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losing games because of anxiety. Help!!!!

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mappy56

as you guys can see in step 29 i made a blunder which made me go from winning to losing position actually my heart started throbbing at that position , yes i do have anxiety as an issue in my life but i didn't effect my game until i reached 1000 rating 

cyboo
Don’t worry. That’s my advise. If you make a blunder, which is very common at your level, than just keep on playing.
mappy56
cyboo wrote:
Don’t worry. That’s my advise. If you make a blunder, which is very common at your level, than just keep on playing.

thank you from deep of my heart thank you

cellomaster8
I don’t know why you just didn’t take the free rook....
mappy56
cellomaster8 wrote:
I don’t know why you just didn’t take the free rook....

past experience of not checking the king and loosing game

cellomaster8
Ok. May I ask how much time was left
mappy56
cellomaster8 wrote:
Ok. May I ask how much time was left

18 minutes on his clock 12 minutes 

mappy56
mappy56 wrote:
cellomaster8 wrote:
Ok. May I ask how much time was left

18 minutes on his clock 12 minutes 

i just screwed it up because my heart was throbbing 

ChronosTL

the best thing to do is concentration on the game, when you step on the board make yourself a different being with no relation with your personal issues because that can be a real psychological killer, and this is hard to do i hope you get better soon.

horrible_scientist

Bcz of anxiety, my rating was dropped by 200 points.So I highly recommend you to take rest. playing will just worsen your game

LouStule
Good advice
mappy56
ChronosGodGT wrote:

the best thing to do is concentration on the game, when you step on the board make yourself a different being with no relation with your personal issues because that can be a real psychological killer, and this is hard to do i hope you get better soon.

Thank you chronos its just i have developed this habit of urgency to respond in 2-5 seconds because  some of my opponents have cursed me in the past for playing it slow from 1-3 minutes in rapid . I need to get over the fact that i should stop caring about what my opponent thinks about me as a person and also get over what they are saying 

mappy56
DeirdreSkye wrote:

      Learning to stay calm is a skill that you develop as you become more experienced.

      Chess is a constant battle with your mind. You have to fight your excitement when you are winning or your dissapointment when you are losing. Imagine how much more difficult that is in real tournament conditions. Eventually the strong player is a strong personality too.

     Whe youn feel your "heart throbbing" , close your eyes , take a few deep breaths and try to relax. Remember that emotions will only make things more difficult for you. Learn to remain objective and calm no matter what. It's a skill we all eventually developed. It's not easy but it's doable.

Thats lovely advice

mappy56
horrible_scientist wrote:

Bcz of anxiety, my rating was dropped by 200 points.So I highly recommend you to take rest. playing will just worsen your game

yeah i will take a break for a week 

mappy56
KeepCalmAndBlunderOn wrote:

Try to detach yourself from the game, take it as a mental challenge against a computer a.k.a try your best without emotions. Loosing a game is just an opportunity for learning more!

so truehappy.png

WilliamShookspear
DeirdreSkye wrote:

      Learning to stay calm is a skill that you develop as you become more experienced.

      Chess is a constant battle with your mind. You have to fight your excitement when you are winning or your dissapointment when you are losing. Imagine how much more difficult that is in real tournament conditions. Eventually the strong player is a strong personality too.

     Whe youn feel your "heart throbbing" , close your eyes , take a few deep breaths and try to relax. Remember that emotions will only make things more difficult for you. Learn to remain objective and calm no matter what. It's a skill we all eventually developed. It's not easy but it's doable.

I'm going to do something risky; I'm going to disagree with Deirdre! (It's okay, I'm only going to disagree a little bit. tongue.png )

I don't like the concept of discipline as fighting yourself. This way you are fighting two opponents: yourself, and the obstacles in the way of achieving your goal, and the fun can, unless you are a certain type of person, drain out of the activity. Instead, I believe in working with yourself. 

William, do you mean? How can you be disciplined by not regulating your own thoughts and pruning unnecessary data? Well, first, I want you to understand that I have not completely ascertained the answer to that question. I'm still learning! But I believe the answer lies in a relaxed state of mind.

