Emotions in Chess

Back when I was in elementary school, first learning chess, I regarded it as a pure battle of wits, where the more skilled player would always end up on top. Oftentimes I would hear people respond to complaints about luck in other things (usually card games) with "go play chess". Most non-chessplayers and probably also most chess players tend to dismiss the areas of chess that are completely unrelated to chess, and yet I've found that they play an essential role in improving and in playing well.

This will be part of a series where I write about emotions, discipline, habits, attitude, and anything else I might think of later. I originally planned to put it all here, but it would've been way too long lmao

Anger

When people have negative emotions, their initial response is to vent: yelling, punching things, calling other people "the biggest looser I have ever seen", etc. This is generally frowned upon at the chessboard, though I have seen it happen (the guy got banned from US chess). However, as anyone who has been subjected to boring lectures at the hands of guidance counselors knows, suppressing your emotions is pretty unhealthy and can make you feel worse. It's quite common for someone to get a slight disadvantage early on and get so unsettled that they throw the game easily, and it's even more common for someone to wind up losing after they screw up a winning position. Chess players, I have found, are mostly not very good at dealing with "tilt".

The solution to this problem is quite simple. If something happened in your game that somehow made you angry or upset, go take a walk and touch grass. Some people think that you have to sit down and focus on the game at all times, never even going to the bathroom... which is really dumb. It's frowned upon to leave the board a lot, but as we will see repeatedly in this post, the norms of the chess community are often harmful.

Anger and frustration can also be issues after an unsuccessful round, or an unsuccessful tournament. In these cases, I suggest taking a bit of a break before carrying on. After a lost round, do something fun or just sleep for an hour (if possible) to take your mind off of the game. After a particularly bad tournament, don't touch chess for a day when you come back. You're not going to learn, prepare, or analyze well if your head is stuck in the past.

Arrogance and Fear

There are some chess players who have all the necessary skill and more to improve, but they never increase their rating, even as they learn more and more. These people are very, very common. They exemplify poor emotional control as well as other issues that I'll cover later in the series. How many times have you stood next to a pairing sheet and heard something like "bruhhh, I'm playing this NM named Isaac Snow, I'm so dead"? How many times have you despaired in the face of a stronger opponent? I've played many games where my opponents lost before they even sat down, since they were too terrified to play properly. Of course, it can be much more subtle as well... I've had many games where a grandmaster played a risky move and I didn't try to exploit it with a risky move of my own because  "it was unclear" and "he probably saw something", and getting a draw instead of a win as a result. Never respect your opponent. If there's something you don't see, you'll learn it by losing the game, and you won't make the mistake again; if you don't try, then you'll lose many points by being too timid, and you will not have learned anything.

On the flipside, people often don't bring their best against lower-rated opponents. They play fringe sidelines, they use less effort, and sometimes "hope chess" is involved. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of hope chess, it's essentially playing a move that you know is inferior to another move for the reason that you think your opponent will make a certain mistake. The only time when hope chess is acceptable is when you are already lost or when time pressure is involved. Other than those specific scenarios, worsening your position because you think your opponent will blunder is a recipe for disaster. 

In my experience, arrogance is more insidious than fear, as it is sometimes hard to detect. I've lost games against lower-rateds where I just didn't play very well for no apparent reason, which could possibly be influenced by my mind subconciously relaxing at the prospect of a "weaker" player (I say influenced and not caused... there is never a single cause. More about this in another post lol). Generally, I find that the best solution is to not look at your opponent's rating before the game. If you need to make a decision on your opponent's draw offer, it should be based on your ability to play the position, not on their rating.

Controlling Your Emotions

I'm not a psychologist or a therapist, but I've found that activities like meditation and sleep are helpful for controlling emotions between rounds (if you're religious, prayer is fine too). Physical exercise is also a good idea. During rounds, I like to go outside (of the building) if it's not too far, but if it's not practical to go outside, then I go to the bathroom and splash cold water onto my face. You can also take deep breaths, which is actually extremely helpful, whether you are nervous, excited, or upset. Generally, nerviousness and excitedness are not really too bad, but they might cause you to play faster, which is why stopping to breathe is a good idea.

I like to write about these kinds of topics because they are not covered in a single chess book. I think that anyone can increase their rating quite a lot through better emotional control.

Next post in the series will be about discipline and how some methods of chess study are fundamentally flawed. I might also post some of my games before that. Also, if you're here looking for a TLDR, know that I'm never going to write one lol