During a chess game we often make mistakes which in retrospect seem completely ridiculous. Blunders are the most obvious manifestation of this, but sometimes we miss strong continuations, or commit grievous positional mistakes which later appear to be obvious. What is the reason for this?
In chess it is very easy to lose our presence of mind. Chess is endlessly presenting us with excitements, disappointments, joys, and agonies. Practically every game is full of these things as well as tense critical moments. At such moments we can easily become distracted in the most slippery of ways. With victory nearby we suddenly blunder, with the initiative suddenly in the opponent’s possession we suddenly collapse.
“Few people realize that the ability to focus one’s thoughts during the decisive moments of a game is just about the most important quality a chess player can possess.” – Garry Kasparov
There you have – focus is named as perhaps the most important quality a player can possess by the greatest player of all time.
What are some practical strategies to ensure that we are able to concentrate fully during the difficult, tiring, and emotional phases of a chess game?
Firstly we should maintain a constant awareness of the various emotional and thought-based pitfalls that we can fall into. Jonathan Rowson’s excellent book The Seven Deadly Chess Sins talks almost exclusively about the various ways our concentration and quality of thought can be sabotaged during a chess game. Becoming well-acquainted with these tendencies of thought, and reviewing your own tendencies and thought patterns during a game is the first step to creating a plan to combating these insidious issues.
Also of help is to practice concentration and a present mind in daily life. For those so inclined, there are various methods offered by modern psychology, or even meditation practices to help steady the mind and these can come in handy both throughout daily life, training sessions, and during the games. For instance, when you feel yourself nearing victory in a tournament game, you can focus on your breathing and count slowly to ten in order to reduce the impact of your excitement and clear your mind to deliver the final blows. You might think that sounds juvenile – but I’ve used it to beat very strong players, and have innumerable moments of regret when I lost my head!
Ultimately presence of mind is a matter of being confident, cool, and balanced in our thinking. When you notice that you’re agitated, upset, excited, thinking about the opponent’s strength, or whatever…you just bring yourself back, redouble your confidence and your cool focus and get back to the work of thinking strategically and calculating variations. Practicing these simple strategies over time and increasing your ability to do this over time will have remarkable effects on your results.
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