How do you deal with being a beginner (the emotional side)

But you played 4538 games......and 10 months of experience.....

and you still say that you are a true beginner?

34 games in one day....and 12 win.....i understand that you are really upset! anyone would be.

You should play 4 games max but quality games!

I play games here so as to do something chess related. I'm a true beginner in the sense that my games (when I play seriously) are full of blunders, absurd moves and general lack of technique, the markers of a beginner. I'm not upset about losing (although it can be frustrating), but about not having enough talent to bypass this stage completely. My dream (which is an obvious impossibility now) was to be an instant chess hit, in the sense that I would be able to play consistently above average chess just a couple of months in without serious effort. None of that is possible because I've been playing chess for years and I'm still below average. Not to mention that by now I've had to put in effort to reach my current level, which is depressing. Funny how very few people in this thread know the kind of feeling I have about this whole thing, with llama being the most in tune with what i'm saying.

it's not a question of talent it's a question of doing it the right way to improve.....

playing 4000 blitz games is not working...you can see that? change your very bad habit of not Thinking on EACH move.

Me playing 4K rushed games here is the byproduct of the curse of being a beginner, not the cause of it. The fact that I would need to put in a lot of effort to fly through beginner stages is extremely sad to me. And I don't want to put in the effort due to the sadness stemming from the fact that I'm not naturally gifted. But you don't seem to be able to grasp that.

Let me try to explain it through a hypothetical scensario one more time. Say you want to learn a foreign language. Say it's Russian. Now... think of yourself as being someone who has a knack for learning languages and you've already picked up Georgian and, dunno Bulgarian, because you were an exchange student in countries where those were spoken. Your learning of those foreign languages just developed organically. You never attended any language school. Now... if you try to learn Russian it will most likely be easier for you than for somebody who has never learned a foreign language and does not possess a knack to absorb language from the surroundings. You will be spared the indignities of being a true beginner in learning Russian. Lucky you...

I wanted to be the chess equivalent of you having organically absorbed Georgian and Bulgarian and now attempting Russian. But I'm the regular guy who wants to learn Russian. because it's a language I'd enjoy reading novels in. I will pronounce everything the wrong way, I will need to devote many hours of study to reach a level in which I'll read, write and talk making a lot of ugly mistakes and will feel barely literate as I was mutilating the Russian language. Now, tell me... does my hypothetical scenario sound alluring to you? Would you understand someone in that position not making any effort to learn Russian because they don't feel like putting in a lot of effort to "sound" like someone who has a cognitive impairment? Somehow I don't think you can truly picture that, but that's OK, you don't need to be able to visualize that. It's just the way I think and feel about being a beginner at something I like.

I assumed that your IQ was around 100 like me.

You are insisting to say that we (the one above 1299) are all more talented then you!

Well i think you expressed yourself very well and i still believe that if you follow what i told you,a 1300 rating here is not only possible but very probable in  10 months and less then 5 slow games per day.

300 day x 4 games= 1200 games.

But no playing by reflex (bad habits for a beginner like you) and Think CAREFULLY on each move.you play and the opponent play.

The two main reasons players stagnate is (1) they don't like playing stronger players, and (2) they think they've learned all they are going to.

In order to break free of the beginner's level, you need to find opponents who are much stronger than you, but not so strong that you can't grasp what they are doing and why.  If you look at ratings, a gap of more than 400 points is nearly impossible to bridge all at once, but a gap of 200-300 points will teach you something new each and every time you play.

A friend of mine, who is an Expert, once told me that the better you get at chess, the more you'll realize you aren't very good at chess, and this is something you need to make peace with.  My own game stagnated for about 15 years between high school and when I began playing seriously again a few years ago.  It took a lot of losing to said Expert to shake the complacency which was holding me back.  To improve you need patience, an open mind, and strong opponents against whom you can truly test new ideas.

It's not a matter of "talent", only of attention and determination.  I can do a host of things now, such as blindfold play, that I never dreamed I'd be able to do ten years ago.

The most important thing to do is to play lots of untimed games over the board, analyze the games afterward, and to always play the game out until you see the finish.  Don't resign just because you're down a piece, let your opponent show you how they finish winning positions.  If you keep doing that, the first big step up will come before too long.

I think the idea of being 'Naturally Gifted' in the most part is not correct. I cant help but think your view of this, and hence your outlook, is being strongly biased by this. Suggest googling 'Accumulation of Advantages', and have a read around the subject. I think this is a better way of seeing 'Naturally Gifted' which may help you change your outlook. Often a difference in ability is small, but once it is noticed that a student is motivated, interested, and has basic ability, they are encouraged and get access to coaching or better instruction etc. so a small difference or maybe only interest becomes amplified through an accumulation of advantages which is often incorrectly interpreted, adhoc, as natural ability. The process explains attainment in a wide rang of fields from sport to academic success.

