I am freaking out! Fear of Stronger Opponents.

I am low-rated player(even though i think i am slightly better than i play). As a university student, i will be part of the chess team going out in a few days to play against the best chess players nationall. This is a zonal qualifiers though but i will be playing against players from other school who are way stronger and more experienced. I have no tournament experience. I am primarily a 1.d4 player and i play the semi-slav against 1.d4. Against 1.e4, its caro kann een though the advance variation still gives me headache. I am freaking out because when i look at my games, i tend to lose more on very silly blunders etc. Here i am white(alagba)

there is nothing to fear but Fear_Itself.

seriously though, just study tactics. best way to stop dropping pieces.

Cyracles, maybe join a group and play some online chess, this'll give yo a chance to think about your moves.

Playing higher rated players can be advantageous too, they play better than the lower rated players, and you might learn a thing or two from them.

Now that is interesting to me: Can someone be better than how one plays? I think I am worse than my rating(or how I play), because far too often my positions are bad yet my opponent doesn't take advantage of them. But if a person thinks he or she is better than how their playing is does that mean the person is getting good positions, but failing to win? Are they my opponents?

How good someone is at chess must include other variables besides getting into good or winning positions. 

I sympathise with your position.

However my best, and most enjoyable, OTB games have been against players far stronger than me. At least, they were once I learned to ignore their grade and just focus on the game. This was thanks to a pep talk by a tournament organiser about a year ago.

I'm not claiming I've had lots of victories, but I have made many stronger players really work for their wins, and have learned a lot in the process.

Remember, it's just one decent move after another 

For me, it can be playing on a "bad day" on a correspondence game to destroy the entire game with one move. I can have outplayed my opponent for 20-30-ish moves, be up material with better piece placements and then blunder the queen because I played a day I was tired.

I fear weaker opponents. They're not supposed to be beating me.......

They are supposed to be beating you. You are not supposed to win every game against weaker opponents; you are supposed to win more than you lose against them.

People get so caught up in their ratings.  A rating is not a reflection of you as a person or your understanding, it is a reflection of how you are applying your knowledge over the board.  Everybody's rating is always lower than what it should be, both metaphorically and literally.  Ratings are always catching up to improvement in play, but the hard cold facts are the numbers themselves don't lie, they ARE how you are playing in comparison to other players, based only on results.

It is better to play higher rated players and start picking up some of the things they do than to self satisfy yourself by beating lower rated players.

And dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs are pretty scary.  There is nothing to fear but fear itself, and dinosaurs.

I rarely outplay my opponents. My best games are the ones where I stay in an even position with my opponent without making huge errors that I'm aware of. In fact, this is why I don't have any of my games in the "game showcase" section, because the ones I win are just because of an obvious error instead of a nice combination, like others have. Perhaps there are many people like myself who play thousands of games of chess without doing anything special or exciting in those games which others can enjoy. Yet chess is very enjoyable for me. It's just that the enjoyment is being able to think and concentrate.

Batman once said "To conquer fear, you must become fear!" 

Maybe a little more patience. for ex. you didnt need 29 h6 so soon, hitting the queen, Black is all penned in (going nowhere fast!)... take your time, feel the fear and enjoy - what chess is all about....

Take (and use) your time. Concentrate hard and don't panic!

Then all will be well...

paulgottlieb wrote:

Why freak out? You will win. lose. or draw. In any of those cases the sun will rise the next day. Calm down and just play your best. If you win--great! If you lose after a hard game against a higher-rated opponent, you will have gotten a valuable free lesson, so you win either way. 

I agree

Well, that is a way to play. Who says everyone has to play alike. It's not optimal of course, but it can work quite well. You may not be saying you play rope a dope chess, but it applies to rope a dope too if you are.

Even some very strong players play rope a dope, at least in some of their games, perhaps in more than just some games. In the book Zurich 1953 by Bronstein, in round three Stahlberg - Geller after move 6 by white Bronstein writes:

"An unusual and somewhat passive system Stahlberg employs occasionally against the King's Indian. The e-pawn is kept at home, and the c-pawn advanced but one square; the d-pawn is traded off, as White refrains absolutely from either creating a pawn center or participating in the fight for central squares. Not infrequently this results in a great deal of maneuvering, followed by exchanges, and a draw; but for this game, Geller will have none of it. Instead, Geller wages a very active campaign for more territory, first on the kingside, and then over the entire board."

After move 14 in that game Bronstein writes:

"Stahlberg's maneuverings are not dictated by any strategic plan, but rather by practical guidelines he has derived from his enormous tournament experience and chess-sense; advance no pawns, create no glaring weaknesses, show not the slightest aggressive intent; but meanwhile, do not avoid exchanges, and be ready to set a tactical snare at any moment. So now, despite a whole series of planless (but also harmless) moves, White's position is not yet bad, on the whole. Geller shows great resourcefulness and determination in breaking down Stahlberg's skilled - and not toothless - defense."

Bronstein notes on move 23 that Stahlberg is allowing an exchange of his dark square bishop for a knight, one exchange too many since it's a bishop he needs, and that it may have cost Stalhberg the game.

The game ended in a draw, on move 40 at time control Geller missed a win. How many times has a bad move been made right at time control. 

Higher rated opponents don't bother me a bit. When you lose you win--lots of stuff to learn.

It's the lower rated opponents I'm afraid of!  ;-)

The only time you can be stronger than your rating is if you've been improving but haven't been playing rated games during that time, in which case your rating will soon catch up once you start playing rated games again if you have actually improved. This happens a lot with fast-improving youngsters.

If you have been playing rated games regularly though, then I agree that it's silly to think the rating doesn't accurately reflect your strength. People who believe this are forgetting that strength doesn't solely refer to what they are best at or how they play when they are at their best. Focusing on your strengths and downplaying your weaknesses can easily make it seem that you are stronger than your rating, but the rating reflects your actual ability to win games over the board against opponents of varying strength, which is what it's all about. Somebody may think that they are actually stronger, and their rating is only as low as it is because of A, B, and C, but if they actually improved A, B, and C, THEN they would actually be stronger (assuming no other limiting weaknesses). For the moment, it is A, B, and C that explain why they are not as strong as they think they are, which the rating accurately reflects.

i love playing higher rated opponents, because no one expects me to win, so i book up on my favorite gambit lines to get them off book asap and "hope" for a blunder I know this is wrong and not good chess but if i ever sat accross from Vishy or Magnus I want to attack... throw everything i got at them... probably fail but at least i got to make the worlds best burn a calorie thinking and they will remember the time they played me ;) or the more common way of thinking is play something easy and open like 1:b3 or 1:... b6 something that has little to no theory or tactical possabilities, just good old fashioned bore your opponent to death and dont blunder yourself... no mater what you do try to play your game, aim for lines that cater towards what your good at, for example i cant aim for boring chess because im often the guy who gets sloppy when hes bored

You can gain more rating or lose a little by playing with stronger opponents. Some players with higher ratings arent really good players.