Fear of losing

How do you overcome the 'Fear of Losing'? FX: Discordinant chords

Don't lose ...had to be said

Take a different attitude towards losing! Ever loss is a chance to learn something, maybe even more than one thing. Learn it, remember it, don't repeat it and punish your opponents if they make the mistake. Make losses a learning process and not worry about the outcome. This is what I try to do (I'm hypercompetitive and hate losing too!)

Make sure that you are not using your chess rating or game result to indicate something other than this being a game.  If doing well at chess, in your mind, somehow relates to intelligence or success or natural ability then rethink this position.  The innate ability you may bring to the table is small compared to everything else that is needed to achieve your desired result.

Once you can lose a game and that loss only represent losing a game then you free yourself to do your best at the board.  Allow me to ask you this--what do you find yourself saying or thinking after a loss?  Losing a game is nothing in of itself...but what you add to it afterwards can be very telling.

I am always afraid of losing. But then I remind myself thats its not a big deal and I focus on making good moves and playing as best I can. This sounds inane if not trite, but remember its only a game, those little rating points come and go, and I get over losses.

Dan Heisman says: "Don't be afraid of losing. Be afraid of playing a game and not learning something.  Losing can be a great motivator if it helps you identify and correct things you are doing that cause the loss".

I understand where you come from I want to win every game. I want their to be no question about it, (how good my game is.) But then I had a strong cup of coffee and realized we are all human and we are not perfect. I agree with some of the other gentlemen and ladies here, when you lose, study why you lost, and try not to repeat the same mistake. To ERR is human to be perfect is having god on your right and Mr. Fischer standing behind you wispering in your ear.

Michael.

 Sound advice! Enough said!

Play the position.

I really beat myself up when I lose because of a stupid mistake.  In these cases I find that there is little to learn other than the reminder to take more care and attention with my moves.

If someone trounces me in the face of what I feel is good play on my part, I don't really get too upset -- I just hope I'm able to underestand how my opponent got the upper hand so that I can learn something from the game.

Sounds like chess is an expensive past-time for you. It is just a game....

Make love no war

im not afraid of losing. losing is inevitable even Bobby fischer lost at times. If there was no losing then there would be no point to the game....

 May I suggest that you try "checkers", or perhaps "backgammon"?

Perhaps there's a market for Nerf chess sets.

I've lost a lot of games becauseI'm very new at this.  I find that when I win, I'm really not learning anything.  If you play with a stronger person than yourself, you will actually gain more because you will pick up on their skill (unconsciously) and learn much more.  This applies not only to chess, but every aspect of your life.  Good Luck!

When I lose a game because I played poorly then I have a problem with that. If I lose a game because I was outplayed I look at it as a learning experience. Also, if I'm down a piece or two I don't panic or resign anymore. Being the underdog seems to bring out my best play.

No pain, no gain.

Besides that, losing a game of chess is not equivalent to losing a life - and even if it were... I'd expect that we'd all have much shorter lifespans.

You've touched a nerve. I hate losing. Something about chess, at a certain point, you see losing as an indictment of your very self, of your mind. I think it's important to get over this fear -- more important than chess, in fact. We _do_ learn from losing, and from trying as hard as we can... the fear of losing at it's most intense can keeps us from competeing at all. Bobby Fischer STOPPED playing chess because he thought (he said it to Dick Cavett) "the world champion has to play perfectly..." (aka never lose) Anatoly Karpov himself has said it was that attitude, not fear of him (Karpov) that made Fischer avoid a World Championship defense.  Perfectionism is the enemy of acheivement, IMHO.  Judgment, the judgement of others and the judgment of oneself, fear of judgement can be crippling.

How does one get past this???  It's all egotism, I suppose...

I am currently playing very slowly... in part, honestly, I've had bad technical issues with my computer... but I must admit there's other reasons... I got a nice bump on my rating because a highly rated player I was playing got BOOTED for being a cheat, forfeiting his game with me (LOL! buh-bye, and thanks for sharing your ill-gotten rating points, you loser) ... but now I've fallen in love with seeing a +2000 playing rating associated with my name and am desperately afraid that I'm going to slide back below 2k. So... I play slow... we're talking really slow... like only two or three times faster than AWARDCHESS*... yeah, slow.

Vanity, all is vanity. 

(*note to AWARDCHESS defenders... if the guy has the "right" to drag down 90% of the tournament's on chess.com, I have the right to mildly slag him, don't I? Isn't that within the rules, too?) 

 I must get over this! It's mental disease.

Actually, the fear of lossing becomes evident when one comes to a level where something is at stake. Anxiety plays an important role in lossing most especially where the stakes are high. The fear of lossing in a casual game is not as high as compared to a game where a loss would result to a missed Championship, place or whatever. I have seen players whose hands shivers while making their move, i know it is normal but the anxiety is evident. I can still remember an opponent whose rating was 2k+  who (i believe) underestimated our game in a tourney because i was unrated.I really saw droplets of perspiration on his forehead as he was trying to save a lost endgame (mind you, the tournament hall was cold).

The fear of lossing is normal because at the back of our heads we all have goals... to win. Enjoying the game minimizes the fear ,but how do we deal with the fear when the unexpected happens? (Ex. one entered a tourney just to enjoy without a goal to win the tournament. Then suddenly he is in the finals a step closer to the crown where a huge prize is waiting. Fear will start to make its way.)

As for Fischer's attitude... well it has been seen that he has indeed added psychology in his arsenal on and off the board. Karpov during those times was relatively unknown outside the then Soviet Union. His domination of Spassky was incredible and he stood his ground against the "the enfant terrible" Korchnoi in a long series of games in the candidates finals ( If the Fischer-Tal games are tactical try playing that of the Fischer-Korchnoi games in "The Complete Games of Bobby Fischer"). It has been reported then that Fischer then was preparing for Spasskys return to the championship.But this was new.Karpov was the only active Soviet player to breach the 2700 barrier in those years. And at 2705 he is close to Fischer's 2785. An opponent exactly Fischer's opposite (although Karpov was then branded as Fischer 2). Gufeld and the rest of the contributors in "Bobby Fischer from Genius to legend" agreed in their articles that Fischer might have feared the unknown.But many believed (and I do) that he would have beaten karpov then . But he has never met Karpov over the board (and that probably made the differrence).