Psychology in chess for mental athletes

Many times we have heard that psychology is very important in all the things we do in our day to day life. Especially, when it comes to compete as in the case of chess, where we are alone against our rival, where there is no team that can help us to win, all the pressure falls on us.

But few times we are told what is the right psychology in chess, how to manage our emotions when we are navigating in them while we try not to get checkmated, how to act and think when we play an opponent that on paper (ELO rating) is superior to us, how to handle our mistakes (we have to remember that we are human and that sooner or later we will make a mistake, this is the reason why competition exists, because of the human factor) and just as important how to handle our successes when we are on a roll and we think we are the new Bobby Fischer or Judit Polgár of chess.

In my career as a chess instructor I have had the obligation to find answers to some of these concerns so that my students can get their best chess version and that the psychology in chess is not an anchor or a hindrance in their competitions, since sooner or later we have to learn these things, in one way or another.

Psychology in chess

Trust

I'm going to start with something that I believe is the driving force of every sportsman or mental athlete (as I like to call us 😄😄😄😄) which is TRUST.

The trust to make a sacrifice when we have to if we believe it is the best thing, no matter who our opponent is, whether it is our neighbor who is just starting to play chess or Magnus Carlsen himself. To have the trust to play an opening, to enter a certain midgame or endgame.

What I tell my students is that the trust in oneself is EARNED with work and effort, it is not enough to repeat to ourselves that we can do anything. This is in vain because we can not fool ourselves and deep down we know that we do not train enough, the most logical thing is that we get nervous and do not know what to do when we are under time pressure.

Fear Of Failure

Continuing with the analogy of the automobile, we have already talked about our engine, now it is our turn to talk about the fear of taking the wheel and driving, or rather the fear of failing or making a mistake.

It is normal to be afraid of making mistakes, but what is not normal is to let it stop us. 
That it does not let us sacrifice a rook for a pawn and open the castling of the opponent's king, even when according to our calculations and analysis, after the sacrifice we have a very promising position. But our fear that we are skipping something or any ghost that usually crosses our mind does not let us play what we know we have to play and instead we only develop a piece and miss the opportunity to take a big advantage and possibly a very nice victory.

As I said before mistakes are inevitable, when we train we only reduce the possibility of making them and that the mistakes are less gross.

Manage our success

Now that we have our engine ready, now we dare to take the wheel and drive, now we feel like driving at 300km/h all the time, or rather, once we are confident in our work and we dare when we have to do it, the moment comes when we start to win more games, we start to win important tournaments, we win many games in a row without losing and we think we are the kings of the world, at that moment we have to be very careful, we may be poisoned with our own success.

We must not let ourselves be intoxicated by our victories, as Kasparov said, one of his greatest secrets to be at the top of world chess was that he analyzed his defeats as well as his victories.

There is always something we could have done better even in the games we won, by looking at it this way we will keep ourselves present and constantly improving where we will learn from our victories and defeats, in other words, there is no such thing as a case from which we will be defeated, we will only have more lessons to learn.