Just as I was beginning to think that my chess would never improve, it did–not so much in rating points–but very definitely in my ability to look at the board and evaluate my positions. In the past, I would sometimes avoid playing because of loss of confidence following a loss. My finger would hover over the “Play” button on chess.com, never making contact, or I would stare at the lichess lobby (where one looks for available games) for minutes on end, never daring to make a selection.
Finally, I told myself that in order to make online playing less of a source of anxiety, I would have to do it often. I set a goal of one game per day, with someone within one or two hundred points of my rating, and a time control of 30 minutes. I found that lichess was not practical on weekdays because there were not enough suitable players. But there is always someone who matches my parameters on the behemoth chess.com.
The first day of my new program was a Sunday, and I amazed myself by attempting three games on lichess. I played well in the first one, leading my opponent to resign early. Encouraged, and because that game had been rather short, I tried again. This may be hard to believe given what is going on in professional chess today, or maybe it will be easy to believe for the same reason, but after a few moves in that game lichess let me know that my opponent had been found to be cheating. The game was stopped, and points were added to my rating, so I decided to play again. This third time, though, I lost.
From the beginning of my online chess playing I have always looked at the helpful game reviews provided by the apps, and eventually I myself started analyzing and annotating games without first referring to the app’s review. But I think that this particular game marked the first time that I was able to clearly analyze what it was in my emotional state during the game that led me to lose–another sign of my improvement. The opponents I am matched with in my lowly rating band often do not follow the accepted rules that beginners are told to live by early in the game: developing their pieces, bringing their king to safety, and not bringing the queen out too early. Such novices move a few pawns and then quickly and dramatically sweep their queen across a diagonal toward my side of the board. There are some early checkmates that can happen if one is not aware of the threats that this behavior poses, one of which is called “The Wayward Queen Attack.” I have studied some of these, but like most things, if I don’t experience them or refer back to my notes, I can be caught unawares when they actually happen. Thus I have tended to panic when a queen comes my way early, and on that particular Sunday morning, I did so, in a big way. Since that game, however, I have finally been able to do something that I had previously been unable to, which is to follow the advice of my teacher and others to simply stay calm and analyze what threats the queen might pose, defending against them one-by-one. Since that panicky Sunday morning, I have won at least two games simply by doing this.
It has been two weeks since I began playing daily. My heartbeat still accelerates when I first get into the game, but not nearly as much as it used to do. Also, I have adopted a new behavior when I am playing on chess.com, where the opponent’s rating is displayed in the upper left corner of the screen, so that it is possible to play without looking at it. On lichess you can hide all ratings by going to Settings and scrolling down to the last option under Display (thanks, chess Twitter, for pointing this out!). Also, I implemented the suggestion of another teacher to turn off chat in chess.com (no more “Hurry up, Bro” and worse). Recently on chess twitter someone posted three rules to follow when playing chess. The one I remember is to keep your emotions in check. For me, that goes for both negative and positive emotions. When I blunder my queen, I need to keep a cool head and remember that in other games that I have played the opponent ended up making similar blunders, so all is not lost. I also need to slow down when I think I see an amazing fork or other tactic. So many times my presumed “forking piece” was easily captured by my opponent, or my capture of their queen was actually a trade of queens that I did not intend.
Soon it will be one year since I began taking chess pretty seriously. It’s a relief to feel that I have finally seen some progress, although the over-achiever in me wishes for much more. But it is a journey, not a destination.