If you have studied properly (a whole different beast), you have assimilated that information. It is in the database. Saying "GRR, I know this, GRR, THINK brain, THINK!" wastes a lot of energy, and is actually very distracting. (Trust me, I'm an expert at overthinking and distracting myself. Worse is when you catch yourself doing it and say "GRR, don't think about thinking, just do it GRRRRRRRAWR" and frustrate the stuffing out of yourself. When this happens, it is time to take a break, simple as that.) 

However, and this is the stage where I am stuck at the moment, you must make proper thinking a habit. This is quite difficult, and it is easy to get frustrated with yourself when you drop pieces despite having done all the studying in the world. For some people like Deirdre, it seems to work to just muscle through. For me, though, when I find myself properly relaxed and composed, my instinct and my thought process is often enough for me to play at my very best, all on its own.

So, to summarize:

1) Train good habits Make sure to study master games, mixed with games of 1500s, and while you're doing it, look for undefended pieces or pawns. This is all I want you to do for now, weak squares and superior/inferior pieces can come later. (If you see them, all the better, but not yet.) Take all the time you need to start off, and if you have to, start at the a file and work your way through the b file, c file, d file, etcetera, and identify all of the undefended bits. If you do this, you'll find it easier to eventually recognize them quicker, and quicker, until it's all instinct. (Sometimes you will have off days, and that brings us to the next point.) Btw, I still have to work on this too!

2) Know when to stop There's no worse feeling than that accursed haze, when you feel like you can't see anything, you keep making silly mistakes, but you just want to win ONE game. And you just feel miserable; every piece you hang feels like another nail in the coffin of your chess ambitions. 
This is time to stop. Just stop. Walk away, drink some water, forget about chess. Because that behavior is training habits that are destroying all your good training work. 

I just want to clarify, everyone makes mistakes from time to time, especially when we're at your level. Beating yourself up after every mistake is impractical. But I'm referring to when it starts to affect you emotionally; not only is it miserable, it's bad for your chess too.

3) Be patient with yourself This I think is important. Remember, you're on your own side. happy.png This can be hard to remember, especially when one is struggling with anxiety (been there, done that, not fun) but I think this is one of the most comforting things to recognize. I'm not saying, make excuses for yourself. But be frank. "Okay, I made a mistake. I'll try not to next time. Now, what can I do with what I've got left?" As opposed to, "You fool, why are you even playing this game?"

As I said, I'm still working on this. Find what works for you, but remember you're on your own side. Hope I helped. grin.png 

~Willy

italy12w

No, op might be deficient in thiamine

mappy56
ISWAR_PRASAD_DEURI wrote:

No, op might be deficient in thiamine

yes i do have vitamin deficiencies including vitamin d 

WilliamShookspear
DeirdreSkye wrote:
WilliamShookspear wrote:
DeirdreSkye wrote:

      Learning to stay calm is a skill that you develop as you become more experienced.

      Chess is a constant battle with your mind. You have to fight your excitement when you are winning or your dissapointment when you are losing. Imagine how much more difficult that is in real tournament conditions. Eventually the strong player is a strong personality too.

     Whe youn feel your "heart throbbing" , close your eyes , take a few deep breaths and try to relax. Remember that emotions will only make things more difficult for you. Learn to remain objective and calm no matter what. It's a skill we all eventually developed. It's not easy but it's doable.

I'm going to do something risky; I'm going to disagree with Deirdre! (It's okay, I'm only going to disagree a little bit. )

I don't like the concept of discipline as fighting yourself. This way you are fighting two opponents: yourself, and the obstacles in the way of achieving your goal, and the fun can, unless you are a certain type of person, drain out of the activity. Instead, I believe in working with yourself. 

William, do you mean? How can you be disciplined by not regulating your own thoughts and pruning unnecessary data? Well, first, I want you to understand that I have not completely ascertained the answer to that question. I'm still learning! But I believe the answer lies in a relaxed state of mind.

