On the Board; Off the Board

Thread by: @hhart10k

A place to talk about how life off the board (examples include family, work, school, health, etc.) helps or hinders your chess, and, also, a place to talk about how chess can help or hinder your quality of life, self-care and wellbeing. Basically, a place to talk about chess and life.

hi

I think just trying to think ahead in everyday life, what comes after doing XY, how can i prevent negative consequences, etc... can help insanely

for those chess geniuses who were born knowing how the horse moves, try not to be playing chess while your teacher is explaining how the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell because its hard to focus on anything when multitasking in an academic setting IMHO and will probably negatively affect both your grades and your elo

What an amazing tip!

uhmmm I dotn understand a thing your saying but chess hasnt affected me off the bord yet

Goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: general good habits in life (like eating a balanced diet and getting good amount of sleep) will help your chess as well

Ecercise helped me aswell (adrenaline to focus).

100% playing chess while having to switch tabs every 5 seconds is not beneficial

Chess has helped me stay sober. It's a game that I've quickly fallen in love with learning more about over the last year and has helped push a bad habit aside!
I had watched Queen's Gambit back in 2020 with my mom and decided to rewatch it this year to see if my new knowledge would give me any insight to the game instead of focusing on just the story, but I had forgotten how much of the series' plot revolves around Beth's battle with substance abuse. It resonated with me a lot more now after a few years of battling my own addiction, and helped convince me that I need to quit again & stay sober for good this time.
My partner suggested that every time I get the urge to go out and buy another smoke, I should boot up Chess on my phone and play a quick match instead. Not only have I found my improvement at the game to be more steady with a sober mind, but I'm also engaging with a more meaningful past-time instead of getting high and scrolling YouTube to kill time.

Chess is a thing which has helped me a lot of the board. Chess just changed my life in a positive way. It increases my focus in academics and memory. I absolutely love math and am pretty good at it I have represented my school for the math competition for the past 3 years and am 3rd in my district so I feel like the calculations I do in math kinda helped me calculate in chess as well and vise versa. Calculating in chess helped me stay sharp in math aswell. Chess also gave me an overall confidence boost. Before my board exams I studied a little and played chess which made me less tensed and more confident, sharp and focused. And I did pretty good in exams. Overall chess has had a really big impact for me atleast off the board and I am really greatful to friends who suggested me this amazing website. A huge shoutout to them aswell. I was 151 rated when I started playing on chess.com and there were some amazing people who helped me through times a huge shoutout to them aswell.

Thank you

Amazing and hope you have a great life ahead

Tbf my grades are already kind of screwed anyways, and I feel like studying at home is way better for me: I play chess in the day, study at night with the resources the teacher gives me, and overall, it’s just easier to balance like that because I get to study my own way.

One piece of advice would be to treat every new day separately, if you get caught up in planning way too far ahead then that can easily lead to stalling/putting things off and frustration. Today, get started on what you truly want done. All the time you waste thinking you can’t do something is more than plenty of time to actually accomplish that thing. That said, there are certainly things that do require a lot of planning and such.

I think chess helps to stay lucid and deal with situations with calm.

that is great advice, if you plan too far ahead and something doesn't go like you expected, you can get really frustrated, mostly in classical OTB tournaments, that is really important, I have been really frustrated in OTB tournaments because I had planned things and the results didn't go as expected, of course you have to learn to deal with it or you will get tilted.

I haven't read all the comments so forgive me if I'm repeating an already made point.
I've gone back to chess after a great many years. Partly because I am aware of the impact of intellectual inactivity on my mental alertness and my willingness to engage in life in general.
I'm enjoying the puzzles as it keeps me thinking and I enjoy the challenge. So to get back to the point, life off the board has reactivated my chess playing.
I just need to allocate time in real life to play some on-line games - for some reason I'm a bit nervous of that aspect. (Not the use of tech - but the risk of losing the fun aspect).

Absolutely fantastic point @Penguinchocolate

bullet and rapid chess can help with quick thinking

I agree, bullet does help, not sure about rapid though