In fact when I play on this site I nearly always have a scotch, or a glass of wine, or a beer. It's all part of the fun. I never do in OTB play though. There I save it for after the game...
Nothing like spilling a $50 bottle of red wine on the keyboard with 30 seconds left on the clock to test your ability to concentrate 
@ Somebodysson
I've had a talk with my wife about performance OTB & she thinks it may be due to pressure. Pressure can be very subtle so she is going to Post a few basic points & then you can decide where to go from there. We can move it to another thread or go private with it to keep this thread focused if you like. Its not something that can be solved in a couple of posts but if you are spending hours studying & then failing to translate that study OTB then it is going to slow you down a lot not to mention the frustration that builds when you analyse a game & you see immediately where you went wrong & keep asking "Why the hell did I do that, I know its wrong"
Something happens otb though. I get excited and impulsive, or I get scared. That terrible f5 was from being scared. The Bd6 too, was a miscalculation. I find your variations very very instructive. I see some of them otb, but I discount them because they don't 'look' right, they don't 'look' like good moves...good resulting positions, and when I see your evaluations of the resulting positions I see that I discount better positions in favor of worse ones. The evaluation of the resulting position just has to get better, and I need to get better at being skeptical of my own skepticism. Plus I have to get my emotions in check so that I can more soberly evaluate, and I must be open to creatively evaluate visualized postions. I'm sure that some of that is experience.
I'll get to look at the other notes tonight. Thanks aronchuck and qtko. Thanks everyone. "
Hi again sombodysson :) I am QxNOops wife :) I have been studying Psychology and have a couple questions to try to narrow down the problem then maybe I can come up with some ideas to combat it for you :)
You mention it is OTB - is this only in the flesh or online as well? If it is online - do you suffer it with only people or the computer as well? Also what are the differences when you play A - The comp vs B a person online and the diferances between A - Online in general and B - In the flesh?
From there we can narrow it down :)
hmmm, I feel like cracking a joke, something along the lines of Bobby Fischer's 'I don't believe in psychology, I just believe in good moves'. But I don't mean that in any snarky way, just trying to find some humor in this!
Its the same online as otb. I go through the same problem. Its not exactly what I'd call nervousness, that's why I thought it was a bit funny. Its not nervousness. Its emotions. If I think I'm doing well, I get excited, and I start thinking I'm going to win, and I start celebrating, and then I start thinking that if I'm going to win, and then I lose, its an even worse loss because it was a win...so the excitement from the positive evaluation of the position leads me to get over-excited. I stop asking the questions. I start asking different questions. I start asking 'what if I lose now with this won position' or I start going 'yay, I'm going to win, yay', and there you have it. I'm not asking the questions anymore. I'm doing a very different activity than asking the questions. I'm doing something that I'd call 'fantasizing' instead of playing chess.
The reciprocal happens when I see a bad position for me, or I realize I've made a bad move. And I read somehwere recently that some great chess player said the worst moves are always made after a bad move. The player realized they made a bad move, and then, disheartenend, they make a worse move. that definitely happens to me. I'd call it 'dispirited'. the 'self talk' is something like 'I'm a loser. I'm going to lse yet another game. Ah, its no use. I have to go home and practice some more tactics. When am I going to win. etc. etc. I'm not playing chess anymore. I'm thinking about that I've already lost. I'm not asking the questions anymore. I already 'have' the 'answers. i.e. I've already lost.
So in both of those 'psycholgical situtations' I stop asking the questions. The solution seems simple. Ask the questions. Its harder than it seems though, and I imiagine that by asking the questions I'll get better at asking the questions. I suppose there's some mental laziness, mental implusiveness at play here as well.
there is a third situation, that I think is the most interesting, I think its the tougher nut to crack. That situation, for example, is in my most previous game where I brought out my king bishop to d6; it definteily would have been better to brint it out to f7, and I thought a long time about it, but I made the wrong decision, and I realized it was the wrong decision about a move later.
I''ll describe this third siutation as follows:'alright, this is an important decision. I can move here, or I can move here. This is a make or break situation. One of them will be the right move, and one will be the wrong move. I have to get this right. Its hard, its hard, I find this hard. Ok, concentrate, calculate. alright, if this then this then this then this, ahhh, okay, now I'll look at the other move. If this then this then this then this...ahhh, I don't remember what the other one looked like, how am I ever going to be able to compare the one with the other, but I have to, this is an important move...I don't know what to do here. I just don't know what to do. How do I decide when I don't have the skills to make the decision?'
That's the third situation. this siutation is not over confident overexcited fantasizing, and its not depressed dispirited dejected. Its 'I know this is important. And I don't feel strong enough to be able to make a good informed decision'.