If you have studied properly (a whole different beast), you have assimilated that information. It is in the database. Saying "GRR, I know this, GRR, THINK brain, THINK!" wastes a lot of energy, and is actually very distracting. (Trust me, I'm an expert at overthinking and distracting myself. Worse is when you catch yourself doing it and say "GRR, don't think about thinking, just do it GRRRRRRRAWR" and frustrate the stuffing out of yourself. When this happens, it is time to take a break, simple as that.) 

However, and this is the stage where I am stuck at the moment, you must make proper thinking a habit. This is quite difficult, and it is easy to get frustrated with yourself when you drop pieces despite having done all the studying in the world. For some people like Deirdre, it seems to work to just muscle through. For me, though, when I find myself properly relaxed and composed, my instinct and my thought process is often enough for me to play at my very best, all on its own.

So, to summarize:

1) Train good habits Make sure to study master games, mixed with games of 1500s, and while you're doing it, look for undefended pieces or pawns. This is all I want you to do for now, weak squares and superior/inferior pieces can come later. (If you see them, all the better, but not yet.) Take all the time you need to start off, and if you have to, start at the a file and work your way through the b file, c file, d file, etcetera, and identify all of the undefended bits. If you do this, you'll find it easier to eventually recognize them quicker, and quicker, until it's all instinct. (Sometimes you will have off days, and that brings us to the next point.) Btw, I still have to work on this too!

2) Know when to stop There's no worse feeling than that accursed haze, when you feel like you can't see anything, you keep making silly mistakes, but you just want to win ONE game. And you just feel miserable; every piece you hang feels like another nail in the coffin of your chess ambitions. 
This is time to stop. Just stop. Walk away, drink some water, forget about chess. Because that behavior is training habits that are destroying all your good training work. 

I just want to clarify, everyone makes mistakes from time to time, especially when we're at your level. Beating yourself up after every mistake is impractical. But I'm referring to when it starts to affect you emotionally; not only is it miserable, it's bad for your chess too.

3) Be patient with yourself This I think is important. Remember, you're on your own side. This can be hard to remember, especially when one is struggling with anxiety (been there, done that, not fun) but I think this is one of the most comforting things to recognize. I'm not saying, make excuses for yourself. But be frank. "Okay, I made a mistake. I'll try not to next time. Now, what can I do with what I've got left?" As opposed to, "You fool, why are you even playing this game?"

As I said, I'm still working on this. Find what works for you, but remember you're on your own side. Hope I helped.  

~Willy

   Everything you say might be valid in online chess. In OTB things are different.

   In  chess your worst enemy is yourself. You have to overcome your fear when playing with a higher rated opponent. You have to overcome the anxiety when you feel that your opponent knows the opening better , the dissapointment when you play a bad move after 40 good ones or the excitement when you feel you are winning a really good opponent. You have to go to sleep with a bad blunder haunting you. You have to live with a bad tournament after 6 months of intense training and preaparation and analyse your painful defeats again and again to find put what you did wrong. And you have to keep trying.  It doesn't have to do with correct study or proper thinking. These 2 are totally unrelated. You can have a bad tournament or several bad games either you do proper study or not , either you have proper thinking or not. In some cases a player can play better chess but it's his own self that doesn't let him. If you haven't experience the stress  of real tournament conditions , you don't know it.

     Kids easily overcome all this , they don't worry so much and when they start worrying they are already experienced tournament players that can deal with everything. But for adults chess is a mental torture. Of course it's different from player to player but till now I haven't seen even one adult beginner or novice in the chessclub that didn't have some short of anxiety problems. And I am talking for people that have very stressful jobs(a doctor among them) and you would expect that they can easily overcome any anxiety. But  I am talking for real chess though, not online chess. I have no idea how all this works in online chess.  

The best chess I played was in an OTB rapid tournament, where I tied for first. I felt nervous as blazes; I was playing people rated 300 points higher than me, who I'd previously been creamed by. But this time, I decided to do something different. Instead of stewing in my own anxiety, I rode the emotions; I let myself feel as anxious as I needed to before the game, then I turned my attention to the chess when the clock started. And when I felt myself start to get eager when I felt I was superior, I went with the flow instead of trying to repress it, but I was conscious that that was not a good time to make a move. 

I think we may be saying similar things, just from two different perspectives.