Comments on USCL news and gossip: I Hate Myself

I read this part: "I realized that I play chess be...

2008-07-22T11:27:00.000-04:00

I read this part:

"I realized that I play chess because it's pretty much the only time I ever feel anything...Chess is the only time I have more than an absolutely nominal interest in anything or anyone".

and I thought that I, on the other hand, am awful in substantial part because I have all sorts of interest outside chess. I do all the "quick fix" things one is not supposed to do, like worrying with formulaic openings and neglecting the endgame. I play 3 0 incessantly when I could be running serious games through Fritz.

Yet the one time I got my rating up a bit, just over 1800, was the time that I just relaxed and didn't worry too much about improving and just focused on what I was doing.

When I went to law school, I was always struck by the way that although hard work was required of anyone to succeed, the ones who excelled worked not only hard but smarter--they figured out the forest, and did not get bogged down in the trees.

I think that for me, as a weak player, this is the most intimidating thing--I have intervals when I perhaps worked "hard", but I am not sure I have had so many intervals in which I worked "smart".

I am not sure which is the worse feeling--making an elementary mistake that costs me a game before I know what hits me--or blowing a won middlegame through a failure to be able to simplify a materially advantageous position.

I say. Bloody hell.I believe all the hating was d...

2008-07-21T18:35:00.000-04:00

I say. Bloody hell.

I believe all the hating was due to the wildly unsound Nxe5 piece sac.

The old adage "sit on your hands" might be effective when you are contemplating such an all-or-nothing "brilliancy". When the hands are immobilized, no move can be made, and you have time to double-check. Some codgery old Soviets made sure to tell me that this was literal - sit on your hands when you think you have espied a coup-de-grace.

It's particularly good advice for ants in their pants juniors.

And if a hand tries to snake out and grab that knight, do a Dr. Strangelove impression and force it back.

I am great at High Society. Unbelievable.

2008-07-20T16:44:00.000-04:00

I am great at High Society. Unbelievable.

Oh also you are very bad at High Society.

2008-07-20T14:17:00.000-04:00

Oh also you are very bad at High Society.

At least you are the best scholastic chess coach i...

2008-07-20T14:16:00.000-04:00

At least you are the best scholastic chess coach in the country! Can't be the best at everything all of the time.

Elizabeth, Jonathon (ftard). Jonathon, Elizabeth ...

2008-07-16T21:13:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth, Jonathon (ftard). Jonathon, Elizabeth (I hate myself).

Jon,Congratulations on 2333!Regards,Eric

2008-07-16T12:56:00.000-04:00

Jon,

Congratulations on 2333!

Regards,

Eric

Remember what I said Monday (2:56) about losing at...

2008-07-16T10:52:00.000-04:00

Remember what I said Monday (2:56) about losing at the club?

(Does the "I was right about how much I suck" dance)(just kidding; I don't actually know what that looks like)(probably not so good)

Is there a special category of sucking that encompasses losing to someone you beat in 20 moves last time you played them and he plays the same opening he did then?

Yes. Yes, I believe there is.

Rick Massimo

Eric, better not advise me to "sac a piece." That'...

2008-07-15T17:44:00.000-04:00

Eric, better not advise me to "sac a piece."

That's been my bane - trying too hard for a "brilliancy" in positions where I ought to just hunker down. Based on my World Open and other recent experiences, I need to make that the focus of my own emotional self-coaching efforts. That is, I must coach myself to cool down my engines and not think about mate all the time. (Hey, this problem might be familiar to some of you A, B and C players out there!)

-Jon

Oh, no offense taken!

2008-07-15T17:38:00.000-04:00

Oh, no offense taken!

Good luck at the St. John's Master's tonight, Jon....

2008-07-15T17:34:00.000-04:00

Good luck at the St. John's Master's tonight, Jon.

Or should I say "break a leg"

or perhaps more apropos, "sac a piece!"

Sorry, I was trying to be funny, not to offend. A...

2008-07-15T17:24:00.000-04:00

Sorry, I was trying to be funny, not to offend. And, yes, I am cynical by nature (though, IMHO cynicism= realism) and so I more or less stand by what I wrote. But I do apologize if I offended.

Why so cynical, last anon?These posters aren't eve...

