Getting Over Losses

You could be a Stoic. But who are we looking for??

The advice I can offer is in three parts.

First during the tourmanent all your focus must be on the future moves of the game in progress. Previous games don't exist. Future games don't exist. Previous moves don't exist. It doesn't matter if you lost or won all previous games of the tournament. It does not matter if you made a mistake in the game which resulted in a weaker position. It does not matter if opponent made a mistake which you didn't exploited. Keep all your focus on the moves you are about to play. This way you will almost always play to the best of your abilities.

After the tournament analize all your games. Try to find inaccuracies in all your games. I have a philosophy than every game I lost, I lost because I made a mistake. If you play the best possible move every time you can never lose. If your opponent does the same game is always a draw. Usually in chess the player that lost did so because he/she made a mistake the opponent exploited. But just because you won does not mean you played flawlessly. Most probably your opponent did not saw your mistakes. So you need to find them and correct them.

And third part is no matter how good you are you will lose. You can never change this fact. No matter what you do, no matter how good you become bad days happen. Oversights happen. Just make peace with yourself that losses will happen and try to learn from them.

I wish you best of luck.

I hope Pacquiao can over the loss to Marquez. Dang! I couldnt really sleep well by the way that knockout went.At least he lost to the best of the crop.if thats a consolation.

Losing doesn't mean the opponent is better than you.  It just means they played better than you that particular game.

I treasure some of my losses because of the people I met through them, really...

Yes Red, but draws can be nice too...

But you can get over those also probably.

Never to have loved, and lost?  That would indeed be sad, as per @Red-Lady above.

Apparently, that maxim rings true for boxing, as well. 

Pacquiao can easily get over his loss. With 20+M dollars as loser's prize, who would not?

Some very good opening points Mitsya. I am only new to the current online game since about August this year 2012, so please all, take my notes as the hints of a mere newby.  But, I recently was given for this Christmas the Mammoth Book of Chess, by Graham Burgess (FIDE Master) 570 pages of charts and meth. In the back of this book is a part calles Index of Openings, and from A-to Z are numbered in fact I counted, 170 different openings, from the first at Alekhine Defense (I know we have all heard), to Keiseritzky Gambit, on through the final Two Knights Defense--Vienna Game.  170 different variants on a planned display in opens.  Do I have the mental capacity to memorize all 170? The answer is obvious no.  But, I have evaluated three opponents I have lost more than twice online in correspondence, and they are using--by computer analysis on checc.com--the Englund Gambit, the French Defense, and the Queen's Pawn Game--Colle System.  

Now, I am no genius of theoretical analysis, but perhaps the only way to improve is to look up some master games on this and show the variation that the opposing side wins, and calculate these first six moves that defeat the onslaught in these offenses.  And, then, my friends, I'd just challenge these players again, and work a strategy to concoct 2-3 wins before they get sick and tired of losing like I just had...!! 

On the contrary, am I thinking I can memorize all 170 opening strats of the Mammoth book and memorize 570 pgs. of this short novella??  Not in this decade: if I am to retain anything and reuse reapply and recalculate.  I guess, am I impossibly hitting on the strategy of a player who has starting at 1000-1100 and then worked up to about 1800???  I am wondering, please add some comments showing your meth of strat to seek a higher rate starting at this moderate beginned  level.

Also, I wonder but I used to try to work some watching youtube chess videos every day, but unless I am noting the first six moves, and calculating trying this in a real game, then I perceive its in one ear and out the other. 

Which, brings me to my next best point, that to get better then take lessons from a rated teacher who can explain things in minutes that it will take days to get in a book.  Is this in the forum's view a reasoning opinion?   Please add your considered thoughts.

And, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Merry Easter to all.  Have a blessed Arab spring as well, my good friends.  

Stop playing chess and start studying it instead.

The only losses are those that are not analyzed.

I agree completement

Let me flip it around and say that you have the mental makeup to be a very strong player if losses affect you *SO* much.

Most of us asbestos-skinned folk shrug our shoulders and grab a beer or see what's on TV to escape from the memory of a loss.   Which directly correlates to how much we suck + why we're at our own adorable chess plateaus.  

I wish I could get more upset at my own losses :)

If you end up stewing so much, then take the energy and analyze the s##t out of the game, alone, with a engine or heck, with a bunch of judgemental chess players who can sometimes be stronger than you (ahem, this forum).    Pay extra attention to the big (rarely opening inaccuracies) mistakes ... and only big mistakes!!

Don't fear recurring nightmares about the blunders you made! Welcome them and cement those positions in your skull!

Just promise youself that at the end of this, you won't make the same terrible mistake/s again. 

 I've seen kids at clubs get better by simply getting told what not to do and working really hard at "not" doing it anymore! :)

Ok Shivsky.  I agree, comparing say college kids, if you were at a n y age rate going to say, " I am going to take chess like I am taking a class in college."  The point is its free on this website, maybe $14 for unlimited puzzles and Chess Mentor, and Chess Engine Computer Analysis on any number of games (showing mistakes, innacuracies, and blunders) which are great tools.  But, id if in one college class, you have to sit there for about 2 hours twice a week, say Tuesday and Thursday, then spend about 4-8 hours per week every week for about 6 months.  This would mean studying, not playing, just studying and rehearsing, about 10 hours a week for a few months, and its free.  I think any guy can manage that this is way better for the mind/body/spirit than drinking a beer and watching cable every spare moment.  And it wards off Alzheimers and is way more f@#$ing fun than Sudoku, which I measure as complete asinine.  But I am weak to my other passions, and at my best I am averaging 2-4 hours a week in studying the game, not playing, and then playing around 6-8 hours a week.  Am I willing, then, to give up playing so that in say six months I can beat a lot of players who are regular schooling me and spanking me quite?  If I will to achieve it I will.  I am about a 1098 elo (having joined in August), and only now my some random chance I can hold equal say about 10% of the time with any 1400-1600 elo.  If I presume that study can lead to more wins, and I am willing to study like a college class? And then it is logical to seem that I may be able to prepare a better mental game and hook some more wins against these all equally average players, as I see it??  The answer will remain undefined until I can recollect and review this statement in say June 2013........

Why is everyone in here saying the same thing, that getting over losses is a must? 

Getting over losses is not a must. It's been 6 months since I made a gross blunder on board 2 in a winning position in the last round of a tournament (would have netted me $500) and I'm still not over it. I still hate that I made the blunder everyday. But I make it push me to get better and better so that next time I'm in that position, I don't blunder. Or even better, I'm on board 1 and the loss doesn't particularly matter! So you don't have to get over losses. Just make sure that the ones you don't get over are the ones that motivate you to get better

It's only a  game! (I made that one up all by myself.)