Things To Get Better At Chess: Out Of Chess
14/04/2023 - Actualizado: 01/05/2023
When we think of get better at chess, we immediately think of a new training or something similar, but there are other things that are not directly related to our training that can help us have a better and much more consistent performance.
Although chess is not a physical sport, our body and mind undoubtedly feel the effects of fatigue after a demanding tournament, where all our energy is consumed during the long hours when chess forces us to concentrate fully on the game. For the same reason, our health as athletes is very important, and today we will focus on what we can improve in our daily lives to be able to perform at our best.
Things To Get Better At Chess
Exercise
"To have a healthy brain, you need a healthy body, and to have a healthy body, you need a healthy brain".
Undoubtedly, one thing that is necessary in our daily lives to keep our brains working at their best is exercise. Many professional chess players, past and present, have admitted to doing some kind of physical activity before an important tournament, from something as simple as going for a walk to practicing calisthenics.
Exercise improves some cognitive skills, keeps our brains oxygenated, improves our mood, and even lowers anxiety and depression levels.
For all these reasons and more, it is almost mandatory that we exercise regularly in our daily routine, it is not necessary to go to the gym to stay in good shape, today there are many videos online to exercise in our own home or we can even just go for a walk and use this time to be with our pets.
Exercise undoubtedly helps us to get better at chess.
Mentor
Having a mentor, a guide from someone who has already walked the path we intend to walk, will save us years of trial and error, it can be a player of a higher level than us or a chess coach.
Today there is a lot of material about chess, including books, videos, courses, databases, etc. This can make us feel as if we are adrift in the middle of the sea, not knowing which way to go, so it is very important to have a mentor.
Our mentor will guide us on the right path to achieve our goal, whether it is to get better at chess or to become a titled chess player.
Where to Find Mentors?
On the most popular chess websites nowadays, such as lichess.org or chess.com, there is a section where mentors and coaches write a description of their skills as a leader, their achievements with former students and their own achievements as a player.
I recommend that you explore their descriptions, look for someone whose description you like, but always keep in mind your goals, if you want to obtain the MF title, it is better to hire a coach who has the MF title or higher, someone who has already achieved it, he will know what things we need to achieve our goal.
Rest Properly
To perform at our best, at the highest level of demand, something fundamental is rest, a rested brain often works better than a stressed one. Rest is also part of the training, it is the moment when our brain reflects and absorbs all the information.
The question is, when to rest? This question is too broad to give a general answer, it depends on the lifestyle of each of us, but as a measure we can look at how our body and mind respond to the demand. Our body gives us signals, for example, it is more difficult to concentrate, our body feels heavy and we only think that we want to sleep. This tells us that our body wants to rest, although as a recommendation it is advisable to keep going for a while, especially when we are training to increase our resistance to fatigue so that we will feel more comfortable during the competition when we run out of energy.
It is also important to rest after an important event, such as a very demanding tournament, not to analyze the games immediately after returning home, but to write down everything that is relevant to the analysis of the games, for example, when we spent the most time thinking, which position we found the most important, some ideas to review. We write down everything important so that we do not forget it, then we just need to rest for a couple of days and when we are recovered, we start with the task of analyzing and learning as much as we can from our last tournament.
When we rest our brain does the task of condensing and assimilating the information learned, it is always necessary to rest properly to get better at chess.
Chess Clubs
Things like having the opportunity to surround ourselves with chess stuff, having the opportunity to meet people we like and who are passionate about the same thing as us, being able to share and get new ideas, taking part in competitions and making friends in one place are some of the benefits of joining a chess club.
All chess clubs offer lessons to their members at different levels, besides organizing events such as tournaments, all this only for a membership fee that usually does not exceed 30 dollars and in some cases they charge a monthly fee for the lessons.
In the chess clubs we can also find our mentors, people who can help us improve our game faster.
They are the perfect place to improve our chess skills and at the same time to test them, which is a very important thing that gives us feedback and hints as to what we are doing well and what we can do better.
Chess Clubs In The United States
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