Self Confidence plays a significant role in Chess

One of my mentors- Dr. Femi Adebajo, wants me to annotate one of my games at the 2014 Tradewise Gibraltar; due to one reason or the other, I couldn't put up a write-up. Here we are right now.

 What is confidence?

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, defines Confidence as a state of being certain either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Self-confidence is having confidence in oneself.

Looking at self-confidence from my personal experience, chess players must believe in themselves to achieve a better performance in tournaments.

Self-confidence in chess relies primarily on the player's ability to believe he can win and be successful in his efforts.

 Before going into the discussion, let's take a look at a few self Confidence Quotes.

• Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.—Samuel Johnson.
• It is only necessary to have courage, for strength without self-confidence is useless.—Giacomo Casanova
• The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.—William Jennings Bryan
• To excel at the highest level - or any level, really - you need to believe in yourself, and hands down, one of the biggest contributors to my self-confidence has been private coaching.—Stephen Curry

First, let's see one of my games where self-confidence played a major role in the challenger B category of the 2014 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Congress.

Before the game, I met with my Nigerian brother (Namo Tal), who gave me a video on how to handle the grand Prix attack as black.
I watched this video for few minutes and left for my game. I had my memory refreshed from seeing this video. 

Second of all, I had a narrow escape at the just concluded 2015 Zone 4.4 African Individual Chess Championships In Lome, the capital city of Togo. I played the same line and was totally lost; my Ghanian friend Philip Ameku had few seconds on his time to make 40 moves. I must agree that both sides didn't play well, most especially me. I totally forgot my repertoire in the Grandprix attack.

"Confidence is contagious ...but so is a lack of confidence."