You mention blundering. There is no natural blunder prevention ability. It is based on a couple of skills in chess which are calculation and visualisation. These skills can be developed in the same way that a footballer develops their ball control, by isolating and developing the skill. A footballer might dribble round cones to strengthen their coordination, a chess player may do puzzles daily to strengthen their calculation and visualisation. It all requires effort, it's not always fun, but as with most things, improvement comes from committing time to the right activites and has little to do with natural ability. A natural interest or curiosity is all that is required.

if you look and my account, you can see that i just lost 13 games in a row which is relativly crazy at my level? How can this happen? Reaslon is simple: i was not at my best today and my opponent were really strong, so i get crushed completly. But i dont say that i had no improvement just because i were losing, in fact, i liked these losses more than my wins in the end, cause i think that i can learn much from then.

yes....and 160 is a genius! and 130 is high!

Most people (about 68 percent) have an IQ between 85 and 115. Only a small fraction of people have a very low IQ (below 70) or a very high IQ (above 130)

I've read about the subject. There's also a "random" "luck" factor in being noticed. Either way, I find it very interesting how the usual wisdom about chess for beginners (train tactics and visualization, play longer games, review your games, play e4-e5, etc.) are not exactly emphasized for someone who's "gifted". No, I'm not saying they aren't advised to do that, but they are guided in a different fashion. In any case, those things are for the "lucky" ones. For the rest of us, mere mortals, you have to go through months, years of drudgery, producing very bad games over and over and over and over. If you can tolerate being that bad at something, kudos to you. The world is your oyster. I'd rather be the "gifted" one who doesn't have to go through that ignominious process.

Not years to get to 1300+ here;and elsewhere it's a LOT easier! 

Max 6 months to one year to feel you are not a beginner anymore.

And it's a great feeling to be able to beat 90% of anyone here under 1250 easily!

And not e4-e5 but d4!was for me a LOT easier and the process is hard but the feeling after is really great!

But you don't need the Talent! you need the PASSION! 

You do not need to visualize the board and see all the squares your eyes close and you do not need to analyze all your games...one in 10 is already pretty good!

and 4 games per day is great but slow one is a must! 15+10 is ok!

I don't mind analyzing games and I don't mind 15+10, although i will not play it here. My usage of this account is simple. To play daily and blitz (preferably 3+2) like it is bullet and complain when people don't resign against me and win on increment. Also, I want to play stuff I detest (like e4-e5) and get to 1200 playing badly and carelessly. That's my only goal in this site. It's not to improve, for that requires a certain type of effort I am not willing to make.

Amen! case closed!

I thought you wanted to discuss the points I made in my original post. You know, about the feelings of dread about being a beginner. I didn't intend to discuss how to get better. I wanted to discuss the emotional implications of being a beginner, of being someone who "has" to go through drudgery because he's not "naturally talented" enough to avoid it. But alas, we end up discussing ways to improve.

I went through something similar when I started playing chess.....and still going through it even though having my skills improved beyond the beginner range. How much ever I improve , I still feel I am not among the intermediate ones. So as few others already pointed out you have to let these thoughts move away...thats the only way. There's no other solution for it.

My reasons for liking chess are very similar to yours. The aesthetic beauty of the game, the revelations that jump out at me when I read (or do) some not-very-deep analysis, the accumulation of biographical knowledge about great players of the past...all of these things really, really appeal to me. 

I'm not a beginner, though. I learned around 1970 and played semi-seriously until around 1975-79. I more-or-less returned to the game about 3 years ago. Partly as a way to keep my elderly brain active. So, my playing level is beginner level, even though I'm not a beginner. 

I don't find my playing level to be annoying or depressing. At my age I have things in life that are truly things to worry and be depressed about. Chess is definitely not on that list. I study games, read books, play against computer software and phone apps, and occasionally play here against a person. Maybe my level will improve, maybe not. I would no longer play or study chess if it began to seem like work, or if it brought more stress into my life.

Every person has his or her own approach to what I call "the other beautiful game." I am therefore reluctant to criticize the way other people see chess. But I will ask this: if a person is not enjoying the game and the process of developing within the game, what is the point? 

There's a bit of advice given to beginners in the game of Go; "Lose 100 games as fast as you can." 

I sure chessmasters and coaches over the centuries have given similar advice, but the point of the saying is you need to get a firm understanding of the basics of the game before you can go and be competitive; not to mention working out that frustration of losing so it stops clouding your brain.

It's not the frustration of losing, it's the frustration of not being good at the game. For some reason many people don't seem to be able to put themselves in my shoes, but oh well... it's not like i'm not used to that

My problem with the beginner stage of any activity is that it's very annoying to be a beginner because what you produce, how you do it and the amount of effort it takes lacks grace. It's not graceful, it's not effortless, it's not beautiful. And all of those things my chess isn't (graceful, effortless and beautiful, among others) make me feel depressed about it. For some reason, only llama and a few others have understood the point i was trying to make.