Chess is one of the most intellectual and competitive games. During a game of Chess you experience different kinds of emotions. For example: Joy, confidence, satisfaction, relief, despair, fear, anger, frustration, hopelessness.

Emotions come and go.

Emotions will hit you unexpectedly when you suddenly experience a dramatic change in your game.

• Pieces are attacked and have to be protected or must retreat to a bad square.
• The opponent just started a strong attack at the kingside or you nearly ran into a fork and almost lost a piece.
• Or the game becomes so complicated and rich in tactical possibilities that you can't work out the right moves over the board. And you become deeply immersed in the position again and again. But you still don't know for sure what to play next, recalculating the same variations over and over again.
• The position is going slowly but surely downhill.

This creates emotions of various kinds.

When you are winning you feel happy and you get a big boost of confidence. You just love the position now. You are winning. That's great! Yes! Chess is a great game indeed. Joy comes up.

But on the other hand, when you make a bad move, then you feel frustrated and have doubts and you might lose faith in your ability to find good moves. You might tell yourself: "I play like a beginner. I ruined my position totally. Why am I playing like an idiot? I should have seen this attack coming!"

Emotions can paralyze your mind.

Emotions often obstruct and cloud your thinking just when clear rational thoughts are needed . Time pressure increases the stress even more and the upcoming emotions might block your thinking completely and you are unable to calculate the next moves. You switch off your brain and play in guessing mode. You just guess the right moves now, which leads to a deadly blunder! Your last move ruined your game beyond repair. A wave of frustration gives you the rest and you resign. Damned! How could I make such a move? Why is my brain blocked? I played like a fool? I should give up chess.

Chess is not a quiet game! Maybe quiet on the surface for the onlooker, but deep within yourself there is something really big going on. A big mental adventure, full of traps and surprises. The rational thought struggles versus the emotional response. Sometimes rely just on your emotional response, your mind is unable to work out everything and you need to use intuition. But often the emotions are just obstructing your mind when rational thoughts are needed to calculate a combination.

Just observe your emotions!

You can't escape your emotions and can't control them. They come and go. There is one weapon you have to beat them. Just observe them! The principle of observation is taught in various meditation techniques.

Don't fight your emotions. Just observe them. It is a sort of meditation. You are NOT the emotions! Never forget that! Just watch your frustration and despair for a minute and it will lose its power over you and might even fade away. After that start analyzing your position.

It's just a game. Relax and start thinking again. Your opponent makes mistakes too. You still can win. If your game is totally ruined just resign and go home. Have a good rest, analyze your game and you will play better next time.