how to improve your concentration?

hello people,

i am a 17 year old dutch boy. since march i have started playing -whitout  any succes-  at a chessclub. the time for each game is 1 hour 40 minutes and 5 seconds per move.  after 90 minuts i start to run out of focus and start to make poor moves or even mistakes.

i lost 10 games, had 4 draws and no wins at the and of the season. in the beginning i thougt it was a lack of tallent but at a blitz/rapid tournemant at the and of the year i scorred 4.5 out og 9 games.

i need to now how i can improve my concentration? i am thinking about taking a 20 minue brake during the game to just go walk or something. (just walking away frow the chessboard whitout stopping the clock.)

can someone please help me wiht my problem?

That sounds like a pretty good idea. You should always try to use your time constructively, and taking a break to relax and re-focus might be a very good use for some of your time.

I used to have a problem with making hasty moves, even though I had plenty of time left. I cured that fault by sitting on my hands!

I have been told that many players sit on thier hands to prevent them from fast.

+1 

Watching the olympiad in tromso, most players would get up after their move. To stretch, meet famous chess players, but also, I believe, to return to their game with a fresh perspective.

I think this is a myth. I think people just suggest it, but who  really does it? Besides, I don't know about you, but just because my hands are under my butt, doesn't mean they can't go ahead and come on out and move the wrong piece.

That is, unless you think with your butt.

Truthfully, kaynight :) 

A good example is staring at a tactic for 20 mins and thinking it's impossible to solve. Then, after looking at it again after an interval, finding the solution in a flash.

I move the pieces with my butt

WHOA!!! Kaynight, you moved up to premium? 

I used to, back when I played OTB.

The system that I used to use to avoid hasty blunders... properly considered blunders are much better... was to decide on a move, write it down on my score-sheet (without yet playing it!), and then sit back and relax as if I had already played the move on the board. During that post-move moment of relaxation, I would often spot the mistake... and since I hadn't yet made the move on the board, all I needed to do was erase it off my score-sheet and re-think it.

Then FIDE changed the rules, and I was no longer ALLOWED to write the move down first.

... so my new system was to tuck my hands under my legs and sit on them. The act of pulling them out would remind me to sit back and relax before making the move on the board.

I sit on my hands even when not playing OTB  My blunder rate has indeed dropped though!

Stinky hands are also a tactical advantage... worth at least 0.4 Pawns.

lol

Does it involve love, treachery and magical mythical beings?

Oh, you should be receiving your Tuesday night beer night invitation soon.

Seems like it would be very difficult to justify stepping away from the board when you are trying to sort out a position. Walking around, knowing your clock is ticking away.....

Ever watch GMs play? I have (in person, I mean). How many of them sit at the board for four hours?

Yeah, I wouldn't know. But, I would imagine, by that point, they have overcome such an issue by that point.

I suppose I meant us normal folk.

It's a question of balancing quantity-of-thought (always sitting at the board if your clock is running) against quality-of-thought (being relaxed and clear-headed while trying to calculate).