Why Can't I Play Chess?

      There is a disease that plagues the world of online chess. It is a problem that I myself, along with many others I know struggle with. It holds players back from becoming great. No, I am not talking about the infamous chess elbow, or a crippling addiction to online chess. I am talking about chess-block.

      What? You’ve never heard of chess-block? Even though I just made it up? OK, fine, I did make up the name, but it is a very real thing. Basically, chess-block is when you’re afraid to play chess because you don’t want to lose any of your hard earned rating. 

      I personally suffered from an almost three month long chess-block. Yeah, it was pretty bad. It started last January. I was on the brink of 1000 elo. All it would take was two wins to reach that precious fourth digit. I sat down one day to attempt to win those two games. The first game I played, I lost. Ok that’s fine, I can just win it back. Only problem, I lost the next game, and the next one, and one more. I was devastated. I was afraid to play any more and lose more rating. So I didn’t play. For three months.

      I only broke this gridlock when I forced myself to play rated for my article where I played the bongcloud for a week (which you should definitely check out by the way). Giving myself a goal and not focusing so much on my rating helped me to not worry about it so much. Now, I play my games freely with no concern about whether or not my rating is above or below 1000 elo.

I only played the bongcloud for a week!

      Not playing chess is never good for your chess game. If you’re worried about your rating, not playing is not going to make it go up. The best thing to do is probably to play a few bot games until your confidence is back, and then go and play a gosh dang rated game.

      Chess-block occurs when you have a lapse of confidence. A lack of confidence in yourself, and in your game. It’s never good to not be confident in yourself. Maybe you think you’re bad at chess. But you’re not. There’s no such thing as being bad at chess. There is only the potential to be better. The lower your elo is, the more points you have to gain. So don’t be afraid of a low elo, and don’t be afraid to go get those points.

      If you’re trying to break a case of chess-block, the best thing you can do is set non-rating related goals. Don’t play to get a higher rating, play to get better at chess. The more you play chess, the better you get at it, the better you get at chess, the higher your rating goes. So right now, right now, go play a game of rated chess. You’ll thank me later.

      - daishukyo