I wonder what aronchuck has to say about this last one. Besides the certain fact that I will get better at calculation, I will get better at vizualizagtionm I will get better at evaluation....I'm sure of that...what does one do when one feels they are incapable of making the decision, they are incpapable of viuslaizing the position clearly enough to make the right decision? How do you deal with that situation?
Hi qtko's wife!! Welcome! And maybe my answer will be able to help you help me and us!
@Somebodysson - good progress. Chapter 5 is almost half way through and you will find DOuble Attacks, attraction, clearance, overloading and diversion chapters very useful as they crop up a lot. Most of the people I have gone through these examples with start seeing a lot more in their games after the Double Attack chapter. So keep up the excellent work.
When you know the solution to the problem are you also looking at it again and visualising the answer in your mind to train the visualisation side of calculation? If not, do this on your third run through as you need to practice keeping track of where all the pieces are in your mind as this skill only comes with repeated practice and each few days your brain adjusts and lets you go a few more ply. I know most of the puzzles are 3 or 4 movers but it would be great if you had 20/20 vision for this far at least.
Evaluation of positions will improve a lot after you have studied some endgames and a bit more positional chess but at least you know the criteria to use to form a guide. The hard part is weighing up all the different elements and deciding which are the most important and that does only come with practice and experience.
Emotions are our enemy and when they get involved a mistake nearly always follows. Sometimes through over eagerness to win you blunder because you forget your opponent hasn't resigned yet and can still beat you until he has resigned. Sometimes depression means you don't look hard enough for a defence because you just want it all to be over. I've had all these and everything in between and I'm sure almost everyone else who has played enough games has too. The best results though come from cold hard weighing up things and making a decision on what you think your best practical chance is. Very hard to do in practice but it is essential. Fischer said once that it was usually the second mistake that cost the game the first one just puts you worse. WHen watching the top players I am always amazed at how well they forget about previous mistakes in the game so that they can fight the current position as best they can. Many others would get depressed and lose rather than save the half point.
hahaha, I just realized that where I read this was right here!!! I read it in aronchuck's post. And I think in this exact same post aronchuck completely answers my questions. I'll requote him AGAIN!
<Evaluation of positions will improve a lot after you have studied some endgames and a bit more positional chess but at least you know the criteria to use to form a guide. The hard part is weighing up all the different elements and deciding which are the most important and that does only come with practice and experience.
Emotions are our enemy and when they get involved a mistake nearly always follows. Sometimes through over eagerness to win you blunder because you forget your opponent hasn't resigned yet and can still beat you until he has resigned. Sometimes depression means you don't look hard enough for a defence because you just want it all to be over. I've had all these and everything in between and I'm sure almost everyone else who has played enough games has too. The best results though come from cold hard weighing up things and making a decision on what you think your best practical chance is. Very hard to do in practice but it is essential.>
sooo interesting about how the top players forget the bad move they just made. Reminds me of that amazing bbc interview with ALekhine ( I heard it on youtube, its amazing) where he says 'people think that memory is important in chess, and nothing is further from the truth. Memory is completely imporatcial in chess. Memory is about the past. Chess is played in the present and the future. The memory of what has been played is useless at best, and worse it is a distraction. The chess player must forget what hasd been played, and must concentrate on the position on the board, and must look at it with total disregard for the past'. Something like that anyways. Its an amazing interview. Look up "bbc alekhine interivew" on youtube and I'm sure you'll find it.
I get the feeling that the Psychology of playing under pressure is going to generate a lot of discussion. I have quite a few comments I'd like to make. Somebodysson, should we start a new thread before it gets too big for this one?
I'm not sure qtko. I definitely don't want to lose the focus on the questions and on the targets and on the annotations. I'm open to seeing what Psychology has to offer, but we'll see what it does to the thread. Maybe we'll eventually decide to put it in another thread, if it starts attracting stuff that distracts from the questions and the annotations.
I'm finding the annotations very interesting. I'm open to seeing what discussion of Psychology has to bring.
I'm still wanting to annotate some more games, but unfortunately until about Feb 10 or so I'm going to be up to myears with work and with packing and moving, and I have a bunch of live games scheduled this weekend, so I'm going to do my best to ask the questions while playing, and I'll post the games...and I'm open to seeing where discussion of Psychology takes the thread and I think the questions and the targets and evaluations is key. Let's see.
Off to work I go.
I checked back and saw aronchuck's post. Let's do it. A spearate thread. thanks aronchuck and qtko. Now I really have to get out of this house .
@ Somebodysson
When you get back why don't you start up a new thread, that way its yours to control & boot the 1st wave of Trolls
@ aronchuck
I've seen the same things as you with players & how they perform under pressure. The weird thing is it never bothered me, I enjoyed it so I guess I will have a perspective from that angle. Pressure is weird, with none at all, I mean total absolute zero you wouldn't bother to play your 1st move but then there comes a point to some ppl where it is paralysing. I think Somebodysson may benefit from a few (yet to be determined) techniques just to take the edge off & let him perform at least close to maximum potential. I won't go any further til the new thread starts but hopefully it can be integrated into his training & not be a distraction.
