I've been playing chess since I was 5 years old. I've learned hundreds of openings by heart, I've studied strategy and tactics, I've participated (and won) non-professional tournaments and got high ratings in various online chess communities. But over the years I've learned that I would never be even half as good as professional chess players. No matter what I did, I just couldn't advance beyond my level, not because I was not capable of doing that, but simply because I could not afford the time it took to keep developing my skill.
Since I am very competitive by nature, I was completely demoralized by constantly loosing to high level chess players, and eventually I stopped playing chess all together. I hid away my chess books, signed out of internet chess sites, and went on to study psychology in the university. In about a year I almost managed to forget my chess obsession. Almost, but not quite.
Once, while preparing for a test in cognitive-behavioral psychology, I've decided to take a break and surfed the net. For some unknown reason, I've reopened my old chess account on Yahoo, and decided- after more than a year's pause- to play a game for fun, just to see if I remember anything about the game.
Since I didn't care weather I win or lose, rather than trying to win the blitz game I've started- I've decided to use my knowledge on psychology in order to stress out my opponent. Objectively, I've played a bad game. I made stupid moves, scarified pieces for no good reason, and moved way to fast. The condition on the chess board was hopeless, but I won because my opponent ran out of time, as I knew he would- when I noticed that my higher ranked opponent is taking to much time to think. He tried to beat me on the board, while I beat him outside of it.
Then it hit me: I can use my knowledge in psychology in order to develop a winning strategy for beating opponents, especially while playing rapid chess.
Over the next two years it became my new obsession, learning and testing more and more psychological strategies, ranging from simple tricks to profound and complicated psychological methods for beating higher ranked opponents. I've played thousands of games in order to explore my new skill, treating it as a learning experience, rather than trying to win the game. The results stunned me, and I've been perfecting my psychological strategies ever since.
Through this blog I want to share my tactics, and hopefully get new ideas from people that love the game as much as I do.
Good game to us all!
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okay so I am 30 years old. I learned chess when I was 7 or something. I read some books that my dad bought me but i did not have any chance to play real games ( no clubs and no internet back then) so days passed and i was reading chess loving it but not practicing it. only one year ago when it was possible to get a good internet connection. I started to play blitz. But for some reason I couldnt play much.
I fear playing! i cant stand the idea of being beat in chess. so i took one year of trying to study seriously again, tactics and all that. but on the end of the year i didnt manage to be even class C in blitz games. I always lose on time or stressed and getting hasty and blunder badly.
Recently i decided to defeat my fear of playing , but i lost 12 games in 5 0 games!!
You can imagine what i felt. i felt 1 years of hard studying is wasted... i decided that i m just not talent for the game i love and i felt like giving up the game.
but chess is my obsession. thought in real life i went through therapy for anxiety and depression. i used Prozac and anti anxiety medications.
so i have no idea. have i wasted my time? logically i should be a good player ... I score well in IQ tests (around 130 IQ) i love the game and i study it hard. something is missing ... do i have a psychological problem that will never allow me to be a good player?
help!:(
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