Try to develope resilience. I'm a resilient person, so I'm not bothered when I lose a lot of games or when I'm really bad at something. Resilience is just what you need, it'll help you through your difficulties.
Play unrated games. Play for the pleasure of the game and for the people you interact with. Try to cultivate some chess friends who you enjoy playing with. The type who tell you, "Wow, good move! I didn't see that!" or "I think here is where you went wrong. I know the feeling! I've been there!"
When you make a mistake - tell yourself, "Excellent! A chance to learn something." Tell yourself "Well, i might have blundered, but now I'm just practicing good defense - I've got nothing to lose now, and maybe my opponent will also blunder. I'm learning to be vigilant!
When you feel yourself getting frustrated. Take a break. That's not the idea behind chess. Do something to relax. Take a walk. read a book (not about chess!), work in the garden. (don't go to the internet!). That's my two cents of advice.
When you make a mistake - tell yourself, "Excellent! A chance to learn something." Tell yourself "Well, i might have blundered, but now I'm just practicing good defense - I've got nothing to lose now, and maybe my opponent will also blunder. I'm learning to be vigilant!
When you feel yourself getting frustrated. Take a break. That's not the idea behind chess. Do something to relax. Take a walk. read a book (not about chess!), work in the garden. (don't go to the internet!). That's my two cents of advice.
I like the answer from sparowe14. The foundation for depressive thoughts/tendencies come from deeper layers in us. I was my self suicidal or very depressed in my youth. Usually there are emotions and vibrations in us that come from the earlier stages of our life, but particularly later also the way we judge things and ofc our self. Its important that we first exercises a sertain lightness to how we judge our self, and also how we judge our self judging.. because depression can be somewhat, how to say, making it self stronger. Somehow you need to detach from the result.. i think this goes for everyone in everything in life.. we all meet resistance or situations where something go south. How you handle this is the difference.
The depression is somehow already there as a vibration or tendency. I did lots of expressive therapies, breath therapy, bioenergetic exercises, group therapies, active meditation like osho dynamic meditation... i learned that i had tendency to suppress anger and ability to speak my needs and got into though spirals of being alienated from all people. Now perhaps you are not on that level, but its basicaly the same thing. With thoughts we have learned to judge. We have ideas and attitudes learned in us of how we need to be, what we need to be, that we are not good enough or being stupid if we dont master something... or about situation of our life. But in reality its not about our life or chess situation. Its about how we feel and our though process or particular our tendency to judge.
In online chess you will drop in rating in the start when opening an account.. eventually you will win or loose about 50%. Though we will usually have good and bad days... but if you loose many games your rating will ofc drop... eventually resistance will become lower and you will win games. Also ofc we always loose because we did mistakes, and we win because we did less grave mistakes than our opponent.
Perfection is a stupid idea, we basically need to embrace our unperfect nature and celebrate our mistakes.. because we will do mistakes all over in our life. This is how we or even existence is. Btw.. jogging or any physical activity that makes you breathe has a tendency to lift depression there and then.. it doesn't remove a tendency alone. How we breathe actually influence how we think and it also go the opposite way.. so any sports, games or physical activity that makes you breathe deeply or faster for a little long time activates your energy and takes you out of thinking and into your body. Even magnus carlsen does this. Perhaps not knowing how important getting out of head and activating body energy is. But it helps anyway. You feel more relaxed after.
The depression is somehow already there as a vibration or tendency. I did lots of expressive therapies, breath therapy, bioenergetic exercises, group therapies, active meditation like osho dynamic meditation... i learned that i had tendency to suppress anger and ability to speak my needs and got into though spirals of being alienated from all people. Now perhaps you are not on that level, but its basicaly the same thing. With thoughts we have learned to judge. We have ideas and attitudes learned in us of how we need to be, what we need to be, that we are not good enough or being stupid if we dont master something... or about situation of our life. But in reality its not about our life or chess situation. Its about how we feel and our though process or particular our tendency to judge.
