Those 5 Bad Habits Are NOT Helping You Improve
Hi everybody!
We are almost halfway through this year of improvement. It’s been such a great journey so far! Let’s keep going like that!
However, now is not the time to let our guards down. Let’s change the pace for once as I’ve been positive, colorful and full of unicorns playing piccolos on rainbows since the start of the challenge: EVERYBODY CAN IMPROVE! YAY! 🥳🥳🥳
I just checked the calendar and it’s time for a bit of tough love. Don’t worry, just a bit.
When I started doing comedy, someone told me: “Want to get better easily? Drop your bad jokes.” Keeping them dragged down the quality of my sets. As soon as I cut them, things improved. Simple as that.
The same approach can be applied to our chess habits. Let’s take a moment to talk our bad ones as fixing bad habits is as important as introducing new good ones.
To do this, I surveyed r/chess and compiled the most common mistakes. We’ll naturally improve if we stop:
1- Shopping for expensive gear
I understand. I, too, find that chess to be a beautiful game, and so are the pieces. With so many wonderful chess boards out there, it’s easy to get lost on sites like the Chess.com Shop or House Of Staunton.
Oops, I actually just lost two hours browsing these sites just to link them for this article! So, where was I? Oh. Yes!
Also, so many YouTubers offer great unboxing and review videos for boards, pieces and clocks. All of that is interesting, I’m not saying otherwise, but what I’m saying is that watching all this content doesn’t actually make you improve at the actual chess.
Do this instead:
Those videos are really great. I'm a subscriber of Chess-U-See, CG Chess and Al Su Chess since they produce solid content on chess gear, but... they are not always directly making your rating go up.
Use your best energy for serious stuff: playing, studying, training. Save the gear shopping for when you’re tired, bored or just killing time between games.
Also, yes, I reckon that having a nice chessboard may motivate you a little bit to study more, but there’s no way around it. You have to play and analyze your games to improve.
2- Accumulating unused chess resources
Do you know about the word Tsundoko? It’s the Japanese term for “the practice of acquiring reading materials but not reading them.” Buying new books and courses while you have yet to go through the ones you already have might give you a rush of endorphins. Studies show that buying things makes our brains go YIPPEE!
However, if a tree falls in the forest while no one’s around, would it make a sound? If you own a chessable course that you haven’t started, do you really own it?
As my mother used to say when I tried to skip straight to desert: “Finish what’s already on your plate first before thinking about anything else!”
(I hope you read this using a mom voice in your head!)
Do this instead:
Some activities really need good gear. The better your equipment, the better you’ll do, like camping. If you cheap out on your tent, you’ll wake up freezing with rain dripping on your face. Chess? Not so much.
The number of chessboards you own and the quality of their wood grain won’t make you blunder automatically less. You’ll still just blunder, just with nicer pieces.
The Queen Of Katwe is a movie on Disney+ based on the true story of Phiona Mutesi, a girl from Uganda who became one of the best chess players despite difficult circumstances and went on to represent her country in four Chess Olympiads. To give you an idea of the challenges she faced, she had to quit school at age 9 to sell corn at the market.
If a teenager in a developing country doesn’t need to spend much to improve, neither do you. So, just remember that you don’t need expensive gear or tons of courses to become better at chess. You can’t buy your way into improvement. You have to commit.
Also, there’s a pernicious side to accumulating too much material. Your monthly subscription services, your pile of unread books and your library of courses might make you feel guilty if you don’t have the time to use them.
The most important item here isn’t chess related, it’s your brain. When you feel tempted to buy new things thinking they will make you better, take a second to realise that only you can make you better. Pause and try to pinpoint what’s really driving you to buy those new resources while you have unfinished one standing nearby.
- Is it plain consumerism?
- Is it a lack of self confidence?
- Is it fear of failure?
Also, don’t forget to check out your local libraries for chess books! Here in Montreal, they have a great selection of chess books in French and in English for free! Plus, you can borrow eBooks for free using apps like Libby! FREE STUFF IS FUN!
So, hoarding chess stuff can be comforting, but there’s no way around it: You can’t theory craft chess. You have to play and analyze your games to get better at chess.
3- You’re afraid to lose
Let me talk about my own experience here. When I feel that I am inches away from a milestone, I often get overtaken by the fear of losing that crucial game. It makes me hold back since I’m no longer playing to win, I’m playing to not lose.
For example, during the last 90 days, I reached my then-record of 1330-1335 range six times (One isn’t visible on the graph since I’ve won and lost the same day). Everytime I pressed Play, I felt like I was competing in the Olympics. Like I had been training my whole life for that game and I wouldn’t get another for four more years.
I tied so much of my self-worth to my ability to beat my personal best that it ended up making me play below my potential. Like in this game at move 25:
I would normally see a hanging piece, but instead I gave my queen to my opponent.
But hey, at least I got a pawn for it!
