Does your opponent's rating make you play differently?

I just had a lower rated player resign in online chess on the first move of the tactical middle game where I thought I probably had an advantage ... possibly a winning one ... but was far from sure. I was very disappointed because I had played an early c4-pawn sacrifice in a Nimzo-Indian and I would have preferred to play it out to see how good my attack actually was. Maybe I annoyed him by taking two full days over each move.

That's happened to me before...someone overestimating me and resigning way too soon.

That's right. His online rating was 1710, about 300 shy of mine but he was playing OK. I think I surprised him with a move he hadn't anticipated and he failed to look at all the variations. He was in trouble for sure but he had his pawn and I was far from sure of a win.

Yeah, I remember wishing the guy/girl had played on...though, I had him/her in a bind, I still had no clue how to bring the game to a checkmating end. Would have preferred to see it play out....plus, I make lots of blunders in the endgame.

I absolutely agree with you.  I think the problem is how to do that?

There are other psychological problems too; like losing an edge, but still having an ok position can be hard to adjust to.  Or simply getting bored and playing a poor move, or trying to 'punish' an opponent for a move that wasn't that bad.  These are all problems I think many players have, but there is very little discussion of them in chess books.  I don't think it's just average players who have these problems, it seems to happen to masters too.

your doing the right thing.

"I think the problem is how to do that?"

You can take specialized vitamins and cook up your own tea to help.  For tea I'd recommend ginseng and white tea mixed while for vitamins Focus Factor is great.  Just take a regular b-vitamin (as long as it has b6) if you think it's too expensive.  I like Focus Factor for studying so I retain more information. 

I see it as the pressure is more on the higher-rated player to win. The lower-rated player should not fear as "a loss is expected" but see it as an oppurtunity to make their opponent prove it. And steal some rating points in the process. As was said before, play the board, not the player. Early on (when I was Class C a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...) I played hyper-aggressive against higher-rated players. Of course, more often than not, I got blown off the board but at least I got them to sweat a little bit. Lower-rated should see higher-rateds as prey for points, not the other way around.

I don't like being attacked by lower rated players or higher rated ones, especially over the board because it cuts across my preferred method of squashing them slowly (outplaying them positionally). Most often the lower rated player's attack is unfounded or premature but I still have to prove it. Quite often that applies also to the higher rated player. And occasionally I have dropped a bollock (technical term for making a bad or dubious move or trying to execute a dubious plan). I like it when I do that and my opponent fails to capitalise. Sometimes even higher rated players fail to capitalise if they're too focussed on their methodical build-up. Overall, the more information you have about your opponent, including his grade, age and which club he attends (some clubs have GM coaches or influential, strong players and you are aware of the style they teach) the better you can make decisions about how to play them, because the idea of playing the board and not the opponent is total bullshit. In my day I was a fairly successful tournament player at an intermediate level and I know this. Since at almost every stage of a game we can make strategic decisions, very often there are a number of potential plans we can try to execute. Correspondingly, I don't care if they don't know anything about me. I like it that way.