English Chess Forum

Hello. My friend said that my losses even to 1400s is due more to my loss of mental composer. How to overcome this?

Thanks in advance

The word you're looking for is "composure". I don't know how to solve this; I suffer from the same problem at times.

soheil_hooshdaran wrote:Hello. My friend said that my losses even to 1400s is due more to my loss of mental composer. How to overcome this?

Thanks in advance

It is a very old problem which many chess players suffer from. The old advice used to be to write down your move first then just spend a few seconds, a minute at the most, doing a sanity check to make sure you weren't getting carried away, doing something stupid or losing your composure. Unfortunately the latest FIDE rules make this illegal. It is classified as "making notes".

We know that this is an almost universal problem because even one of the world top 10 players, Wesley So, was recently penalized for writing notes to himself basically telling himself to keep his composure.

Since you are not allowed to have these written aids to keeping your composure you need to have other means of doing this mentally. Sometimes you see very strong players look away from the board for what seems like a long time when it is their turn. It could be that they are saying to themselves "Calm down! Is that really the best way to play?". You could try doing the same. (I have to admit that when I do this I am usually thinking "I could murder a pint right now" which might be the way weaker players handle the problem)

Something else which I sometimes do is to go to the kitchen area when it is my opponent's turn, have a glass of cold water, take a few deep breaths (can be particularly important in winter when the room/hall is crammed with chess players, the heating is turned up and the lack of oxygen in the air is sending you to sleep) and try and refocus.