Dealing with being down in material

I have a problem every time I am down in material. Even if it is just one pawn, the psychological implications of having one less man (or woman - gender neutral) on the board gets me freaking out and my game suffers because of it.

Of course, there may be compensation for the pawn: an open file, some positional weakness generated for my opponent, a tempo, etc. But these are temporary, my loss of a pawn is permanent. All I can think is: When that endgame comes, I'm screwed. Whatever advantage I have I have to use now, before it becomes redundant. I tell myself, I need to finish this NOW, before the one pawn advantage becomes in surmountable, in that ever crucial endgame position. Needless to say, I never play gambit openings. The pressure, its all too much and I crack. Before I know it, I'm plenty more material down, and no amount of open files will compensate me.

Any advice on this? Anyone else have the same problem?

The loss of material is also temporary. It is part of the wave-particle duality.

Material is not the most important thing in chess, even in endgames. It is not even unusual to win a pawn-down endgame if you have the positional advantage.

If you're afraid of giving away pawns for the initiative, have a look at this game which I've just played:

http://blog.chess.com/the_cheradenine/poisoned-pawns

It shows how simple it is to outplay a greedy material-grabbing opponent. It was one of the easiest games that I've played in a while.

I managed to steal a win down a full rook (queen rook and pawns vs queen and pawns). Not the easiest task but if you still have your queen, odds are good you have checkmate options you can try for. If no great thoughts come to mind, go for perpetual check. Lastly, if you really get wiped out, see if you can sneak your pieces into a stalemate position to avoid the loss (someone did that to me the other day... I was soo mad!! but impressed too...). Being down a pawn isn't a big deal. Being down a minor piece is tougher. Being down a major piece is really tough unless you can luck into a backrank or other stolen checkmate/perpetual check/anything other than loss.

Sounds like you have a fear of the endgame. At the 1300 level you should just play all your games out, don't resign even if down. That way you will get better at the endgame. Also the endgame is likely the easiest thing to study because there are a much more limited number of pieces and positions, and they recur.

I would do the following when down material:

1.  Try to complicate position. (easy decision)

2. Move or even sacrifice more material for getting positional advantage (brave decision!)

3. Look out for trapping opponent pieces or king to poisonous spots!