Beating Chess with Psychology - Pt. 1
An ongoing new series that I will be updating every once in a while is a whole new branch of chess - related to the psychological connections we encounter all the time, knowingly and subconsciously. Follow me as we go along and explore the deeper and unknown realms of the mind - flashing rapidly through our highly complex sense and understanding of this game that we may have never thought of before. Before we start, make sure to share this post with your friends if you enjoy, and follow me here on chess.com. Let's dive right into it!
Psychologically Outplaying your Opponents
When we play chess our minds our constantly trying to get ahead of our opponent - we try to overwhelm them with everything we can possibly throw at them, but what if I told you there are psychological 'points' that all of us perform during a chess game. The major difference that is playing with a human rather than a computer, or a bot, is that these psychological factors are taking place on both sides, and whoever brings their board 'attitude' to the game will be the one to make their opponent crack - more on that sometime else. Greed is one of the big factors. Greediness can be both beneficial to you, and at the same time can be terribly detrimental to your position on the board. Greed can be short sighted at times, and can blind you from the steps you really need to take in order to stay on top - and most people can't function over the stress and heat that you face over the board - your mind rapidly trying to keep up with everything and make amends to your losses, and keep everything perfect for yourselves. When your mind tries to overtake everything going on, and has to find a way to satisfy itself, the problems begin - this is a very common thing that happens to beginner and intermediate level players. They tend to see past the long term benefits, and go for the short term gratification, or satisfaction, which is where we've all been caught in a nasty state, where we can do nothing but wait as our opponent converts the board using our manipulated and frantic mind going through a panic attack in order to keep up with the board and make sure that everything is okay for itself. While we try to settle the ruckus we have to face, our foul play comes from the distraught judgement and understanding we go through in the process reviewed by our ignorant mind during a chess game.
Ignorance. When our plans tend to backfire, we often combine ignorance, greed and stupidity together to make the best for ourselves and end up in a careless manner where we can do nothing to prevent our now inevitable defeat. Thought must be put into foreseeing consequences before we let our fragile mind take over with all operations towards the pathway to painful searing loss...
The player with the higher 'control', the higher threshold for psychological fulfillment, will be able to use the impulse that is greed, and exploit it so that they surely can snatch the win from their opposing players hands. This kind of player shall be able to eliminate the thoughts of fear, anger and greed before making a move with confidence and a strong 'attitude', that will slowly, if not immediately get the better over their opponent. Use psychology as an advantage, as a factor in winning your games, knowing that your opponent is also susceptible to the mental and psychological cracking points/breakdowns that will lead to their eventual squandering - hopefully before you, as they have to take upon their overconfidence, senseless fears and loss of focus/understanding. Don't let pride get the better of you during a chess match - ego and dignity can get in the way of the game, resulting in only your fall, noone elses.
Believing is less than actually doing something, and when we let our careless, reckless and cocky behaviour get the better of us - our game situation can collapse entirely. Snapping our moves away as we play doesn't improve our game at all - take the time to analyze, assess and calculate! We are all susceptible to irrational fears during a chess game, and we let these fears make us unintentionally control us into reacting to threats that were never posed as any danger to us. Understanding our mind better than our opponent can earn us some well deserved wins! We'll be able to actually see through our opponents and actually just 'read' them like a book! Use your observations during a chess game to turn the tables completely or create overwhelming threats for your opponent. To achieve this, we need to be able to take advantage of all the defects and flaws we all currently possess. Try to exploit laziness in terms of a factor! Chess players don't want to have to do more work or calculations that they need to do - so try to pose threats to your opponents that are imponderable or otherwise simply unconvincing!
Hide your threats and ambush your unsuspecting opponents! When we let satisfaction answer our laziness, we often miss what our opponents are threatening. This is especially true for intermediate 'patzers'. These kinds of players will also mentally collapse after we attack with threat after threat after threat! After tiring out their mind onto providing defense, sticking to the defensive side of play, these players will start to psychologically break down and start to show signs of giving up cognitively as they're trying to do everything in a mad storm of the board as they see it. Psychologically trick your opponent! Use prophylaxis! Take your time to set up threats, and positionally improve while also carefully and cautiously keeping everything under control - you need a cool and clear mind to stay ahead of the game. Your stressed and most likely tired opponent will lower their guard and starts to give up looking for immediate threats, letting you strike when they're off guard or have slipped from their initial thought process in playing the game methodically each turn. Don't let your opponent step up and continuously create problems for you - psychologically, he/she will feel dominant and you have to undermine his/her delicate mind with your technique that I hope you can perfect. When your opposing players mind starts to give in, give them a shock! Surprise them with brilliance and stunning play! Reboot their entire game plan and give them a quick and crushing defeat! Being able to have this intimidating lead and intimidation factor upon your opponents will rattle them into creating unsound defences in a state of oblivion and shock. You always have to stay objective and not let emotional play take the game out of your hands.
Use your bluffing skills from cards to subdue your opponents and make sure that the intensity stays within your clutch! You are supposed to be the one able to bring your opponents down, and consciously strike them down with talent and finesse. Make your opponents second guess themselves and be unsure of a position! Don't be afraid to break up a positional play into a tactically complicated one, where you shall thrive with your psychological effects upon your opponent! They will break down if you master your craft, and they will miss your threats, miscalculate certain lines and ultimately crumble to ground in a breakdown that they couldn't have been more sorry about. Having an understanding of this human chess psychology can get you some pretty decent leads against your opponent - no matter what age, rating or skill level you are, people will all be different, and sometimes you just have to adapt quickly to what you will be up against next. The employment of psychological techniques can be critical and sometimes essential to help you win some more chess games.
Until next time fellow chess lovers!
