It's Better Not to be a GM!

Too much work...laborious...those do not sound like fun words to attach to chess!

I can relate, indeed, on this site.

My Turn-Based rating peeked at 1626, a rating that I found way too hard to maintain and be happy, happy with chess, and happy with life. I busted my butt getting to that number, spending a lot of time over each and every turn-based move, looking deep, and calculating deep. It felt like another full time job. It's totally my fault, a personality defect. I have some sort of over-achiever complex, which led to burn-out.

I tried to place myself on a clock, limiting my time spent per move, but I couldn't stick to it. So I resigned my games, and with that, my turn based rating dropped.

I'd like to play this kind of chess again, since I enjoy this kind of work, which I see as a type of analysis. It doesn't even need to be chess, since I like to analyze all sorts of things, all the time.  It drives my wife nuts! 

However, I won't start it up again until I can find a way to NOT making it another full time job, obsessed with finding the best moves, all of the time. I still don't have an answer to that problem.

So, for now, Live Chess, not Turn-Based chess, is the only chess that I can play to keep some semblance of sanity.

Some of it must be ego, I think some professional players base their entire self worth on their ratings, which can't be healthy. But if your whole view of yourself is based on where you stand in a rankings list that explains why not losing with Black with insipid play is better than losing with a slightly flawed glorious artistic conception. Also its easy for casual or amateur players to say that GM's should be playing the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit or some other unsound opening to 'entertain the masses' but there are nearly 1400 of them scuffling around trying to make a living and constant playing of the BDG would have them on food stamps in short order.

Unfortunate that we've had no Grandmasters on the thread.  As I'm not a GM I can only speculate that if they were to comment on the matter many would tell us they wouldn't want it any other way.

@Vease: Well yeah, if you're a professional player then you do what you can to get the best results. If playing the BDG puts this in jeopardy, then it would be unwise to do it. You shouldn't assume that they take all of their pride in ratings specifically. Couldn't it also be argued that they just enjoy learning about this logical, yet mysterious game?

I'm not sure if grandmasters think "work" is work. To them, learning a new subtlety about the game might be fun; perhaps satisfying in the fact that they are getting even closer to knowing the game in and out. Getting good at chess is a journey; the game gets less and less mysterious and more clear as you keep making new discoveries. Discovery is satisfying.

 on the contrary take a look at my game against Carlmoji from the US I am almost decimated but the worst i get now is a win in 4.

I said clearly lost, not being one pawn behind with compensation.

take a look at my game I am being destroyed piece wise

In that game you never had (at your level) a "clearly lost position".

EDIT: also the win is more tricky than you thought.

yes but I can still win the worst is a draw agreed. I forgot about the rook...

Let's not discuss about a game still in progress.

fine just interested on your view..NOT seeking help...

OK, my view is that you never were in an absolutely hopeless position. You were down in material, but you still had initiative. As long as there's initiative, there's hope :)

How to lose it in one easy blunder? Ask me...lol..Do you watch Karlsruhe play football?

No, I prefer to watch nearby Baden-baden play chess, with Anand on board 1 and Carlsen on 2 :)

Didn't we all hear that before ????

I don't want to be a formula 1 race driver, because the difference in lap times is only splits of a seconds and all the technology removes the joy. I prefer to race pedal cars, since it is muscle power deciding the race. It's more fun...I prefer to play guitar poorly, because I am more excited every once I hit a chord right...I prefer to be a mediocre programmer, that way my programs are implemented faster and I I don't recognise my (to others obvious) mistakes, which is less demotivating.

Sorry..but WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?

I am not a GM, IM or even close to any M but M..Donalds... but I know that diving into ANY topic, the more you spend time with it the more you get out of it. Aspects of joy shift through time, but the thrive to be better stays and keeps.

I think it is like GMs breathe chess day and night. It is an integral part of their life that is impossible to remove. Just because they see things different it doesn't mean they enjoy it lesser really..though their attitude towards the game surely changed.

Regarding a lot of those 1/2 - 1/2 .. I assume that it happens quite often that it is a tactical decision throughout the tournament. Even though the position might be worth playing out, for the course of tournament, both know the risk/reward rationis just not suitable and wait for a better opportunity / position to go for an advantage.

Maybe at some point but at my level every question answered raises 10 more. The game gets more mysterious and less clear as I improve but the discovery is definately satysfying. For me chess is not about each individual game but the learning.

 I am pro being better, and pro learning

When I say less mysterious, it's because I know more about the game. I guess philosophically you could say it's "more mysterious," as if comparing it to how the smartest people know best how ignorant they are, with less smart people meanwhile thinking they know everything. That personally hasn't happened to me in chess: all of the piece placements and stuff get more meaning to me, whereas when I was first playing I couldn't tell when the pieces were begging to attack compared to when it wouldn't work. I don't feel as lost when I try to find a move or plan; chess starts to make sense :)

A helpful post. Thank you!

Psychological self-analysis, I think, is next to impossible. For example, how could an insane person determine his mental problem? If my post strongly suggests a problem with my ego, and not my id or superego, then how can I argue? I'm the one with the problem.