Go to move 15. Normally, I would calculate a few lines and take the free pawn as I made sure that my queen would be ok as I also attack the knight. But, I didn’t play the best move because it might have eventually possibly maybe put my queen in danger and made me lose the game.
Do this instead:
If you feel like the "obligation" to win feels too intense to play, you can create an account on another platform. That’s what I did. When I feel too much pressure to perform or that I’m too tired and that I don’t want to mess with my main elo ranking, I play elsewhere. At least, I’m still playing and analyzing my games.
Here’s another tip that comes from a different life experience. When I used to go rock climbing, I was so afraid of falling that I never pushed myself to my limit. That changed the day I accidentally fell… I screamed so loud, you might have heard me from wherever you are!
I thought I was dying. Then, I didn’t, because I wouldn't be able to write this. Hurray!
Realising that I was still alive after falling showed me something important : I survived. Chess, as any other activity, will come with its share of failing even you're going mom’s spaghetti mode. Don’t just accept that fatality of defeat, embrace it.
It’s counterintuitive, but remember: You grow by losing. Trust yourself in the long run and don’t evaluate your progress on a game by game basis.
Also, your elo doesn’t really matter.
Just to reassure you all, this chapter was written by me for me. I have the feeling I'll be revisiting it pretty soon since I'm on a nice winning streak at the moment. I can feel the pressure building up inside me!
4- Playing mindlessly
At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have moments when we don’t really care.
I used to have the bad habit of playing bullet chess in the subway. Not only did those fast-paced games prevent me from searching for the best moves, my mind was actively focused on making sure that I wasn’t missing my stop. Too many times, I lost my game and missed my station!
I lost on all fronts!
We are mostly all guilty of this one, just to varying degrees. Sometimes, we play to procrastinate or we line up hyper fast games without really caring. It wouldn’t be a problem if we weren’t trying to improve. The issue here is that our brain works by association.
When we do things, we tend to repeat them. Then, we jump on our next rapid game and play it like it’s bullet.
There is a saying in stage performance: “Be careful how you learn your lines, because that’s how you’ll perform them on stage”. If someone learns by reading from a sheet on a small table in front of them, they’ll always be looking down on stage as their brain tries to reenact that practice.
Do this instead:
If time is an issue, focus on puzzles. I’ve broken through my last plateau when I completely stopped playing bullet. Now, on my phone, I mostly do puzzles and daily games. These non-time-sensitive ways to play chess let me take my eyes off the board for as long as I want.
If you want more excitement, you can also try timed Puzzle Rush. You'll be working your reflexes like a cat chasing a laser pointer.
One thing to consider is simply taking a break from chess. You can do anything else and be a full human being with other things going on. Come back when you are energized.
Then, return to playing and analyzing with intentions. You’ll improve.
5- Being too much of a chess fan
There’s this guy in the Montreal comedy circuit who has been revolving around the industry for years. He knows a lot about comedy worldwide since he watched a lot of Netflix specials and listened to a lot of insider podcasts. Like, he can tell you about that time when Ari Shaffir hit Bobby Lee in the face at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
However, for years I’ve seen him try to do standup and it still hasn’t gone well for him. Last February, I saw him on stage, crickets. Still, after all these years.
Thing is, most of his time is dedicated to comedy, yes, but not to its craft. He’s more of a comedy fan than a comedian.
There’s an equivalent in chess. Look, we are all chess fans, but spending time diving into chess dramas doesn't make us better players.
We are curious, but following controversies involving players you will never meet from countries on another continent don’t make your opening better.
Arguing about the legitimacy of jeansgate isn’t time well spent working on our tactical sharpness.
Being a chess fan is great! Chess culture is fascinating! But here, we are trying to improve.
Kamryn delivers a great educational video!
Do this instead:
The way I catch up on drama now is by listening in audio format while walking or doing chores, in the moments when I'm now fully concentrated on my chess progression.
Beware of the time spent watching chess content creators. It’s not intrinsically bad, but there’s a trap here: believing that watching chess players at work will automatically make us level up. It’s like thinking that I could win a fight just by watching every UFC event ever televised.
Make sure to maintain a good balance between “pure entertainment” and “educational videos”. Sometimes, the same chess content creators delivers one category or sometimes both at the same time. Just because it is about chess doesn't mean that it’s about being better at chess.
Learning about chess history, debating chess drama and keeping up with chess trends is fun. But to improve, you have to jump on these 64 squares and learn for yourself. Create your own story instead of following others.
Back to the basics
It’s summer here in Montréal. We will spend a lot of time outside enjoying the few weeks of sunshine. This might affect the time we dedicate to chess, but when we are at the board, let’s make every moment count!
Let’s maintain our best habits: playing and analyzing our games. That’s the only thing we all must keep doing this month.
If you have bad habits that you’d like to share, please share them in the comments below. Other readers will relate (and I might too!)
Until next time, have a great month of June!
☀️