2008-07-15T17:15:00.000-04:00

Why so cynical, last anon?

These posters aren't even signing their names for the most part... what chance do you think they think they have of being noticed? Maybe they are just being kind or are bored out of their minds at work?

And I'm neither selling advertising, nor posting glamour shots of myself in a bikini. I'm annotating chess games and chatting about my state of mind / weird news stories.

So maybe it's a real conversation among people with a mutual interest, and actually *not* about sex or money or consumerism?

But thanks for comparing me to the Drudge Report!!

Oh, my.Elizabeth, you may 'hate' yourself but you ...

2008-07-15T17:02:00.000-04:00

Oh, my.

Elizabeth, you may 'hate' yourself but you certainly have admirers. Reading through these responses what jumps out at me is the extent to which a bunch of horn-dog chess guys will go to get a hot chess babe to notice them. Keep this up and this modest blog will become the most visited site this side of The Drudge Report. You'll be able to sell advertising.

Carry on...

Eric, keep an eye on future issues of Chess Life f...

2008-07-15T16:36:00.000-04:00

Eric, keep an eye on future issues of Chess Life for your answer.

A few months ago I exacted a promise from CL editor Daniel Lucas that he will assign someone to interview me (it might well end up being Liz - how about that!) if I manage to make a new lifetime rating peak, as a strapping lad of 54. Btw, Korchnoi was 56 when he won the 1987 Interzonal.

Actually, my latest unofficial rating, 2323, is 5 points shy of my peak. My highest published rating was 2328, from my college days in the mid-70s. With a little luck (no, a LOT of luck - especially now that I've provoked G-d or the gods, by daring to say it here), I might surpass it a few hours from now, when I play in this month's St. John's Masters.

Here's a preview of one of my secrets:

GM Alex Shabalov once famously told Jennifer Shahade that he spends between 50% and 90% of his total at-the-board thinking time in each game, thinking not about chess but about sex. When the proportion hovers near 50%, he says he's nearly invincible. But above 80%, sex tends to crowd out his chess thoughts to a point where he can no longer calculate well. (This was in Jennifer's book, Chess Bitch.)

Well, that's never been MY problem. I may get "distracted" now and then at a chess tournament...but never once have I drifted into thinking about sex while engrossed in a game.

In fact, I not only don't think about sex when I'm playing chess; I think about chess when I'm having sex!

(Long have I dreamed about uncorking that line to Jennifer Shahade in a CL interview! It's unprintable, of course, given Chess Life's 80%-underage audience. So I don't think I lose much by leaking it on this blog.)

Keep losing like that! I think you're doing great!...

2008-07-15T16:19:00.000-04:00

Keep losing like that! I think you're doing great!

". . . accepting one's limitations and giving up o...

2008-07-15T16:16:00.000-04:00

". . . accepting one's limitations and giving up once and for all the inevitably frustrating quest to "improve."

Jon, I see that you recently had a reasonably good result at the World Open and appear to have raised your rating to its highest level ever (unless you were once rated higher pre 2002).

Assuming you're past the age of 30, how do you keep doing it?

Eric Strickland

Liz, I may have worded it poorly, but I meant to p...

2008-07-15T13:52:00.000-04:00

Liz, I may have worded it poorly, but I meant to probe whether your perhaps progressively deepening personal relationship(s) with professional chess player(s) might have subtly magnified your emotional investment in your own chess strength/performance. That is why I asked whether you were having similar emotional ups and downs surrounding your chess competition, before you were dating chess professionals.

Katar, my recommendation of more "introspection and analysis" was clearly aimed at fostering chess improvement - not (at least, not directly) at improving self-esteem nor coping with the trauma of loss.

I'm in full agreement with your view that, if the SOLE objective is to cheer up, gain more perspective, gain some distance from chess, and the like, then yoga, frisbee, etc., represent a good approach. The last two paragraphs of my comment, which you focused on, address a different goal. It's up to each individual how they want to balance those goals (chess improvement versus emotional freedom from chess); and if someone decides they've had enough of chess, and would be best off just dropping it either for awhile or permanently, of course that's a legitimate choice. (As is accepting one's limitations and giving up once and for all the inevitably frustrating quest to "improve.")

