how to adjust to losing a game of chess?

Try to play opponents rated higher than yourself-when im an underdog and supposed to lose i can feel OK about it instead of being in a position where i ''have to'' win. Last time i lost a game badly i almost threw my chess books and set into a field...so im still struggling with the rage from time to time...

KEEP AT IT DONT GIVE UP

a loss isn't the end of the world if, like Bent Larsen, you win stacks more games! (Larsen used to compare four bloodless draws with 2 wins and 2 losses -- in the latter, the fight was on to win.)

There is also a lovely mantra of Silman's: to win is great, to draw is acceptable, to lose is a golden learning experience. Take the losses as lessons for becoming a better player and with improvement, the losses become fewer.

Every time one of my piece dies, I feel like a life has been lost.

Every time I lose a game, I feel like a country has been invaded and annexed.

Then I start yodeling and screaming "I USE MY NUKE PIECE TO KILL EVERYONE" and things like that.

I don't believe it's "normal" to be rude to someone who beat you, be it CC or OTB, AND I don't care who thinks that it is. 

And I do believe higher-rated players should occasionally play lower, even much lower-rated players esp if they have been able to play higher and much-higher rated players. Everyone should get a chance to upset a higher-rated player, although I don't advocate constantly playing much lower-rated players. So, now I occasionally accept challenges from lower-rated opponents and I will play in open tnmts occasionally where you get to play a variety of opponents.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who is furious after losses :)

I just keep in mind what Karpov said about Fischer running away scared after the 72 win - (paraphrasing, can't find the quote) -

To be a great player you need to know how to lose.

No-one can win all the time, getting upset over a loss is a sign of your inability to deal with a completely mundane and inescapable fact.

Nimzo is totally right on this - being rude to someone who just beat you makes you look like a child who can't control their emotions.   You both consented to play the game knowing that loss was a possibility so to act like a baby about about it after is far more embarrassing than the loss itself.    

I find that learning to lose with grace and equanimity is one of the most profound lessons chess has to offer.  In my experience, that's because the negative sensations that attend losing always seem to invite me to adopt a larger, more encompassing perspective on the game, and even on life itself.  From a larger, more universal perspective, losing a simple game of chess always seems to shrink into insignificance, and appears as nothing more than one of life's inevitabilities. After all, everyone tastes loss in this life, if not in chess, then in some other domain -- and in any case, death ultimately makes "losers" of us all (even "gods" like Fischer, Capablanca, Kasparov, etc.).  In other words, with respect to the large existential reality we're inhabiting, losing a game of chess is cosmically inconsequential.  Life doesn't actually care whether we win or lose; the value of our lives doesn't depend upon proving ourselves to be proficient chess players. Only WE make it seem otherwise.  And the fact of the matter is that at any point we could choose some other scale of values and emotional investments, or some other reaction to losing.  So, all in all, to me losing is actually a valuable experience because it invites me to embrace these sorts of verities, and to start living more with respect to them.  You might consider experimenting with this approach.  I bet it would make the experience of losing far more interesting and valuable, and far less painful.  Just a thought.  Okay, now here's the disclaimer:  Your results may vary, not valid in all states (or countries), void where prohibited.      

I take losses in long OTB games easier. In long time controls I really take my time to avoid blunders on every move. So if I lose, it will be because my opponent played stronger than me, and that's OK. What I really hate are those losing streaks in blitz, when I seem unable to complete a single game without hanging my pieces or running into mates-in-1. I'm cursing myself rather than my opponent (however this has already led to a 30 minute ban from live chess for me since the system obviously cannot recognize who the bad words are directed to ), and I guess my PC mice would have a longer lifespan without me playing internet chess

Recent article about sore losers in chess.  My favourite is Dus-Chotimisky who took back a move against Bronstein and said, " I just made a bad move, now I make a good one. To hell with the rules.!

"Blindside", Once I had a low level pain, think it was in my shoulder, but it was persistent in my face 24/7, then one day I was working and hit my finger with the hammer, and in a flash my shoulder pain went away, my brain was tricked. When My extreme finger pain went away, my shoulder pain was gone also

"EricD."  thats heavy stuff, you are an intellectual person! For me I like to do the perfect "Poker Face", when I win or lose, but when I get home thats when I kick a hole in the door, or break out the champagne

LOL. After an hour and a half jiu jitsu practice throwing a guy who outweighs me by twenty five pounds, I can barely summon the physical strength to work the mouse, let alone the mental strength to calculate a piece exchange! But it's totally worth it :-)

After a string of online losses I often find it satisfying to solve tactics problems for 15-20 minutes. I just do tactics until I'm thinking about tactics instead of my losses, and then I feel much better. It's like simulated winning.

