How to overcome the fear of losing?

How do you overcome the fear of losing?

Win?

That, or improve your technique - learn chess to the point where you can assess the position quickly to the point that you do not blunder pieces and that each move improves your position and allows you to sustain threats.

It amuses me when opponents get nervous in time pressure.  Know that even the best opponents get afraid also!!!

Lose so many games that it becomes second nature?

Babe Ruth batted .342 over his carreer.  That means that roughly 1 third of the time at bat, he got on base - and two thirds of the time, he didn't get on base.

Nobody wins all the time.  If you are afraid of losing, you are afraid of trying.

I've lost many games but I still HATE losing. I'm not really scared of losing so much as that I avoid it. For example, I'll take a draw in an unclear / kind of drawn position just so I won't accidentally mess up and lose. Maybe I just need to learn to trust myself?

I recommend forcing yourself to play unbalanced, somewhat risky chess. Don't permit yourself to go into safe and drawish positions (a Dvoretsky training technique, as I recall).

If you can learn to enjoy such play then you've probably tamed the fear of loss.

are you telling me that you never lose on anything ?

The fear of losing you'll overcome with confidence. You can win in chess at more levels than the score-sheet. Especially on 'our' level.

Hi Collide, do you fear of losing your rating? Just play unrated.

Are you afraid of losing to lower rating opponent? Play higher rating opponents more often. You don't lose so much rating. And you gain knowledge from better player.

Do you want to win often? Play Easy Computer often. He.. he..

I'm talking about OTB tournaments, valen2010. If it's unrated, then I'm more okay with losing than if it was rated.

goldendog: I don't like double-edged positions. I'd rather play solid and safe positions. That's my "style".

I say just continue to play and the fear will go away eventually. Be glad you're not doing boxing.

I prefer attempting to play solid as well, and look for targets when they present themselves.

In my thread, Learn Chess by Getting Crushed, I have surprisingly gotten a boost in confidence after getting crushed by better players. I'm not scared of them anymore. I just stick to my game plan and play as solid as I possibly can with my current skill set. Perhaps consider challenging a few players a couple hundred points higher than you on the internet? It works wonders.

I just beat someone tonight who is rated 194 points higher than me. It's hard to explain, but I get hyper focused when playing the better players. I try harder. Also, I picked up 13 points in this game, going from 888 to 901.

In this game the chess.com computer analysis had this to say: Inaccuracies(?!): 1 = 4.2% of moves, Mistakes(?): 7 = 29.2% of moves, Blunders(??): 1 = 4.2% of moves.

That's fine, as this is only my second year playing chess and just recently took tactics training seriously.

Honestly, I get more worried when I win too much. It's nice to win, but too many wins in a row and I feel like I'm not learning anything. I need opponents who I can play competitively with but still have my mistakes punished.

http://www.vincelewis.net/snake.html Just think that you could be having to kiss her on the lips instead.

There should be no fear of losing, it's a game for goodness sake.

Fear is a manufactured thought process. Disable it.

Quite simple really. 

the fact that you have a style means you will be the subject of fear every time your opponent forces you to play out of it, similar to poker. learn to play any and all styles that you can, in order to use each one to your opponents disadvantage. if an opponent plays risky with me, it means he fears making bad moves when on the defensive, so i would counterattack swifter than a fox on crack.

in addition, take all emotion out of the game, to the point where it becomes a situation of logical precision. any mistake you make from there is therefore a mathmatical error in judgement, and not a blunder because you were scared of the timer going down too fast. my bullet score is pants because i dont care about the timer, and frequently time out. but the more i play it and force myself to make these decisions quickly, the more i will win. but losing is a part of the learning curve i am taking.

at least its not poker and your not learning by losing money. although saying that, that is probably how i lost my fear of losing, as well as emotion while playing. so yeah, play poker and you'll become a better chess player. ha.

Nice answer.

Play unrated games?

Thanx for the vid. Brings back some good memories. 

I am Water.