I bought a video course on Alexander Morozevich during the pandemic, and before exposing his greatest games, he dedicate various chapters about "how to face the defeat", one of the main issues in chess, since some top players setup very high challenges and may collapse, a player like Magnus never collapses, he can play one or two games badly but he always bounces back, a sign of a very strong mind setup.
Well Morozevich said that he loss some 240 games and was far too much for an elite player and what he did is classify his defeats in several different groups like i.ex. one could be, "Catastrophe in the Opening", another "being outplayed by the opponent", another, "a single blunder" and so on. I don't remember exactly but he classified his defeats in 5 or 6 groups.
I guess this analytical approach of "understanding why you lose" is similar to the lady you mentioned in your article. And reminds me the famous Capablanca quote, "you must lose many games to be a good player".
A deep love for chess: this is the key. It reminds me of something GM Ben Finegold said to Chapin in his book (All the Wrong Moves). Here's the quote:
//At the end of my first lesson with Finegold, he nonchalantly asked me whether I’d like to know the secret of chess.
“Um, sure,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. But you’re not going to believe me,” he said. “And maybe you never will.”
I nodded.
“You have to play like you never want the game to end,” he said.
And he was right. I didn’t believe him. But I asked him to tell me more.
“In life, and in chess, people make terrible decisions just because they’re impatient. They want things to end, right now, on their terms. They just want a reckoning, whether or not it’s actually good.
"So they play f4, or they play bishop takes h7, and they just tear everything apart. But you don’t have to play that way. You can play for hundreds of moves, if you want to. You could play for a thousand.
"And if you’re happy with that, your opponent will be like, I want a sandwich, I want a beer, I want to get out of here. But meanwhile, you’re content. You don’t have to go anywhere. You just like moving the pieces around. You just like playing chess.”
I don’t recall what my face did in response, but it did something.
I bought a video course on Alexander Morozevich during the pandemic, and before exposing his greatest games, he dedicate various chapters about "how to face the defeat", one of the main issues in chess, since some top players setup very high challenges and may collapse, a player like Magnus never collapses, he can play one or two games badly but he always bounces back, a sign of a very strong mind setup.
Well Morozevich said that he loss some 240 games and was far too much for an elite player and what he did is classify his defeats in several different groups like i.ex. one could be, "Catastrophe in the Opening", another "being outplayed by the opponent", another, "a single blunder" and so on. I don't remember exactly but he classified his defeats in 5 or 6 groups.
I guess this analytical approach of "understanding why you lose" is similar to the lady you mentioned in your article. And reminds me the famous Capablanca quote, "you must lose many games to be a good player".
TYVM
Llorenç Boldú.
A deep love for chess: this is the key. It reminds me of something GM Ben Finegold said to Chapin in his book (All the Wrong Moves). Here's the quote:
//At the end of my first lesson with Finegold, he nonchalantly asked me whether I’d like to know the secret of chess.
“Um, sure,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. But you’re not going to believe me,” he said. “And maybe you never will.”
I nodded.
“You have to play like you never want the game to end,” he said.
And he was right. I didn’t believe him. But I asked him to tell me more.
“In life, and in chess, people make terrible decisions just because they’re impatient. They want things to end, right now, on their terms. They just want a reckoning, whether or not it’s actually good.
"So they play f4, or they play bishop takes h7, and they just tear everything apart. But you don’t have to play that way. You can play for hundreds of moves, if you want to. You could play for a thousand.
"And if you’re happy with that, your opponent will be like, I want a sandwich, I want a beer, I want to get out of here. But meanwhile, you’re content. You don’t have to go anywhere. You just like moving the pieces around. You just like playing chess.”
I don’t recall what my face did in response, but it did something.
“Okay, see you next week,” he said. //
Great advice!