OTB, on the other hand, it depends. Usually if I lose and it was a good game I feel completely fine about it, especially since there are a lot of pretty strong players at the club I like to attend. If I lose because of a mistake that, had I been less careless, I would've won, I feel terrible. Last week I had an especially bad week -- I don't know if I just drank too much coffee or what -- but I lost every game badly. I wasn't even able to put up a fight, I was losing pieces left and right, making moves that I knew were blunders the instant that I put the piece down. I even lost to a guy rated 700 after I stepped into a fork and lost a rook. After times like that, I need some recovery time. I was pretty irritable until the next morning.

 For the exact reason you just stated...

First of all, that was very well said, Eric. This has been my struggle, to 'Win with grace and lose with dignity' as I believe Susan Polgar puts it in regards to her endeavors with teaching young people. What elevates Chess above all other games in the history of games, in my opinion, is what we can learn about life from how we conduct ourselves, before, during, and after the game. I have long abandoned any aspirations to become a rated Chess Master, yet I still retain the hope to be a master of chess; that is, to not let the game and its accompanying influences (e.g.Winning is everything, Losing Sucks) impact my attitudes and behavior towards others in a negative way. But the life lessons I feel we can learn from Chess go beyond just courtesy and sportsmanship; I believe that the psychological reasons behind the poor moves I make in chess mirror the poor decisions I have made in life. Rather then detracting  from my desire to improve my play, the ability to accept a loss with a clear head provides me with an opportunity not only to evaluate my mistakes and improve my play, but perhaps help me along the path of 'knowing myself' a little better and improving my real life decision making a tiny bit more. I do not always succeed, admittedly. I hate losing too! 

@SonofaBishop67:  Yeah, you're definitely getting what I'm trying to say.  In some ways, chess is a kind of microcosm for how we lose (and win) more generally in life -- as you say, a possible way of "knowing thyself" a little better, perhaps in an almost Socratic fashion.  Furthermore, chess can be a relatively contained, living laboratory for experimenting with and ultimately changing how we react to winning and losing in life.  To me, that's really what makes chess so interesting, although I must admit that I'm just as enthralled by its aesthetic qualities as the next person is.

For instance, one thing I've discovered through chess is the extent of attachment and ego-investment I've had in feeling like a winner.  But isn't life's deeper reality that we all get to feel like winners sometimes, and we all get to feel like losers at other times?  So, it's really folly to place too much emphasis on needing to win (or needing not to lose).  Anyhow, the upshot of all of this is that chess now seems to be much more intrinsically enjoyable to me; my enjoyment is less dependent on whether I win or lose, both of which are inevitabilities.  Of course, I still play to win, but what's changed is my emotional investment in the sensation of winning.  True, I'm probably not as proficient at chess as a consequence. But that doesn't really bother me because I'm having more fun.  And the idea of pulling some of the more infamous stunts of sore losers (like Nimzovich's lament, "Why must I lose to this idiot?") is completely out of the picture.

Anyhow, thanks for hearing what I was trying to say.  Eric

 No problem bringing it up LN...While i understand your rational (which makes sense) I simply prefer to play unrated games here.  I use the games to work on openings.  Ive had games up a queen and hung it to get a rook and pawn ending, just to work on them. 

Excellent thread, I liked the initial push-up - exercise.com - and money jar suggestions. First thing when you lose is to try to think what went wrong; and why did it go wrong? Ah, of course, you didn't play all the right moves - if you had, you wouldn't have lost. So... why didn't you play all the right moves? Did it originate in a defect of knowledge - inexcusable, playing for the wrong objectives - again??, blindness - unacceptable, or a lapse of reason - why do you consciously allow these lapses to happen?, a defect of skill, a defect in personal character?

The more you play the more you doubt your own character. What a wonderful game of sorrows...

heinzie, you have mostly been a one liner guy, That was a really great post, alway like hearing what you have to say, but this was a 50+