-Jon

Anon 7:58 am-- It's unpleasant and not politically...

2008-07-15T12:45:00.000-04:00

Anon 7:58 am-- It's unpleasant and not politically correct to suggest my self-esteem problems might stem from something other than "dating strong chessplayers"?

I think that's kinda funny, isn't it?

Leave it to a chess Master to suggest more analysi...

2008-07-15T12:15:00.000-04:00

Leave it to a chess Master to suggest more analysis, a variation tree, solitary introspection, and contemplation.... Or you can play frisbee at the park and forget about CHESS for a bit. As the Joker says on movie posters, "Why so serious?" Do something silly or at least anti-chess. Exercise/yoga is a great one. As for chess, remember that you strike emasculating terror in the hearts of Class-B players everywhere. Class C is not worthy to wash your feet.

Applying "high standards" to yourself is one thing...

2008-07-15T07:58:00.000-04:00

Applying "high standards" to yourself is one thing; hating yourself when you fail to live up to them is something entirely different.

How about this: View yourself as your own coach. That shouldn't be hard for you, Liz, since you make your living coaching others. You don't "hate" your kids when they screw up and fail to follow your guidance - do you? Even your best, most promising student - I'm guessing this would be someone around 1900 strength, perhaps even higher...If she screwed up and played a series of moves worthy of an 1100-player in an important game...obviously you wouldn't TELL her she "sucked"....But I think you wouldn't even THINK it - right???? The criticism you'd give her would be tinged with sympathy (for her trauma of losing) plus respect (for what you know she's capable of and will probably achieve in her next outing) - wouldn't it?

So, how about leavening your self-criticism with the same sympathy and respect when YOU screw up?

And, as I've repeatedly suggested, when you do post-mortems of your losses, don't stop with chess analysis. Make some effort to discern what you were feeling, what you were thinking about (both chess-wise and independent of chess - like, maybe you momentarily worried about something else in your life, or looked forward to an upcoming trip with a boyfriend or whatever) at the moment your play began to go off the track. That way, you'll begin to gain insight into your specific, personal emotional cues that can derail your game. Once you know what those cues are for yourself, you can train yourself to recognize them when they begin to appear, and banish the distracting thoughts before they do serious damage.

(An entirely different thought, which I hesitate to voice because it's less pleasant and less politically correct: Did your own instances of poor play strike at your self-esteem this way, even BEFORE you were dating very strong players?)

Please allow me to recommend the book Feeling Good...

2008-07-15T00:39:00.000-04:00

Please allow me to recommend the book Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns. I found it helpful during a recent crisis. It sounds like it would help you a lot.

Don't go looking for God. Being omniscient, he will clobber you every game, which won't make you feel any smarter.

I've tried to teach my son to respond to chess los...

2008-07-15T00:32:00.000-04:00

I've tried to teach my son to respond to chess losses in a mature fashion.

Wow, everyone, thank you so much. Some great advic...

2008-07-14T23:11:00.000-04:00

Wow, everyone, thank you so much.

Some great advice... I'm sure exercise is a good idea-- probably the best for me. I used to go running a lot and it always helped my mood a great deal, I'm just stuck in a fit of laziness. (except I call it "summer")

I'm not sure finding god is the answer... I mean, I have to be ok with my own failure in the end, right? It's not enough if I just imagine a god and assume he is.

I was surprised by the comment that said I should focus less on what other people think (2:21). Why do you think that's my problem? I know it probably is the problem for a lot of depressed women /people, but I would have thought my problem is that I care too much what I think?

Thanks, Rick!

About trying to care less about losing... first of all, I do not think it's about losing; I stand by my earlier statement that it's more about being dumb. For example, I was not upset about losing to Figler, because I thought I played aggressively and creatively, and my mistake was not stupid. In the secodn round game where I slimed the kid, ok, this example suggests the value of winning, but I would not have been happy if he simply hung his queen-- it was in some large part because I redeemed myself by playing well at the end.

While having high standards for my mental performance definitely makes me less happy, I like to think it has some good points also.

Alexander-- thank you. Is that your real name?

Wow. That's what makes this such a great blog -- d...

2008-07-14T20:36:00.000-04:00

Wow. That's what makes this such a great blog -- drama!