Yesterday, I shared my feelings on the recent cheating scandal involving WGM Miheala Sandu and the Women’s European Chess Championship. At one point in the post, I wanted to focus on the significant effect that a chess player’s mental status has on the outcome of a game. After WGM Sandu was subjected to the baseless assaults on her character, the effectiveness of her gameplay took a devastating turn for the worse. This is much the same for chess players of all skill levels and experience. Chess knowledge, experience, and preparation cannot make up for the psychological difficulties of poor concentration, stress, anxiety, and other negative effects on the human mind.
A perfect example of this in the amateur world would be the effect that work stress has had on my recent over-the-board success. On Chess.com there are several different time controls that a player can select. Among those are Bullet, Blitz, and Standard for live chess, and Standard and Chess960 for daily (or turn-based) chess. Although it is frowned upon by many chess teachers, I tend to play a lot of 5-minute blitz chess, mostly because my busy schedule rarely affords me the opportunity to sit down and play an extended series of 15-minute standard games. On May 16, 2014, I deleted my old Chess.com account and signed up for a new one using the username AmishHacker because it is something I have used extensively on other sites for decades. In any case, it was on that day that I achieved both my highest and lowest ratings in blitz chess: 1200 and 692 respectively. For what its worth, all players start out at 1200 and most of us fall down to a norm relatively quickly.
Since that time, my blitz rating has hovered between 750 and 900, but it reached a peak rating of 951 on October 26, 2014 before taking another freefall. For each of these ELO rises and falls, I am able to look back at specific life events that affected the way that I was playing.
In May of this year, my day job took a turn for the worse, which created an immense amount of stress and anxiety for me and for my family. The effects of this event are evident in the devastating ELO drop that occurred shortly thereafter. I played some of the worst chess games of my life in the span from May 20 to June 1. Simple tactical problems became monumental obstacles and no matter how much I studied games or practiced on a board at home or with Fritz, I kept coming up short. As a prime example, check out this little gem:
[pgn]
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2015.05.24”]
[Round “?”]
[White “899”]
[Black “AmishHacker”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “B01”]
[WhiteElo “899”]
[BlackElo “800”]
[PlyCount “6”]
[EventDate “2015.??.??”]
[TimeControl “5”]
1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qc4 {899 won by resignation} 1-0
[/pgn]
Sure, many people do not pay attention to their games at times and can make mistakes like this, but it had become so incredibly commonplace in that span of time that it certainly detracted from my desire to play chess, much less blog about it. Then, things started to change…
June 1 was the day that things really started turning around for me both in my professional life and on the chess board. Much of the chaos that had plagued my family’s life ended on that day and almost immediately, many of my chess games began to return to normal. Except that this time, things were going to be different. As of today, my blitz rating sits at 962, which is the highest it has been since May 26 of last year! Of course there are some games scattered across my record that are hopelessly lost positions won on time, but most of the games recently are legitimate wins that have given me a renewed sense of hope for the future. In addition, I am now only 7 games away from batting .500, which means I will have an equal number of wins and losses for the first time in my chess career.
With a starting ELO of 692 in May of 2014, an ELO in June of this year equates to a 39.8% increase over the past year! It may not seem like much to some people, but small advances like this are why I love playing chess! The work is hard, but it is thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding!
If you play regularly on Chess.com, perhaps you will take some time to hunt me down and challenge me to a game! Win or lose, every venture out onto the board is a chance to learn, explore, discover, and grow!
[pgn]
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2015.06.06”]
[Round “?”]
[White “877”]
[Black “AmishHacker”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “A00”]
[WhiteElo “877”]
[BlackElo “904”]
[PlyCount “60”]
[EventDate “2015.??.??”]
[TimeControl “5”]
1. g3 d5 2. Bg2 Nf6 3. e3 Bf5 4. Ne2 Nc6 5. O-O e5 6. b3 Bc5 7. Bb2 e4 8. d4
Bb4 9. a3 Bd6 10. c4 dxc4 11. bxc4 Qd7 12. d5 Na5 13. Nd2 O-O-O 14. f3 exf3 15.
Rxf3 Bg4 16. Rf2 Rhe8 17. h3 Bxe2 18. Qxe2 Bxg3 19. Rf3 Qd6 20. e4 Bh2+ 21. Kf2
Qc5+ 22. Re3 Nh5 23. Rc1 Nf4 24. Qg4+ Kb8 25. Bxg7 Nd3+ 26. Ke2 Nxc1+ 27. Kd1
Qxe3 28. Nf1 Qd3+ 29. Nd2 Nab3 30. Bf1 Qxd2# {AmishHacker won by checkmate} 0-1
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2015.06.08”]
[Round “?”]
[White “AmishHacker”]
[Black “915”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “C55”]
[WhiteElo “946”]
[BlackElo “915”]
[PlyCount “43”]
[EventDate “2015.??.??”]
[TimeControl “5”]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. O-O O-O 6. d4 exd4 7. Nb5 Nxe4 8.
Qe2 Nf6 9. Ng5 d6 10. Nxf7 Rxf7 11. Bxf7+ Kxf7 12. Bg5 Bg4 13. Qd3 Ne5 14. Qb3+
d5 15. Rae1 Qe7 16. Bf4 Ne4 17. Qxd5+ Qe6 18. Qxe4 Bf5 19. Qxb7 Re8 20. Nxc7
Qe7 21. Rxe5 Qf6 22. Nd5+ {AmishHacker won by resignation} 1-0
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2015.06.08”]
[Round “?”]
[White “AmishHacker”]
[Black “874”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “C55”]
[WhiteElo “948”]
[BlackElo “874”]
[PlyCount “63”]
[EventDate “2015.??.??”]
[TimeControl “5”]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bc5 5. O-O a6 6. Ng5 O-O 7. Nxf7 Qe7 8.
Ng5+ Kh8 9. Nf7+ Kg8 10. Ng5+ Kh8 11. Nd5 Nxd5 12. Bxd5 Qxg5 13. Bxc6 dxc6 14.
d3 Qg6 15. Be3 Bxe3 16. fxe3 Rxf1+ 17. Qxf1 Be6 18. d4 exd4 19. exd4 b6 20. Qf4
c5 21. Qxc7 cxd4 22. Qc6 Rd8 23. Qxb6 Qxe4 24. Qxd8+ Bg8 25. Rf1 Qe2 26. Rf8 h6
27. Rxg8+ Kh7 28. Rf8 Qxc2 29. Qxd4 Qc1+ 30. Kf2 Qh1 31. Qe4+ g6 32. Qe7# {
AmishHacker won by checkmate} 1-0
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2015.06.08”]
[Round “?”]
[White “868”]
[Black “AmishHacker”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “B01”]
[WhiteElo “868”]
[BlackElo “954”]
[PlyCount “36”]
[EventDate “2015.??.??”]
[TimeControl “5”]
1. e4 d5 2. Bd3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. h3 Be6 6. O-O Qd6 7. Nxd5 Bxd5 8.
exd5 Qxd5 9. c4 Qd6 10. Qe2 O-O-O 11. b3 Nd4 12. Nxd4 Qxd4 13. Bf5+ e6 14.
Bxe6+ fxe6 15. Qxe6+ Rd7 16. Ba3 Bxa3 17. Rae1 Qxd2 18. Qf7 Rxf7 {AmishHacker
won by resignation} 0-1
[/pgn]