In online chess you will drop in rating in the start when opening an account.. eventually you will win or loose about 50%. Though we will usually have good and bad days... but if you loose many games your rating will ofc drop... eventually resistance will become lower and you will win games. Also ofc we always loose because we did mistakes, and we win because we did less grave mistakes than our opponent.
Perfection is a stupid idea, we basically need to embrace our unperfect nature and celebrate our mistakes.. because we will do mistakes all over in our life. This is how we or even existence is. Btw.. jogging or any physical activity that makes you breathe has a tendency to lift depression there and then.. it doesn't remove a tendency alone. How we breathe actually influence how we think and it also go the opposite way.. so any sports, games or physical activity that makes you breathe deeply or faster for a little long time activates your energy and takes you out of thinking and into your body. Even magnus carlsen does this. Perhaps not knowing how important getting out of head and activating body energy is. But it helps anyway. You feel more relaxed after.
I understand the message I received. I will inform about the players who play the program only then when I can be 100% sure. Thank you for your information.
If thats your accurate rating, i dont want to be rude, but stop being pathetic. That rating is the entry level for chess, you know how the pieces move, but thats it. You either have like a few weeks playing still trying to figure out the game, or you are a long term enthusiast of the game that adds ZERO effort on getting good.
If its the first case, well, it takes time, you cant go any lower, so you will improve with practice.
If its the latter, then its probably a character flaw. You wont get good at anything if you dont put the work. You probably try a lot of things, add 0 effort nor give them time and practice, obviously fail at all of them, then get depressed because you failed.
A proper analogy is like sitting on the couch all day eating junk food, one day decide to go to the gym to do cardio and complain that you are not ripped.
Life gets harder over time. If you dont learn how to put the effort, you will suck at all and be perpetually depressed. I can assure you, it wont be a happy life.
Seriously, if you dont have any cognitive issue any effort you put on the game will show improvement from that level.
If its the first case, well, it takes time, you cant go any lower, so you will improve with practice.
If its the latter, then its probably a character flaw. You wont get good at anything if you dont put the work. You probably try a lot of things, add 0 effort nor give them time and practice, obviously fail at all of them, then get depressed because you failed.
A proper analogy is like sitting on the couch all day eating junk food, one day decide to go to the gym to do cardio and complain that you are not ripped.
Life gets harder over time. If you dont learn how to put the effort, you will suck at all and be perpetually depressed. I can assure you, it wont be a happy life.
Seriously, if you dont have any cognitive issue any effort you put on the game will show improvement from that level.
Quit chess. why play chess if your not enjoying it?? and you should maybe focus on your mental health instead
Just some words from someone with now over 10 years of experience in psychotherapy, and having the privilege to sit on the "easier" one of the two chairs (or sometimes 3 if there is a couple):
People, friends, family give sooo much "good" advices to their depressive beloved (do this..., do that..., be more..., be less...), but what they first have to understand is:
It's not like that the depressive person don't want to take your advice. The depressive simply CAN'T!
=> The more advice ppl give, the more the depressive person feels like not being understood. What for us may seem easy, is often soooo brutally hard for them.
Wish you all the best @DerDerDerDerDer !
People, friends, family give sooo much "good" advices to their depressive beloved (do this..., do that..., be more..., be less...), but what they first have to understand is:
It's not like that the depressive person don't want to take your advice. The depressive simply CAN'T!
=> The more advice ppl give, the more the depressive person feels like not being understood. What for us may seem easy, is often soooo brutally hard for them.
Wish you all the best @DerDerDerDerDer !
@DerDerDerDerDer said in #1:
> This is a really bad game for people who are self-abusive. As fascinated as I am with Chess it makes me feel irrevocably stupid and I simply cannot stop resigning. I'm not sandbagging (I wouldn't even know what to do with it.) Does anyone else engage in ruthless self-torture when it comes to playing? Is the answer simply to walk away? I just feel as if I don't belong anywhere that Chess is played.
>
> Side note: whatever it is I'm doing in games guarantees opponents will gain at least 20 points when playing me, and I don't think I've ever got more than 7 or 8 in a win.
the rating game is not chess goal. it is only an average statistics off your pairings so far in a pool of many other players. The key might be there. The focus on the social self-image in a pool of imagined players as representative of self esteem construed as self-worth. The rewards of playing chess might be somewhere else, specially if having only started discovering its vast wealth of unknown to you possible geometrical patterns to explore. You might want to be happy to have so much left to explore. And choose pairings balanced over +- 200 ratings. I would not think that chess should be a source of self-deprecation, but it is quite possible that your non-chess past trajectory is bad basis for estimating your chances given a position. I would perhaps try to enjoy finnishing the games to update your perception, and at least get some clues as to why the game (not you) ended up in the experienced outcome it did. focus on the individual games as equally worthy themselves no matter the outcome. There is beauty in all games, your games, even the play by opponent is part of that game.
> This is a really bad game for people who are self-abusive. As fascinated as I am with Chess it makes me feel irrevocably stupid and I simply cannot stop resigning. I'm not sandbagging (I wouldn't even know what to do with it.) Does anyone else engage in ruthless self-torture when it comes to playing? Is the answer simply to walk away? I just feel as if I don't belong anywhere that Chess is played.
>
> Side note: whatever it is I'm doing in games guarantees opponents will gain at least 20 points when playing me, and I don't think I've ever got more than 7 or 8 in a win.
the rating game is not chess goal. it is only an average statistics off your pairings so far in a pool of many other players. The key might be there. The focus on the social self-image in a pool of imagined players as representative of self esteem construed as self-worth. The rewards of playing chess might be somewhere else, specially if having only started discovering its vast wealth of unknown to you possible geometrical patterns to explore. You might want to be happy to have so much left to explore. And choose pairings balanced over +- 200 ratings. I would not think that chess should be a source of self-deprecation, but it is quite possible that your non-chess past trajectory is bad basis for estimating your chances given a position. I would perhaps try to enjoy finnishing the games to update your perception, and at least get some clues as to why the game (not you) ended up in the experienced outcome it did. focus on the individual games as equally worthy themselves no matter the outcome. There is beauty in all games, your games, even the play by opponent is part of that game.
@DerDerDerDerDer said in #1:
> This is a really bad game for people who are self-abusive. As fascinated as I am with Chess it makes me feel irrevocably stupid and I simply cannot stop resigning. I'm not sandbagging (I wouldn't even know what to do with it.) Does anyone else engage in ruthless self-torture when it comes to playing? Is the answer simply to walk away? I just feel as if I don't belong anywhere that Chess is played.
>
> Side note: whatever it is I'm doing in games guarantees opponents will gain at least 20 points when playing me, and I don't think I've ever got more than 7 or 8 in a win.
When I was a teenager and the internet was first invented, I would play bullet chess all night long.
I would get so livid with my losses that I would shriek like that kid who couldn't wait for his video game to startup and trashed his keyboard in the meantime. (Of course, I didn't want to wake the house so I just experienced it all internally. I remember my eye twitching, I remember grinding my poor teeth, and I remember non-stop heart palpitations from the thrill of winning positions and the horror of losing ones. I was simply using chess as a resources for non-stop dopamine and adrenaline.)
My goal was to simply move pieces and watch my ratings climb. I would win 5 in a row, think I was getting somewhere, and then give 5 back. Round and round and round I went.
At the time, I played 1 0, 1 1, and considered a 1 2 game to be excessively lengthy.
After many many months of that, the excited freshness of lining up the pieces, fresh, in anticipation of a brand new game, took on a monotonous feel. It got bad enough that it actually caused me to spend some months away from the chess board.
Then, after some months off, the very first video chess lectures hit the internet and I saw lectures from Mark Diesen and Pete Tamburro. The way that they described the game perfectly described everything that I enjoyed about chess. They voiced so many different ideas that were functioning subconsciously as I played, but here they were, brought to the conscious, where I could access and start to think about some of these ideas in my own games.
I realized that, at my level, good chess, worthwhile chess, couldn't be played in a bullet/blitz setting and that I needed time no my clock in order to work out some of these different ideas that these masters had brought to the forefront.
At the time, I had conditioned my mind to spend almost no time making my moves and everything was an evaluation in terms of "winning on time vs. winning on quality of move".
"Who cares about the chess? So long as I get the points; I consider that to be a 'good game'," was my attitude.
When I finally sat back down at the chess board, reignited by Mr. Diesen and Mr. Tamburro, I set out to take my time and to look deeper into the game. Initially, I think I set out to play 45 45 time controls and my games would typically end with 50 minutes on my clock, to my opponent's 2-3 minutes, where I would be in a lost position. Basically, my mind could not sit sill and think deeply. I had trained my brain to move without quality or depth. It took at least a few months of dedicating myself to sitting on my hands and looking at the board before I could actually even begin to make use of my clock.
You see, when you first move to produce quality on the board, your mind just spins in the same patterns and any kind of depth in your move is impossible. And by "depth" I do NOT mean "looking ahead many moves and having a depth of vision". That's a different kind of "depth"; no, I mean DEPTH...as in...having all of your moves looking after many different roles.
For example: If it's recognized that the opponent should be prevented from infiltrating a rook to the 7th rank...and all things being equal there are two ways to do it...and one way ALSO achieves something else that's of benefit (or detriment)...then we would take the time to analyze the options and conclude on the most efficient move. That's what I mean by "a move with depth".
In my opinion, that is where the beauty and creativity in chess truly lies.
Not in the points.
Not in the wins.
It seems as if there is a primary love for 'wins and points' and 'conquering and competition' that drives and motivates some chess players.
And it seems as if there is a love for chess that primarily drives and motivates other chess players.
I played as a points junkie for many months, possibly over a year, with 10s of 1000s of games, if not 100s, and eventually chess just turned into "old chewing gum".
It really was only when I saw Mark and Pete verbalize and make conscious all of the aspects and considerations and creativity of chess that it reignited what I really loved about chess, and ever since then it's been a proper journey compared to the my points-addicted, pithy and ego-centric motivations for playing chess against other people online.
Now, chess is nothing but a work of creation, a debate between two people, where arguments are created, presented, spectated and appreciated based on their merits.
So now, when I outplay an opponent but end up losing focus due to a brain injury, making a stupid mistake, or walking away and forgetting I was even in the middle of a game, etc., I can still consider those games to be bona fide victories and it doesn't impact my emotions anywhere near how those kinds of instances used to. Sure, a bad loss after a well fought game still has a very slight and transient sting to it, but it's not painful and I don't really notice it anymore.
Long story short, I made my own on-going lecture series that is basically a tribute to the kinds of ideas that Mark Diesen, Pete Tamburro, Jessi Kraai, and Varuzhan Akobian took the time to share and point out back in the late 1990s early 200s.
If you're anything like me, and feels as if you're Neo before entering before the matrix...as thought there MUST be something more to chess...then I highly recommend that you give it a click and see if it can't reignite your passion for chess, too. It's from a beginner's point of view so it should be compatible and resonate with the way that your brain thinks. But, regardless, it's definitely going to be enough to jumpstart you and to get you thinking in the right direction and including some more productive thought into your moves.
Some days, I play actual chess.
Some days, I just move the chess pieces.
There is an absolute difference between the two and this lecture series delves into what that difference is.
Warning: Once the difference is discovered, if you're a natural born chess player, you'll have to consider yourself a chess enthusiast for life. Aside from busy periods, it will probably be in your life until the day that you die.
Enjoy!
www.youtube.com/channel/UCZgxuBnBBxfoZiSpyohz_Dg
PS: In order to improve your chess:
1. Cite your reason(s) for each and every move that you make. Then, when the game is finished, go back and try to understand if your reasons for making your moves were good or bad and why.
2. Don't move without a reason. I don't mean, "He moves there then I move there then he does this and I do that," reasons...I mean making good moves for good reasons. (The video series makes the difference between the two very clear.)
3. As you progress, try to incorporate more and more reasons for each move. My lecture on tempo lays out this process.
4. Enjoy your chess! Find a sustainable reason for sitting down at the chess board and make that your primary focus. Some will sit down with the primary focus to crush opponents, gain points, get wins, and boost their egos at other peoples' expense.
And others will sit down with the primary focus to create some worthwhile chess.
I'll leave it to you to understand which of these drives and motivations has legs...but I will say this...I have never seen even a glimpse of, "Ohhhhh...that fellow GM of mine...<balled fists> I will CRUSH him at the board!!" from ANY of the GMs. Not a single one. Ever. Also, I know, firsthand, the amount of enjoyment that is to be gained from each paradigm.
Have fun!
> This is a really bad game for people who are self-abusive. As fascinated as I am with Chess it makes me feel irrevocably stupid and I simply cannot stop resigning. I'm not sandbagging (I wouldn't even know what to do with it.) Does anyone else engage in ruthless self-torture when it comes to playing? Is the answer simply to walk away? I just feel as if I don't belong anywhere that Chess is played.
>
> Side note: whatever it is I'm doing in games guarantees opponents will gain at least 20 points when playing me, and I don't think I've ever got more than 7 or 8 in a win.
When I was a teenager and the internet was first invented, I would play bullet chess all night long.
I would get so livid with my losses that I would shriek like that kid who couldn't wait for his video game to startup and trashed his keyboard in the meantime. (Of course, I didn't want to wake the house so I just experienced it all internally. I remember my eye twitching, I remember grinding my poor teeth, and I remember non-stop heart palpitations from the thrill of winning positions and the horror of losing ones. I was simply using chess as a resources for non-stop dopamine and adrenaline.)
My goal was to simply move pieces and watch my ratings climb. I would win 5 in a row, think I was getting somewhere, and then give 5 back. Round and round and round I went.
At the time, I played 1 0, 1 1, and considered a 1 2 game to be excessively lengthy.
After many many months of that, the excited freshness of lining up the pieces, fresh, in anticipation of a brand new game, took on a monotonous feel. It got bad enough that it actually caused me to spend some months away from the chess board.
Then, after some months off, the very first video chess lectures hit the internet and I saw lectures from Mark Diesen and Pete Tamburro. The way that they described the game perfectly described everything that I enjoyed about chess. They voiced so many different ideas that were functioning subconsciously as I played, but here they were, brought to the conscious, where I could access and start to think about some of these ideas in my own games.
I realized that, at my level, good chess, worthwhile chess, couldn't be played in a bullet/blitz setting and that I needed time no my clock in order to work out some of these different ideas that these masters had brought to the forefront.
At the time, I had conditioned my mind to spend almost no time making my moves and everything was an evaluation in terms of "winning on time vs. winning on quality of move".
"Who cares about the chess? So long as I get the points; I consider that to be a 'good game'," was my attitude.
When I finally sat back down at the chess board, reignited by Mr. Diesen and Mr. Tamburro, I set out to take my time and to look deeper into the game. Initially, I think I set out to play 45 45 time controls and my games would typically end with 50 minutes on my clock, to my opponent's 2-3 minutes, where I would be in a lost position. Basically, my mind could not sit sill and think deeply. I had trained my brain to move without quality or depth. It took at least a few months of dedicating myself to sitting on my hands and looking at the board before I could actually even begin to make use of my clock.
You see, when you first move to produce quality on the board, your mind just spins in the same patterns and any kind of depth in your move is impossible. And by "depth" I do NOT mean "looking ahead many moves and having a depth of vision". That's a different kind of "depth"; no, I mean DEPTH...as in...having all of your moves looking after many different roles.
For example: If it's recognized that the opponent should be prevented from infiltrating a rook to the 7th rank...and all things being equal there are two ways to do it...and one way ALSO achieves something else that's of benefit (or detriment)...then we would take the time to analyze the options and conclude on the most efficient move. That's what I mean by "a move with depth".
In my opinion, that is where the beauty and creativity in chess truly lies.
Not in the points.
Not in the wins.
It seems as if there is a primary love for 'wins and points' and 'conquering and competition' that drives and motivates some chess players.
And it seems as if there is a love for chess that primarily drives and motivates other chess players.
I played as a points junkie for many months, possibly over a year, with 10s of 1000s of games, if not 100s, and eventually chess just turned into "old chewing gum".
It really was only when I saw Mark and Pete verbalize and make conscious all of the aspects and considerations and creativity of chess that it reignited what I really loved about chess, and ever since then it's been a proper journey compared to the my points-addicted, pithy and ego-centric motivations for playing chess against other people online.
Now, chess is nothing but a work of creation, a debate between two people, where arguments are created, presented, spectated and appreciated based on their merits.
So now, when I outplay an opponent but end up losing focus due to a brain injury, making a stupid mistake, or walking away and forgetting I was even in the middle of a game, etc., I can still consider those games to be bona fide victories and it doesn't impact my emotions anywhere near how those kinds of instances used to. Sure, a bad loss after a well fought game still has a very slight and transient sting to it, but it's not painful and I don't really notice it anymore.
Long story short, I made my own on-going lecture series that is basically a tribute to the kinds of ideas that Mark Diesen, Pete Tamburro, Jessi Kraai, and Varuzhan Akobian took the time to share and point out back in the late 1990s early 200s.
If you're anything like me, and feels as if you're Neo before entering before the matrix...as thought there MUST be something more to chess...then I highly recommend that you give it a click and see if it can't reignite your passion for chess, too. It's from a beginner's point of view so it should be compatible and resonate with the way that your brain thinks. But, regardless, it's definitely going to be enough to jumpstart you and to get you thinking in the right direction and including some more productive thought into your moves.
Some days, I play actual chess.
Some days, I just move the chess pieces.
There is an absolute difference between the two and this lecture series delves into what that difference is.
Warning: Once the difference is discovered, if you're a natural born chess player, you'll have to consider yourself a chess enthusiast for life. Aside from busy periods, it will probably be in your life until the day that you die.
Enjoy!
www.youtube.com/channel/UCZgxuBnBBxfoZiSpyohz_Dg
PS: In order to improve your chess:
1. Cite your reason(s) for each and every move that you make. Then, when the game is finished, go back and try to understand if your reasons for making your moves were good or bad and why.
2. Don't move without a reason. I don't mean, "He moves there then I move there then he does this and I do that," reasons...I mean making good moves for good reasons. (The video series makes the difference between the two very clear.)
3. As you progress, try to incorporate more and more reasons for each move. My lecture on tempo lays out this process.
4. Enjoy your chess! Find a sustainable reason for sitting down at the chess board and make that your primary focus. Some will sit down with the primary focus to crush opponents, gain points, get wins, and boost their egos at other peoples' expense.
And others will sit down with the primary focus to create some worthwhile chess.
I'll leave it to you to understand which of these drives and motivations has legs...but I will say this...I have never seen even a glimpse of, "Ohhhhh...that fellow GM of mine...<balled fists> I will CRUSH him at the board!!" from ANY of the GMs. Not a single one. Ever. Also, I know, firsthand, the amount of enjoyment that is to be gained from each paradigm.
Have fun!
I guess it depends on your aim.
I tortured myself plenty in the past with chess.
Especially long nights of online chess, way beyond what my body wanted to take.
Did I learn something from it?
I stopped doing it. I guess that is something.
If you want to enjoy chess, I would say play IRL with a friend, or even better, analyze some games together.
I find the human interaction to be the best part of chess.
While the competitive part seems to be the worst.
All the best,
Rauan
I tortured myself plenty in the past with chess.
Especially long nights of online chess, way beyond what my body wanted to take.
Did I learn something from it?
I stopped doing it. I guess that is something.
If you want to enjoy chess, I would say play IRL with a friend, or even better, analyze some games together.
I find the human interaction to be the best part of chess.
While the competitive part seems to be the worst.
All the best,
Rauan
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