Chess Mentality: Pure Confidence
Most young players today have a big issue whether it come's to sports, public speaking, and finally chess. You many not know it now, but the reason you can never seem to get better then what you are now is because you don't fully believe in your ability.
To Find whether your affected by lack of self confidence ask yourself the following...
- How long has your rating been around the same area? (Based on amount of tournaments you play, obviously if you play tournaments once a month it may go up slower)
- Is there anyone who you just can't seem to beat in the tournament?
- Finally, Is your lose rate extremely high then your win rate?
- Do you think resigning often is ok?
If you answered yes to any of these questions then you may need to build up your selfconfidence. If you answered no to all the questions then your probly a pro or some person who's a reincarnation of Bobby Ficher.
Before I go on I have to say that Resigning Often is Not Okay. That's just giving up on yourself, Grandmaster's and Masters only resign when defeat is inevetible, but resigning when you still have hope is going to make you doubt yourself forever.
To build your mojo confidence all you have to do is keep playing. The more you play the better your going to get. Accept loses only AFTER you officially lose use your loses to motivate yourself to become better, take notation and review your games when you get home. Never ever say something like "I can't do this, he's/she's going to beat me" during a match because then your going lose all your confidence once your mind is convinced that it can't. Instead stay positive, after all just one move can change the tide of the game.
The most important thing of all is your EGO. Throw that away. Accept that sometimes you just can't win them all and the only thing you can do is just give everything you got. If your EGO gets in the way you will never be able to grow as player.
Another Useful tip is to stay Mentally Tough. What I mean by this is that you don't get affected from losing material or making a mistake. (E.g Miscalculations, Losing your Queen)
Hope this helps Chess.com PM me if you think I'm missing anything from this blog