I just played a game and lost After being up a piece!! There's definitely something going on when I get excited and flustered, the server went down, we were both disconnected for three minutes during my move...when I came back to my move I had a critical decision to make....I was up a piece and excited about being a piece up, and flustered that the server had been down...I made the wrong decision. I went from being up a piece to being down a piece. I can't copy the game to the site, because I'm on a chromebook and it can't handle pgns files. It was against jiyyu. Its marked game abandoned, but it wasn't abandoned. I resigned for obvious reasons. The server is wonky. Anyways, if someone else doesn't post it before I get home, I'll post it later tonight. I have two more games, tomorrow, and one on Sunday. That's a lot of games QTKO 
http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=708433737
wow dude ur just mad
A quick analysis on some key points, I think you know how you lost so the next question is Why? Thanks for the new thread I'm going to post something there soon as will Mrs QueenTakesKnightOOPS, she is doing some research & has some ideas so expect something soon.
@qtko: I did a quick once over your notes. "too soon" in two places...yes, and I knew I had a winning game, and yes, ouch...I need to look this over again and learn more about too soon and releasing tension. Very very important. My thoughts were "I better take this piece now because I need to trade down cusz I'm up a piece, so I should trade down whenever I can and I'll win the game"...then the check I gave which was unenecessesary, too soon. I'll look this over after the game I'm about to play. Thanks
Pins - when you have a piece pinned you need to think how about how you can increase the pressure in order to try and win material. I have also said in previous posts about the weaker player tendency to liquidate tension too early.
So with this in mind. Look for a better move on move 13. Can you see how you could increase pressure on the a4-e8 diagonal rather than liquidate the tension? What would the result of that be?
Also can you see a better move on move 15? How can you defend your e4 KNight and increase the pressure on his pinned Nc4?
Either of these improvements would have put the game away. Can you solve these 2 tactic puzzles in your own game? What are you going to do in your next game when you have a pin?
When Black took back on c6 with the Queen. What was he threatening that you both seem to have missed?
ah aronchuck, the answers to your questions are so obvious now. Yes. They are solved. I missed the queen retaking on c6, I see the better move 15 and the better move 13. Its very clear. He wasn't a very strong player at all. I need to be able to win these ones. I'll go play a game now. Thanks.
@qtko - in your notes to @Somebodysson game you do not mention the much stronger possibilities on move 13, 14 and 15. Maybe you didn't see - maybe you wanted to leave them alone due to my questions in my previous post but I doubt this as you mention Ne5 and Rc1 without giving the concrete Ne5, Q-moves Nxc6 winning line.
Your comment about the IQP is also very interesting. "Not the end of the world". This indicates you need to study some IQP positions because far from being the end of the world it can offer excellent dynamic attacking chances because it affords better central control, open lines and more active pieces. The IQP only becomes a weakness in the endgame when the attacking potential is weak. Particularly the player with the IQP wants to avoid exchanging minor pieces as the major piece ending is practically lost.
But when your a piece up with better development it is hardly worth a comment. I think you would do well to do this study as it will remove your prejudices about the position. You need to be happy to play BOTH sides of an IQP.
nice. I'm playing a game, and I'm just checking in here. Its good to see aronchuck and qtko talking to each other.
@ aronchuck
As far as the IQP goes I was looking at it from a beginners perspective, a beginner may see an isolated Pawn as a liability. I have no predjudice about a IQP as you say it is part of the Queens Gambit & more likely a liability in the engame. Beginners often take on those liabilities in the middle game to their detriment, so my comment to Somebodysson was not to worry about it.
I was a bit obscure about the move sequences at 13, 14 & 15 but as you had set the question to Somebodysson I didn't think it appropriate to post the exact sequence, so I mentioned pilingup the pressure & left it at that.
Sorry if the analysis was confusing or incomplete
Ok, back in track. I analized one of Wolf's games, and I tried to apply the position evaluation method suggested by aronchuk when the middlegame started. Of course, the plans I came up are different than what aronchuk suggested, but that's life, I'll carefuly read what others commented now. However, I invested a lot of effort on the beggining of the game, and gave a lot of lines I hope you find at least interesting (or entertaining if they are wrong, since I didn't check anything with an engine). I didn't know ...Qb6 was a book move so I marked it as dubious, but after researching a little bit now I know a little more about the sicilian. I'm happy that I found some of the ideas that were suggested as thematic :D, even if I didn't had clarity about that.
Ok, here we go: