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Is Your EGO Costing You Your ELO? In a sport
that relies on brain instead of brawn, ego is a powerful motivator.
We've all seen it. A chess player loses a game and then lectures their opponent on how "badly" they played and how lucky they were to win: "You were so busted I had you crushed!" And then under their breath they add, "How could I lose to this fish!?" while shaking their head in disgust. What's going on here? Why is this player venting his frustration at the other player, rather than where it belongs: on himself. The answer can be summed up in one word: EGO. We all have one; and we all know that our ego loves to win. "Man, I'm good!" it crows with delight when we take down the full-point in a rated tournament game. And, of course, we can't wait to run and show our friends our latest "brilliancy." However, what happens when we lose a game? After all, the reality is that nobody wins all the time.
Even the game's best: Capablanca, Alekhine, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, etc. have had to deal with losing to "weaker" players (since pretty much they were considered the favorite in any game they played during their prime). Yes, the reality is that we all lose some of the time.
My point is that everyone who plays chess can expect to lose a certain percentage of their games. The question is, how do you deal with these losses when they come? Are you one of those individuals who absolutely cannot stand to lose? Indeed, does just my mere suggestion of you losing a chess game cause your temperature to begin to go up? Well, if so, I can assure you that you are setting yourself up for a boatload of future disappointments and unhappiness, a.k.a. PAIN. Especially if you are one of those players who go into a deep funk after a loss. I know one player that entered a six-round tournament but was so disgusted after having lost his first game that he dropped out. Now, you may argue that not wanting to lose is a good thing; it's what drives you to want to improve. And to a degree, I would agree with you. But there comes a point where letting losses deeply affect you is simply counterproductive. Being upset for a few minutes immediately following a game where you made a blunder is completely normal. But if you're still beating yourself up over it three days later, than you might want to work on improving your "losing skills." Yes, just like learning how to win is a skill, so is
learning how to lose. And while every chess player thinks about
winning, most have given virtually no thought as to how they will handle
losing. I have to confess that 1 speak from experience here. I
used to get so worked-up over my tournament losses that even days later they
still bothered me. However, by following the advice I am sharing with
you in this article, by working on my "losing skills," I have learned to see
chess in its proper perspective: as a game to be enjoyed and to grow and
learn from. As a result of my change in attitude, I have more fun
playing, worry less about my results, and yet have seen my rating go up.
Note that the increase in rating is a "by-product" of this new attitude, and
not a conscious goal. Of course, some players' egos are so fragile that they cannot take responsibility for their own mistakes/blunders. Instead, they have a built-in defense mechanism that kicks in whenever they lose a game. Israeli FM Amatzia Avni (Inside Avni's Mind) talks about this in his book, Practical Chess Psychology (Batsford, 2001). In chapter 9, "Encounters with Failure," he writes under the heading, Confronting a loss:
These are just a few of the many excuses that some players use. The question is, WHY do they do this? The answer is because to admit that the loss was 100% of their own making is simply too painful. A person with a shaky self-esteem thinks, "Great ... one more thing I suck at." And this adds another log to the fire of that person's already poor self-image. Pretty soon, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They expect to lose (although not consciously), and so sooner or later they sabotage themselves so that their brain gets to be right: "See, I told you you're no good at this game!" it says immediately following another frustrating loss. Of course, it's not just after the game that "poor adversity skills" can be a problem. It can also be a problem during a game if something bad or unexpected happens and you suddenly find yourself in trouble. If your mind starts to criticize, complain and bemoan the fact that you overlooked a shot by your opponent, or that you have misplayed things and are suddenly worse, this negative thinking could be just enough to make you go on "Tilt." Going on Tilt
The poker world has adopted the term "being on tilt" to indicate when a player is still upset about a previous hand, and is currently not playing his "A" game. His focus is gone, his mind is divided, and suddenly he starts making impulsive, risky, and sometimes just downright poor decisions. Most often going on tilt is caused when a player experiences what is called a "bad beat." This is a situation where he is the heavy statistical favorite to win the hand (say 90% or more), yet when the dealer turns over the river card his opponent miraculously hits one of his two "outs."
Going on Tilt in Chess The difference between poker and chess is that in poker you can blame something bad that happens to you on your opponent making a poor call or the bad luck of the cards. But in chess, there is no one to "blame" except yourself. YOU hung the piece and so for many this gives their mind the green light to begin the self-flagellation: "What is wrong with me!? I did it again! Man, how stupid can I be!? Arrrrrrgh!!!"
This kind of self-talk is pure poison. The main reason is because the moment you do this you are no longer devoting 100% of your resources-all of your brain power-to finding the best moves. Suddenly, you are utilizing perhaps only 70% (or less!) of your mind, because the other 30% is being spent on negative self-talk. Do you really think you can give 70% effort when your opponent is giving 100%, and still expect to win? When I mentioned to a friend of mine, expert Danny Berman, that I was writing this article, he said he recently saw an events' affect your thinking. He told me that in Shoot 'Em Up, Paul Giamatti's character had just lost half his men and someone said to him, "Hey, you lost half your men, aren't you angry? Giamatti replied, "I can't afford to be angry ... anger lowers your I.Q., and right now I need to think!" I don't know how good the movie is, but this is definitely good advice for chess players. So, what can you do when you suddenly find that something has gone wrong and your position is bad? Instead of becoming upset, try the following three tips: 1. Stay Calm. While dropping a piece or throwing away a win can often be a shock to the system, it is important that you do not panic. If you panic then you are not going to be thinking rationally and you are more likely to commit a second blunder.
If need be, get up and go to the bathroom and splash some water on your face. The five minutes you leave the board may be just what you need to clear your head and come back in a better frame of mind.
Once you have made time control get up for a few minutes and walk around to give your head a chance to clear. Many players fail to do this and end up blundering on move 41 or 42 because they are still caught up in the rhythm of moving fast even when they no longer need to. Discipline yourself not to make this costly mistake. 2. Compartmentalize the mistake. If you hung a pawn, then you hung a pawn. Don't blow it up into something more than it is. In other words, don't let one mistake bleed over and affect your entire game. You missed a knight fork means you missed a knight fork and not that you're a bad player; don't make it into more than what it is. I have seen players that as soon as they make one mistake, their entire game falls apart. They start shaking their heads and bemoaning their blunder, both verbally and with their body language. They have become discouraged and lost their fighting spirit, all because of one mistake. And you can be sure that if this happens to you, your opponent will notice! And once they sense weakness coming from your side of the board, like a shark that smells blood, it only gives them more confidence that you are theirs for the taking. You can avoid this by staying calm and not making a big deal about your mistake; simply note it and move on. Say to yourself, "There is still a lot of chess to be played. I'm going to fight on and who knows, he may even blunder back!" 3. Get in the habit of putting up maximum resistance. The idea of fighting hard in a "lost" position is something I learned by watching a friend of mine named Carl Hyne. Known as "the Great Carlini," he can be found most weekends at Santa Monica Chess Park playing blitz while kibitzing to his opponent and the surrounding crowd. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen him pull out
games where he was completely busted. I've seen him find a way to win
in games where he was down a queen. He would simply continue to make
threats with his remaining forces thus keeping his opponent under pressure.
Often they would become flustered and either blunder a piece back or lose on
time. I've seen him do this so often that I knew there had to be
something different in his approach to the game. When I asked him why he doesn't get rattled or discouraged like most players when he drops a piece he replied, "It's a fatalistic philosophy that, OK, you lost the piece. You accept it and move on." And if you watch Carl play blitz, if he does drop a piece, he just continues playing as if nothing happened. This does two things: It reinforces his own belief that he is still going to win, and secondly, it confounds his opponent who is wondering why Carl is not more upset about hanging the piece! They think, "Doesn't this guy realize he just hung a knight ... why is he still playing on??" And so they tend to relax thinking the game will win itself. Needless to say, this feeling of overconfidence often leads them to making casual moves thus allowing Carl to set-up one of his infamous swindles. These crowd pleasing comebacks are often accompanied by him exclaiming, "Never give up, never surrender!" The only way to develop this "fighting spirit" is to practice playing on when down material. The more you do it the better you will get at putting up maximum resistance. Having incorporated this philosophy into my own game, I can tell you that it is indeed a sweet feeling to corm back from a losing position and pull out the win or a draw. It not only shocks your opponent, it also gives you confidence knowing that you didn't crack under pressure, but rather stayed tough mentally and fought hard, i.e. had a warrior's spirit. Here is an example from my fifth-round game at the 2006 Los Angeles Open: Staying Tough
Black to play
This save is a good example of the "Never give up, Never Surrender!" attitude and hopefully it will inspire you to fight hard in your own games regardless of how bad things may look. Finally, here are two things you can do to keep your chess fun and enjoyable rather than stressful and ratings driven:
This is certainly good advice regardless of your rating. Note that this advice can also be applied to how you approach each move of every game you play. In other words, during your games you focus on making good moves and "enjoy the journey" without worrying about the outcome of the game. This is a very "Zen-like" approach to chess, and one that I personally find both calming and fulfilling. 2. Keep your ego out of it. How? By not taking anything that happens during the game personally. Remember, whether you win or lose a chess game has nothing whatsoever to do with your worth as a person... unless you make the mistake of thinking it does. There is a guy who plays at the Starbuck's I play at on the weekends who can never lose a blitz game without making excuses. "Oh, I had you there, I just missed the check" or "You know you were crushed, I just ran out of time." When he's not there, several of the other players talk about how obnoxious he can be. And if you lose to him, you never hear the end of it because he keeps score of how many games he's beaten you this month! The sad part is he's basically not a bad guy, but his chess results are so tied into his self-image that he feels compelled to defend his ego at all costs. He has erroneously tied his chess results into his value as a human being. Don't fall into this trap. Your worth as a human being should have nothing to do with how well you push little plastic or wood pieces around a board. Yes you want to win, but if you do lose, life goes on and tomorrow is a new day. By the way, if you do find your ego has been triggered, i.e., you feel yourself getting angry or defensive, such as when there is some type of dispute during your game, simply catch yourself, begin focusing on your breathing, and slowly calm yourself down. The ego is extremely persistent and learning to keep it in check (pun intended) does take practice. Another advantage of learning to play "egoless" chess is that it frees you up to try new things: "Hey, this pawn-sac looks like fun; I think I'll try it in my next game." However, if your ego is tied into winning and losing, you will often be too concerned about being down material to just "go for it." Again, I speak from experience here - for a long time I used to draw way too many games simply because I was afraid of making a mistake and losing the game. I used to worry, "Oh, I teach chess, what will people think if I have a low rating?" However, I finally figured out that nobody really cares what my rating is ... except me! That's right. In other words, being "only" a class B player has never stopped me from getting work as a chess instructor at schools or teaching private lessons. What's more, once I made the conscious decision to stop worrying about my rating and decided to just "play chess," my results improved. After years of struggling I recently became a class-A
player. I attribute my breakthrough to utilizing the very concepts I'm
sharing in this article, and NOT focusing on the four little numbers above
my name on my Chess Life label. If you do the same, i.e., stay
calm, compartmentalize your mistakes, always put up maximum resistance, keep
the game in perspective, and keep your ego out of it, you will not only
enjoy your chess more, but may just see your rating go up naturally, as a
by-product of your new attitude! This article appeared previously in the October 2008 issue of Chess Life,
the official publication
Michael Jeffreys is a noted author, teacher and speaker. Michael writes on his website, "My passion is helping you get in touch with your own inner-essence. The beautiful conscious awareness that is quietly inside you right now, looking out through your eyes and reading these words..."
Check out Michael's motivational and chess books too, all available at his website:
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To
see how often even a very good player can expect to lose, I looked up 2007
U.S. women's champion IM Irina Krush's win/loss/draw ratio from Megabase
2007. The database contains 716 of her games, of which 277 are wins,
228 are losses, and 211 are draws. This breaks down to: 38.6% wins,
31.8% losses, and 29.4% draws. So, even a strong player can "expect"
(and I don't mean this in a negative way, but in a statistical one) to lose
roughly 1/3 of their games (unless of course your name is Kasparov, who out
of 3,004 games entered in Megabase 2007, has a mind-blowing losing
percentage of only 8.8%!).
This
is a term which originally came from the world of pinball machines. A
player who shook the machine too hard in order to get the little steel ball
to go where he wanted it would suddenly feel the machine freeze and see the
word "TILT" light up. The round would be over and that ball dead.
Obviously tilting is something good players try to avoid, as doing so makes
it impossible to top the current high score.
The
fact that the most unpleasant thing that could possibly happen happened,
when it was a long shot at best, can suddenly send the mind reeling.
And in poker, this can cost you money. When you are on tilt, you are
far more likely to lash out, make a play to try to recover your lost chips,
or simply stay in a hand that is statistically a dog and that you would
normally never play. However, because you are on tilt and not thinking
properly, you let your ego/emotions get the best of you. And so you
end up playing weak poker; and weak poker is, in the long run, losing poker.
Sometimes,
the brain is so anxious to be right that it doesn't even wait until the game
is over. As soon as the player gets into some trouble, such as
dropping a pawn, the negative self-talk starts right up: "Oh, no! ... I
can't believe I dropped a friggin pawn ... unbelievable!" And for the
next five minutes the brain continues to berate itself.
Also,
remember to breathe. Focusing on your breathing will help you stay
calm; breath in, breath out, relax. Perhaps the time it will take your
opponent to trap your piece allows you an opportunity to start an attack on
his king? Have new lines suddenly opened up that you can take
advantage of? You will only see this possibility (or others that may
be hidden within the position) if you stay calm and focused.
Danny
told me that he saw a good example of this several years ago at a chess
tournament. He was watching master Sharon Burtman and her opponent in
a mad time scramble. Both players were moving very quickly.
After her opponent had made yet another quick move, he saw Sharon reach for
a piece and then suddenly freeze! She then looked at her score sheet
and saw they were on move 41-both had made time control. She then took
her other hand and used it to slowly retract her hand that was hovering over
the piece she was about to move. She then stood up and walked away
from the board. This was a great move on her part and one that I
recommend you also do.
1.
Keep the game in perspective. Yes, it can get intense at times, and
during the game it may feel like life and death, but at the end of the day
it is still just a game (although the greatest one ever invented!).
Take another look at the Jeff Foster quote at the beginning of this article.
Remember why you took up the game in the first place: to have fun, to learn,
and to grow as a player. GM Maurice Ashley has reminded Chess Life
readers in the past to enjoy the journey.
