Losing

Recently I was chatting with a fellow chessplayer from another country about the differences between chessplayers and, well, everyone else.  We agreed that it was nigh on impossible for a non-chessplayer to understand how it felt to lose an important match, despite chess being ‘only a game’.  At that point, I joked that I should write a blog immediately after a big loss so that I’d have down in writing how it felt.

Unfortunately, I’ve now got that chance.

Of course, some tournaments are bigger than others, and in that regard the Olympiad takes the cake.  What’s more, team events such as this have the ability to amplify losses tenfold, as one game is very often the difference between a match victory or not.  As it was today.

The team managed a very impressive 2-2 draw with Moldova, but unfortunately my loss from an equal position cost our team the victory we (~they) deserved.  This makes the loss even more painful.

What many non-chessplayers and even amateur players don’t realise is that these games are more than just the five or so hours that goes into the actual playing.  For us, the mental match begins at 11 p.m. the night before when the country pairings come out.  We rush to check out our possible opponents, do a database sweep of their opening repertoires and cross-reference with our own.  We usually head to bed at 1 p.m. or so, but the sleep is hardly refreshing.  Far more often than not, our dreams will include jumbled chess moves and positions.

We get up for breakfast, and then the serious chess preparation begins at around 9 a.m.  Think of this like cramming for a maths exam.  We go through hundreds of our now-determined opponentss previous games at lightning speed, analyse their styles, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and break down their entire repertoires. 

Then we work out what systems we plan to play against every one of our opponents’ main defences.  We learn, memorise and re-memorise these systems until 2 p.m. with perhaps fifteen minutes for lunch somewhere in between.  Then we head to the playing venue and play our match from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m.  Then, afterwards, we analyse the game with our opponent, come home for a late dinner, and then re-analyse with our teammates until 11 p.m., when we start all over again.  When the two weeks’ schedule is up, it usually takes me a good week of sleeping to recover.

In these sorts of tournaments, then, losses hurt.

So what should you do after the big loss?  The problem is, no matter what you do immediately afterwards, you will be thinking about the game.  Replaying the moves, checking where you could have improved, reliving the blunders…you simply cannot escape it.  If I have a date scheduled with Fi, for instance, despite my best intentions, my head will be filled with a movie reel on repeat, showing the critical moment and subsequent chess collapse.

My recommendation, then, is to do something you don’t like doing but have to get done anyway, seeing as your mood is unlikely to chance.  Go to the gym, go shopping for groceries, or give your house that long-overdue clean. 

In this case, after such a depressing game, I just did a whole bunch of hand washing, which I absolutelyloathe.  It didn’t make me feel any better, but at least I’ll have clean clothes tomorrow.