so annoyed by tunnel vision… is this a neurodivergent-thing?

I‘ve played the following game and was clearly in a better position. As you can see… But then I blundered. I just didn’t „remember“ that the knight could catch my queen. Soooo stupid… I am really frustrated.

I just didn’t see it, although it was his previous move! I was a little distracted by my kids in real life, but nevertheless, I should have seen it/remembered it. It was a calculated risk, I was considering it before and aware of that. But then I just „forgot“ it.

Why does this stupid mistakes happen? Why do you just overlook very obvious things as a beginner? How can I train my brain to recognise this threats more „automatically“? Or is this because I am neurodivergent, due to my bad short-Term memory and „tunnel vision“, that I overlook sometimes the whole situation while focussing on a particular move?

Schauen Sie sich dieses #Schachspiel an: Nora_1978 gegen mado50 - https://www.chess.com/game/daily/830696050

I think tunnel vision is just part of the learning curve. Humans are wired to make decisions on limited information. In general, this is a good thing... You don't think about how to turn the handle to open a door every time you open a door... The downside of this is that when presented with lots of information, we automatically start filtering.. which can lead to these tunnel vision scenarios.

Normally I am really bad at filtering. I have no good filter, therefore I am constantly overwhelmed. I see everything, hear everything, smell everything and my brain has difficulties with prioritising. Everything seems equally important to my brain. This is one of my main issues. But if I am really focussed on something/interested in something, everything seems to fade but this. Then it is no prioritizong anymore, because in my brain at this moment nothing else exists anymore than this topic of interest. In this case it was to give checkmate, except I forgot to eliminate the knight with my pawn first 😝.

But I thank you very much for giving me the feeling I am not totally stupid. It’s just a part of learning chess….

Hi @Nora_1978

It's definitely part of the learning curve, but sticking by a common teaching tool can really help improve this. I'm sure you might have heard it before, but every single move look for Checks, Captures and Threats the opponent can make. If you do this, literally every single move, the amount of blunders you mentioned will reduce. The difference between someone of higher rating, is that because they've done this many many times, their brains can recognise the patterns faster. But it's hard to get faster, without constant implementing first.

Hope this helps,
-@FinkeChess