How To Lose At Chess | April 7th, 2025

This is going to be a depressing post.

Yesterday, for the first time in probably about six months. I’ve dropped out of 2000 completely. My rapid and blitz are high-1900, but not 2000, and my bullet… who cares about it, but it’s mid-1900. When the New Year rolled around, I set myself a goal of achieving a peak rating of 2200 at the end of the year for both rapid and blitz (as my blitz peak was 2100 and on February I would reach a peak of 2100 rapid). But now, I think I have to re-evaluate my goals.

This occured simultaneously when I was tilting in blitz and I just so happen to join the Chess.com Improvers Sunday Swiss Tournaments for the first time, and I played six rapid games, losing three and winning three, all against 1500-1600s. This means, while my three wins only got me three elo (+1 for each match), each of my defeats equate to a loss of -15 elo. Three losses, so -44 elo (well, one of the losses was a 1600, so I “only” lost -14 instead of -15).

And even though today, after I used up my daily allowance of nine matches and barely got back to 2000 (nine matches, five wins and four draws), I still feel a little bit humbled that the journey to chess improvement isn’t linear, and from now, it will take so much effort to barely inch some progress. My elo graph looks like a daily stock market, yet I don’t know when to sell my stocks as a day trader.

Considering how for the past months I’ve gathered more losses than wins, and with my rating keep going up and down, I’m going to use today’s blog to showcase how to lose at chess, how to tilt, and finally, just for a more optimistic end, how to eventually recover from it. Albeit I never listen to my own advices, I think it serves as a decent reminder for me and all of you in our own chess journey.

Underestimate your opponents

Oh, you want to lose at chess quickly? Underestimate your opponents. The Swiss tournament I played yesterday, I was only paired with 1500s-1600s, yet I still lost to half of them because of some really dumb blunders. "They're literally 400 elo lower than me, this should be an easy kill": no? My tone sounds pretty frustrated as I'm writing, but I've always realized that being cocky kills all winning chances. Here's an example of such game: I played against a 1500, outside, phone on my hand, wanting to make this game quick so I can find myself a restaurant to sit down and eat, thinking this is an easy opponent. My underestimation was quickly humbled.

Having awful time management

“When you play chess the idea is to make good moves, not quick ones!" - Jeremy Silman.

I've always reiterated this in multiple of my blogs, I have a problem in time management. For example, in blitz 3+0, I may play way too slow, while something like rapid 10+2 or 15+10, I may play way too fast. For the first case, I might get an advantageous position, but because of time pressure, I succumb, hang a piece, and perhaps lose the entire game as well. While for the latter, my opponent has all the time in the world to think, while I'm taking about ten seconds to make an entire plan, evaluating all weaknesses, and play my next move, blitzing it out, essentially playing with time odds when I don't necessarily have to, I have all the time to think: ten minutes for me to play, plus another ten minutes from my opponent to think about my moves.

Play when your brain is distracted

Here is a quick checklist to see if your brain is distracted, I may miss quite a couple stuff, but this is the most basic.

• Are you playing at a reasonable time? (Are you playing, say, in the afternoon, when everything has been done, or are you playing at midnight, grinding bullet on your computer with no intentions to stop?)
• Does the place you're playing have the right conditions? (Are you playing in your room, with maybe a bit of music but not that much noise, or are you playing outside, phone on your hand, playing blitz while listening to traffic and having to go somewhere?)
• Is chess the only thing you have right now? (Have you done your homework? Chores? Are you sure this is your free time for you to play chess?)
• Are you playing with the only tab opened being chess? (The only thing on your screen is chess? Or are you playing while chatting with your friends?)
• Have you ate something before-hand? (Being hungry makes your brain less efficient...)
• Do you want to play chess? (Do you actually want to play a game or are you just trying to keep that streak or grinding for a certain elo, against your will?)

If you ticked two or more boxes, your losing chances will significantly increase, because your brain is distracted: it is not fully concentrating on the game, which means your tactical vision decrease, which means you're more vulnerable to tactics, which means you lose more often.

Disregarding your openings/endgames

If you want to lose at chess, play whatever the hell you want, start with whichever move you wish to play. Not having a grasp and just playing the first few moves without knowing the middlegame theory, sidelines, traps, or simply ideas of the opening, will basically guarantee you a disadvantage right off the first ten moves. Same applies at the later stages: if you get a really good position, up a couple points, but you have an endgame deficiency, you'll choke the game and cry.

Here's me not knowing any theory of the Trompowsky and losing in thirteen moves:

And here's me, being cocky and disregarding all endgame principles:

Tilted

Tilt is not just an event of a losing streak, it is also a state of mind. Losing over and over again, making dumb mistakes, yet you're still being stubborn and convincing yourself to play one more match, hopefully covering and mitigating the damages. This is the mindset of a gambling addict, not a chess player.

Again, here is a checklist to see if you're tilted. Yet again, I might miss a couple of stuff, but these are the fundamentals:

• Are you still continuing to play even after a streak of losses? (three, four defeats in a row?)
• Are you raging, smashing and punching yourself or surrounding objects after a loss?
• Are you experiencing excessive emotions? (crying, furious, dissapointed, agony, etc.)
• Are you regretting every mistakes you made in a blitz or bullet match? (being excessively perfectionistic?

So, what exactly does all of these parts have in common? Well, to put it simply:

You lose when your brain is distracted.

Being cocky, underestimating your opponent, being tilted, playing outside while in a rush, playing without finishing your homework, worrying about something in real life, not grasping enough knowledge about your openings/endgames, or something just as simple as being sleepy or hungry, all of it puts your brain in a distracted state, unable to fully concentrate on the chess and make wise choices.

But I understand that you and I may not always have the perfect, ideal state or environment to play effective and good chess. We're always guilty of playing chess wherever we go, whether we want to or not, and even if we don't and we are playing in the best possible atmosphere, we will still lose at chess because we overlooked something. I know for a fact, that even though I write all of these (somewhat useful) advices, I won't be able to follow all of it.

Truth is, we are not divine. Losing is inevitable. The most painful part of chess is accepting losses, because losing in chess is unfathomably stressful, and some get crushed by the overwhelming pressure, while others overcome and become great chess players.

And I'm still trying to accept that fact.

🍮