I don't know. It feels like it's more a problem of not wanting to fail, not wanting to make mistakes, something that is part of perfectionism. A perfectionist does not believe that he can be perfect, but any kind of endeavor in life that does not result in an "A" performance is uncomfortable, even emotionally painful.

So, in Turn-Based games, set to 3 days per move, the perfectionist has plenty of time, putting in way too many hours, to get an "A"on that test, which is to win the game. That's the best way I can explain why I got burned out on Turn-Based chess.

I suppose that if I were in daily contact, face to face, with the people I play chess against at chess.com, then I can see ego being a factor, but that would have been years ago when I was in my 20's, and into my 30's. Bragging rights. At 52, and especially after suffering a heart attack and open heart surgery (5 way bypass) at 47, there are so many things that I honestly don't care about anymore, for self-esteem. Near death experiences change people. It changed me in many ways, but it didn't rid me completely of perfectionism, but I have relaxed some in that regard.

I can accept things being not exactly right with my surrounding environment, even though I will still clean up around my favorite recliner chair before sitting down for a Live Chess session with my laptop. I am happier, and feel more comfortable, when I am not buried in clutter, and things are arranged in a neat and logical manner. This too, drives my wife nuts! 

So, do you still think that I am concerned about my Turn-Based rating because of my ego?

Last, you did help a great deal, in that I am going to give myself permission in one way, and this is going to be really hard. I am going to give myself permission to fail in Turn-Based chess, starting with only one game, and spending no more that 15 minutes per move, not hours. I think this approach is called Behavior Modification, which is much different than Psychoanalysis. In psychoanalysis, the doctor, through a series of questions, attempts to find out WHY the patient is doing what he does. In behavior modification, the doctor doesn't care why, for example, that his patient smokes. He is only concerned with altering the behavior directly, with no care given to getting to the root of the problem, i.e., the patient has an Oedipus Complex - a desire for his mother.

All of this might sound nutty, but Silman, in How to Reassess Your Chess - 4th edition, devotes 90 pages to Psychological Meanderings, i.e., The Curse of "I Can't, Bowing to Panic, Macho Chess, Lack of Patience, Mental Breakdown, Pushing Your Own Agenda, It's My Party and I'll Move What I Want To, Lazy/Soft Moves, Pay Attention!, etc. It's a great read.

Whether we like to believe it or not, psychology does play a part in chess performance, at least it does with me.

What is this about?

It's not about playing the guitar poorly, strumming the right chord now and then, because that would lead to enormous frustration. That would be the opposite of fun, and people who can't get past that stage quit.

I've taught thousands of students how to play musical instruments in the past 27 years, and if I can't help them to get over the hump of playing poorly, they will quit.

I would have quit chess had I not discovered the importance of tactics training. When I first started playing chess at about age 50, my tactics rating here was leveled off to 600. I stopped messing around with those interactive computer puzzles, and tried to get better my studying opening moves, with the idea that if I start the game with a few good moves, I will have a better chance of winning.

That didn't work, and that was where I almost quit until I finally got it through my thick skull, after repeated attempts by my forum friends, to go back to tactics trainer and stick to it. Now, my tactics trainer rating floats around the 1200's in most sessions, and in some, I can keep it the 1300's, and sometimes peek at 1400. I reset my history regularly, to keep things fresh, with a different set of puzzles, with some hard to explain psychological boost. Plus, I save all of the tactics problem numbers and categorize them by motif, i.e., pin , fork, mate - so I can get in some repetition practice, to burn those patterns deep into my brain so I can recall them within 5 seconds OTB/Live Chess.

So, I'm just wondering if the really, really good players...not the good players...ever get bored with the game after knowing most of the ins and outs, and would be quite happy to play something different to keep things interesting and intellectually stimulating, perhaps playing Chess 960.

Last, I started this topic, wondering if chess for the GM is like Tic Tac Toe. Cringe

Once you learn the little trick, there is one way to win at Tic Tac Toe, some of the time, but the other player must not know the trick for it to work. Either way, with best play, Tic Tac Toe always leads to a draw. In theory, with best play, chess too leads to a draw. Indeed, GM's know tricks that dramatically increase the odds of ending a game in a draw, and they will say at times that they are playing for a draw. Kramnik drove Kasparov nuts, playing the Ruy Lopez-Berlin Defense, and even with the White pieces, one of the greatest attacking players could not knock down that wall. Draw-Draw-Draw...

How can a player be beat, when that player plays so solidly, and refuses to take any risk that will increase the winning chances for one side? This is one example of how chess, with best play, can't be won by either side. If you can't win at chess, and the object of the game is checkmate, then what do you do? This game does not look any fun, to this beginners eyes, and that is why I threw out the idea that maybe it's better to not be a GM, for the sole reason of keeping the chances alive of keeping the game fun.

One person must make a mistake for the other person to win, at any level. For beginners-advanced players, it can be stated as follows: one person must make more mistakes than the other for a win.

Maybe he just found out that a hot looking girl is interested in dating him.

What is his name?