning this game, after that blunder even my dog would beat me''. God is my whitness that it happens to me countless times, but what I found after I thougt about it is that there is no real reason for resigning. I am not a GM, my oponent is not a GM, if I lost my piece maybe I can get it back, and if I cant, well I can make the game more interesting and try to learn something. In countless times I drop the piece against oponents who are much worse players then me, and I knew that I am objectively better player, so after those kind of moves I always said to myself ''Pavle, you have objectively lost this game, now you can try some interesting ideas and moves you always wanted to try. IF something doesnt work, well I am not gonna play that in the game where I have material equlity:)''.  So I start then to think much harder, and I found that in those desperate positions I've come with the most interesting ideas and atack patterns. Also you should know that after winning a whole piece your oponents in most cases relax a little bit, they start to think ''OK, I just need to trade pieces and have a won endgame'', I saw a lot of players, even good ones, like my brother for example, which after snaching the piece almost stop to think creativly, they start to feal safe and I saw many examples when it can backfire to them.

So if there is any chance for win or even a draw, some little trap, sacs which lead to mate or draw by repetition play until the end and always have in mind thet you have nothing to lose only to gain. If you lose the game, well you try hard to win, and if you win, you will get great satisfaction and experience.

For this article I will show you 3 of my games, all against the same oponent who was rated 1679 in our first encounter and I was rated 1839 that time. I hope you will enjoy, and remember this games are far from perfect but they are perfect examples for this article. I won all three games and in two games I made a teryfic blunder but I comed back to game and eventualy won. My oponent in other light always resigned not waiting the end of the battle end also before the end when he started to feel that game is becoming equal he was going from mistake to mistake and I think that this is psichological moment which I already explained earlier. So watch and learn, not from the moves but from the idea that ''nothing is over untill fat lady sings:) ''.

So in this game we can see a real downword spiral. My oponent droped the piece and after that he didnt rised to the challenge but he goes from blunder to blunder to blunder and then resigned on move 16. Here comes another game, where I lost a piece whery quickly.

And finaly third game, which I have to admit was hardest for me, and I try realy hard to save a day.

I hope you have enjoyed with this games and remember never give up, just think what you can play, and create a new plans and strategies.