Bad chess habits that need to be broken

The one I am fighting with is going on "autopilot" and relaxing after I've won some material in a game. I start thinking about things unrelated to the game at hand, which leads to, you know what. This bad habit cost me many points over the years, and is very hard to break. Do you have some "pet" bad habits?

My biggest problem is actually just getting lazy at some point during a game. What normally will happen is I will play well for 20 to 30 moves, then I'll get lazy and not calculate a move thoroughly enough. That's all it takes to lose though. Still working on fixing that one. It's a lot easier to deal with if I can get a material advantage early, because then I don't have to be as sharp.

I have a couple which are closely related.  I like "creative" things too much.  Even up material I will sacrifice material and occasionally have a small tactical oversight losing a completely won game.

The second is I will go through several lines in my head and take pieces off the board(in my head) when I start the next line I am analyzing.  It is really frustrating trying to recapture a piece through a pawn with a bishop.  

From time to time, I make moves that make absolutely  no sense. 99% of the time it happens coz I make my move without looking at the board properly.. :( I really need to take some time and analyze my position before moving my pieces..

 my problem also, i sometimes play very well against tough players and terrible against weak players.

Here is another one of mine - playing game after game mindlessly, without ever stopping to analyze how I could have improved. What is the point of playing chess if you don't improve? And you can't improve much by just playing, you must learn. This is a weakness of mine - not taking time to actually learn.

Always making "Oh, that'll do" moves..

My habit is underestimating an opponent sometimes and I start taking chances, basing myself on the assumption that they "would notice" something. I try a bluff, and my opponent can sometimes see through it and that sends me up the creek. I'm working on respecting my opponents a lot more, and playing a more cautious game instead of trying to get things over with ASAP.

Not looking carefully enough for my opponent's best answer, just looking for his "expected" move... particularly when the expected move is bad.

Losing concentration after winning material is SOOOO common... you have to make a point of bearing down and telling yourself: the game ISN"T over.

Playing for a win when it isn't justified. When my winning chances start diminishing I often panic and play for complications as though I'm losing, but I'm not losing, the game is just heading toward drawville. I need to relax and let draw be an acceptable outcome, not press and force myself into a loss.

As someone else mentioned, playing the 'creative' move. Man I can't resist the positionally inferior stuff with tactical sharp edges... but if it's predicated on the opponent 'not seeing' it... and the better players do see it... you end up with a crap position.

All these things involve one type of patience or another. Got to play the position as it is and not force it. Some games take more moves than others. And if you try to win every game in 25 moves, you'll lose a lot of winnable games.

My bad habit is trying too hard to win.

In team matches I feel I must win for the team, and I play risky moves that lead to losses pretty often. In individual matches (that don't count for rating usually) I play more relaxed, with the mindset that I can always see what happens in the endgame, and a draw is ok too - and I suddenly perform 300 points above my normal rating. I want to have the right mindset in all of those games, or at least in the important matches...

If I have 2 or 3 candidate moves, I might analyze in my mind only the first or second moves. Maybe one is a good move, maybe it isn't. But then I realize there is another move that I hadn't initially considered. Rather than going through the same amount of careful analysis, I make the new move immediately. 90% of the time it's a bad move!

I have a bad habit of almost getting a little cocky when I play chess... I'll deliberately play into my opponents 'pet lines' and try to crush them at their own game.  Rarely works :P.

 I make this mistake too often. I have a line of play in my mind, and my opponent (damn him!) plays something slightly different, and I don't really think through to make sure the plan is still good... and I tend to move too quickly... evidenced by the fact that I usually see the problem just after I've submitted my move.

I also find that I don't think broad enough about my opponent's moves. Often, when I'm thinking about why an opponent makes a certain move, I think about the most obvious reason, and miss a more subtle development. Maybe my opponents are just more creative than I am...

There are many more... too many more...

Just today, after winning 3 pawns for nothing in the middle game I got lazy, lost 2, then had to slug it out in the endgame to get an eventual win.

I recently blew a good position to a much lower graded player using laptop mouse to move a rook. It fell short (in the path of his bishop) and it registered the move. I was so gutted, I resigned straight away. Now I am a lot more careful, and write my candidate moves down as notes.

 In my analysis of my own game, I would use software such as Fritz or Chessbase to first find the tactical shots that I missed. It is amazing how often I overlook simple combinations. Next I would see whether I handled the opening  well(possible conclusion : "You are definitely not prepared to counter the Winawer"). Many times analysis of the game shows that I need to practice rook+pawn endings more. And finally I believe I should at least keep a record of all this analysis, in order to review my progress (or decline).

not watching the diagonals. I have many times gotten rooks or a queen sniped by someone who knows how to use their bishops, or just noticed that I made a stupid mistake.

>>Renegade   \o/

I am in agreement with the majority here. I move too fast, forget to do blunder checks, and play the tricky rather than safe options.

I recently played a tourney game where I won a knight early, started to move to fast, forgot to check all my opponents threats(thus giving a the piece back), and then lost a drawn position by trying to play a "creative" move, which was quite weak.

Need to add another one: playing chess while ill and with a fever. You have to stay at home, so why not play chess? Still, I found my level of play is just terrible when I have a cold or am otherwise weakened physically. Fortunately, this is one bad habit I believe I can easily break.

the self watching and working on the self? parts of self? it can give ya a headache!