The one chess trick no one talks about!

Greetings fellow chess players!

Let me talk about something in chess that most players and coaches tend to omit. How to not get distracted by your opponents in chess.

Have you ever played against a stunningly gorgeous lady, an opponent who would not stop giving you strange looks after every move you played, an opponent who tried to bluff frequently throughout the game or any other type of player with intriguing habits? You are more than welcome to share your funniest experiences with your opponent’s alluring habits during the chess game. You are not alone in getting distracted by your opponent and huge quantities of players have fallen victim to this.

I am here to tell you one simple practical trick to not be distracted by your opponent ever again.

A very common tip is to play against the pieces and not against the opponent. This is highly abstract and it is very hard to change your behavioral patterns based on such metaphysical advice. In simpler terms, it is difficult to know what to change based on this advice.

Instead what I have in store is something concrete that you can implement in the next game you play. Ready? 

Good.

You place your hands over your forehead and you can choose to put your thumbs over your ears or use earbuds to cover your ears as well. In the following manner:

You might believe I am pulling your leg and just want to make you look funny. Bear with me, that is not the case.

When you are playing against an opponent with distracting habits (that they might have developed on purpose) you can get distracted and lose focus on the game. This will hinder you from playing to the maximum of your abilities. You might be playing against a beautiful lady and might not have your eyes on the board at all. However by covering your forehead you are purposely blocking your range of vision so you are only able to see the board. This is highly resilient to a blinker a horse wears to only look ahead on the road and not get distracted by what happens to the left or to the right.

Initially it will be slightly difficult to consistently sit in this position at the board, but if you try to remind yourself this will become a habit.

There are a few things you should keep in mind prior to implementing this tip. 

The first one is to be aware of not having a bad posture. It is tempting to lean forward when covering your head with your hands. Word of warning however; stay cautious and be conscious of your posture. 

Second word of notice. Some of you might say it looks unaesthetic and weird to sit with your hands on top of your forehead. However when you are at the chessboard you try to play the best moves, not to look like a model.

A minor disclaimer is that with corona now there are not too many over the board tournaments at all. However even now you can practice this new trick and only look at the board when you play. Also chess.com has a feature called focus mode when you can only see the board and the clock and nothing else.  This feature is somewhat similar to this trick in the sense that your are only looking at board and you are trying to not get distracted by other factors. 

If you would prefer this information in video form I got you covered.

Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P02Sb8sbe0

I hope you will implement this tip with great success and I wish you luck on your journey through the 64 squares. If you enjoyed this trick consider subscribing to my YouTube channel for more content: https://cutt.ly/wjwgyDC and follow me on twitch if you want to ask me questions or play chess against me: https://cutt.ly/7jwgmkk