How do you get over the "fear" of losing pieces when thinking about trades?

I guess 'fear' isn't really the right word, but I think it fits?

I'm a new, 30 year old chess player. Like, brand new other than knowing the name of pieces and how they moved. 

There are some instances during matches where I'll be too afraid of making a trade, even if it seems acceptable to happen. For all you seasoned veterans out there, how do you get out of the mindset of "don't lose pieces"

It comes with experiencee. John Bartholomew

sorry.it comes with experience. start by simply adding up the value of the pieces being traded to check whether there will be a material advantage. pawn=1, minor piece=3, rook=5, queen=9. if you study chess and as you gain more experience you will become better at evaluating trades. Recommend John Bartholomew's chess fundamentals on you tube. He has a video on evaluating trades which is a good starting place.

the post game analysis is where all the “good stuff” happens

in the post game you can note the specific instances you were scared to do “whatever”

then (maybe a little advanced but not too much) you can come up with lines where you have alternatives to what you did and what the results are

with this in mind you will be able to play more freely in your games

you are not supposed to have all the answers; not even world champions have all the answers

and you are not supposed to figure everything out over the board; you will screw up and fail over and over

but if you spend quality time going over your games when you are done you can begin to improve

If this makes sense, think of it this way. 

A. Definitely don't lose material... trade with your least valuable piece first and don't not do this unless you have some winning idea/tactic.

 

B. This is the hard part. Look at this real quick.

I hope this helps. Sorry I didn't go into much detail.

Solving tactical puzzles would a good help for sure.

#5, thanks for answer)))

heloo

some other ideas you can learn about. Good bishop vs bad bishop, you might decline a trade of your good bishop but seek to trade your bad one. Trading pawns opens files for rooks, you might avoid this and push if you are behind in development to keep the game closed, you may trade and open the game if you are ahead in development or can win control of the file. If your position is cramped so you cant find good squares for your pieces, you might seek trades to free things up, if you have the space advantage and your opponent is cramped then you might avoid trades while you improve your position as this only helps solve their problems. Trading off defenders of a key weak square further weakens it and gives you a potential infiltration point or forward base for later in the game. Yo

It all comes with experience. As your chess develops you'll learn to look at the whole board and both short term and long term payoffs when evaluating trades.

Three Questions to Ask When Trading Pieces...

https://www.ichess.net/blog/three-questions-ask-trading-pieces/

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=john+bartholomew+chess+fundamentals

An easy one is look at the relative value of the pieces. Trade a knight for a rook? Rook is more valuable so you’re probably OK.

Does the trade better your position? Then that trade is probably OK. Super over the top example is trade your queen for a rook but you checkmate, that’s great, who cares if you lost your queen!

first, pieces have value... in trades where you come out ahead, that's usually a good thing if it doesn't sacrifice position on the board. but the whole strategy of winning chess is basically trading pieces. you can't play without doing that. in the opening you fight for an advantage, in development or pawn structure. and maybe a one pawn advantage. in the middle game you try to gain an advantage of a piece or several pawns. once you have an advantage of a piece you trade pieces as you're able for opponents of at least equal value... to get you to the end game. in the end game your advantage of a piece or several pawns will be the winning difference. when played correctly. so to put it simply, if you're behind you don't want to trade pieces. but if you're a head, you should want to trade pieces to maintain your advantage into the endgame.

or to say it another way, the less pieces that are on the board the more of a difference that that difference of One piece between black and white makes. the fewer pieces on the board the stronger your advantage gets when you're up a piece. so trade away, carefully.

Google says that in the entire world, there  are about  3500 chess masters, so we know that we are unlikely to attain even a 2000 rating, unless we are naturally gifted, especially since we did not start playing in childhood. But, one may take a Zen attitude of the experience in the moment, of  making one or two awesome moves even in  a game we ultimately lose.  Pieces  are ranked with value, I think, pawn 1, bishop 3, rook 9, queen 12, AND you know that  pieces must be  exchanged after the  opening, or the game can never progress.  I had such  a fear  the first time I had  to play BLACK.  I spent some days looking at typical black opening defenses.  One person gave  me the wise advise, not to memorize famous games, but to think long and hard as I develop my opening and proceed to the middle and then end game. At each step of the game, try to see all your  opponent's possible  attacks and  how you might defend the. And look at each move for attacks you can make,  that will not result in loss.

hi

Bishops and knights are both said to be 3 points, but note that bishops are often slightly better than knights, especially when you have the bishop pair.

studying endgames & puzzles will help.

Trading pieces, and knowing when it's good and when it's bad, is all about accurately assessing the relative strength and potential of your pieces against those of your opponent. This is often hard to do but, to give you a simple example, I would happily trade a bishop of mine that is stuck behind its own pawns (because the pawns are on the same colour as my bishop thus preventing its mobility and reach) for an opponent's knight that is advanced and located on a nice outpost. I would also consider trading a piece of mine that I had never moved or moved only once with an opponent's piece that have moved many, many times (because I had invested fewer moves in my piece than my opponent had in theirs). 

In general, trade pieces if you have a material advantage - the point being that the more pieces you trade the more important your material advantage becomes ie. 7 against 6 compared with 2 against 1). Conversely, if you are down on material, try to avoid exchanges because your only hope lies in complicating the position, which is far easier to do when there are more pieces on the board. 

Hope that helps.