It’s only frustrating if you’re solely focused on winning rather than improving, and especially if you do what I so often see, which is view your chess skill as a proxy for your intelligence (and thus take losses as a personal insult).
Smart people are not automatically great chess players. Chess is a skill you can develop that rewards time, dedication, patience, and lots and lots of practice (and losses).
In fact, losing a game of chess is incredibly valuable, and much more useful than almost any other game. You have a complete record of your game, and since no luck is involved, you can study your game and identify where you can improve. Reviewing your games is one of the best ways to get better at chess, and objectively looking at your game from both players’ perspectives also helps to make it more about improvement rather than personal failure. In fact, it’s fairly standard after an over the board game for both players to review the game together on the board and talk through lines and thoughts on the various positions of the game.
It’s one of the things I really love about the game, because it’s always about getting better rather than punishment for losing. It’s much, much better than video games in this way.
When I play chess, I mostly just want to have a good game of chess, even if I lose. I always take the opportunity to play much higher rated players given the chance, because even though I will almost certainly lose, the game will be a very rich one to review and learn from.
It’s only frustrating if you’re solely focused on winning rather than improving, and especially if you do what I so often see, which is view your chess skill as a proxy for your intelligence (and thus take losses as a personal insult).
Smart people are not automatically great chess players. Chess is a skill you can develop that rewards time, dedication, patience, and lots and lots of practice (and losses).
In fact, losing a game of chess is incredibly valuable, and much more useful than almost any other game. You have a complete record of your game, and since no luck is involved, you can study your game and identify where you can improve. Reviewing your games is one of the best ways to get better at chess, and objectively looking at your game from both players’ perspectives also helps to make it more about improvement rather than personal failure. In fact, it’s fairly standard after an over the board game for both players to review the game together on the board and talk through lines and thoughts on the various positions of the game.
It’s one of the things I really love about the game, because it’s always about getting better rather than punishment for losing. It’s much, much better than video games in this way.
When I play chess, I mostly just want to have a good game of chess, even if I lose. I always take the opportunity to play much higher rated players given the chance, because even though I will almost certainly lose, the game will be a very rich one to review and learn from.