Tips to Control Your Emotions for Chess Players
To the outsider, chess may look like a garden-variety board game. What’s to be upset about? The players may look cool and collected on the outside, but turmoil inside may be at family Monopoly night levels. Even grandmasters at the top of their game, like former world champion GM Magnus Carlsen, have had outbursts at the board or emotional reactions to losses. Before you flip the table, take a peek at our tips for keeping your emotions in check.
What Is It About Chess That Fires Up Emotions?
Chess is a trial of your skills against another human in pure intellectual combat. While the game should be cordial and played with mutual respect, the intense focus and hours of preparation required can make it feel like a high-stakes proposition.
Three Negative Emotions Common in Chess
- Anxiety: Being nervous before any kind of competition is completely normal. Many players spend hours in preparation. Sometimes, those nerves don’t settle at the board. Higher levels of anxiety can hurt your game by preventing you from concentrating or causing careless or impulsive errors. Indecision due to anxiety is a common way players get into time trouble as well.
- Anger: Chess players can find themselves angry at their opponent or angry at themselves. Prolonged anxiety boils over into angry lashing out, or a situation at the board sparks a conflict. A rude opponent, a rule violation, or cheating can all cause you to lose your cool. A classic catalyst is a player’s own blunder—mad at yourself is still mad.
- Disappointment: There have been heart-breaking losses in chess competition. Favorites who played badly, champions who had a bad day, all the way down to kids who missed a move at a scholastic tournament. GM Vasyl Ivanchuk famously broke down after losing the 2024 World Blitz Championship to GM Daniel Naroditsky due to time. No one wins every game, and it’s natural to feel sad and disappointed.
Positive Emotions Chess Can Provide
Obviously, if it were all bad, no one would play chess. Studying and playing chess can give you a sense of personal accomplishment as you improve. You'll have friendship and camaraderie with fellow players. Some chess players enter a state of calm, flow during a game. Last, but certainly not least, it feels good to win! Chess can make you feel a wide range of emotions.
When Can a Chess Match Lead to Emotional Territory?
Conflicts between players are only one issue at the board. These common pitfalls happen to every chess player at one time or another.
Blunders: The most common chess mistake that touches off emotions is a blunder. A blunder is an incorrect move that immediately shifts the game in your opponent’s favor. Blunders are often obvious right after you’ve made them. Here’s the truth about blunders: Everyone makes them! The most seasoned player can tell you about the sick feeling in the pit of their stomach when they realize what they’d done. It does not guarantee a loss, however! It may be possible to battle back, or your opponent may miss the opportunity or make mistakes of their own, trying to capitalize on yours.
Chess Blindness: You may also become aware during a match that you’ve missed something critical, even though you haven’t blundered. Chess blindness is the situation in which a chess player loses track of their position on the board. It can result in vulnerable material or overlooked positions. It’s natural to feel foolish when you realize what you missed.
Tips for Avoiding a Chess Board Crashout
Take Care of Yourself First
Before a match, nerves can make it harder to remember your self-care, but it’s never more important. Showing up at the board in a less-than-ideal state can’t always be avoided, but taking care of these three big items will help.
- Sleep: By far the most impactful thing you can do for your body is get adequate sleep before a match. Try to plan your travel so that you have enough rest. If you’re traveling across time zones, some people find melatonin or other sleep solutions help. Get to bed early the night before the match and avoid screens. It’s extremely common to make impulsive decisions when you’re exhausted.
- Eat: You’ve probably heard the term “hangry” used to describe the anger that springs out of nowhere when someone is hungry. Low blood sugar can also cause brain fog and headaches. Don’t skip breakfast on tournament day. Choose something with a good amount of protein and some healthy fats to keep your blood sugar on an even keel. Snacks like string cheese, nuts, and raw veggies travel well and won’t spike your blood sugar (or anxiety) like sugary foods or drinks.
- Drink water: Drinking water in enjoying a moment right now, and for good reason. Those ubiquitous water bottles help people stay focused and calm. If you’re dehydrated, your body will send signals to get a drink that often feel like irritability or anxiety. Take a page from athletes and boost hydration the day or two before your match with a few extra glasses of water. Starting the day “topped up” in the water department will help keep you focused—then drink a normal amount during match day.
Five Strategies to Help Manage Emotions During a Match
You’re ready, rested, and at the board. Your best laid plans aren’t going how you wanted. What can you do to keep emotions from affecting your outcome? Start at the top of the list and work your way down to regain your equilibrium.
- Control Your Breathing: An easy and always available strategy to calm your emotions is controlled breathing. Breathing in a deliberate pattern can provide a little reset to your equilibrium, activating the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). The PNS counters the “fight or flight” response of the sympathetic nervous system, relaxing and resetting those nerves. Try box breathing for an easy beginner method. Breathe in for four, hold your breath for four, breathe out for four, and hold your breath for four. This is a discreet and simple reset!
- Focus on the Present: Because chess is all about strategy and visualizing lines of play, focusing on the present may seem difficult, but it’s a slightly different meaning here. If you’re starting to spiral on an anticipated bad result, you may miss a winning move. Refocus your energy on the board in front of you. Assess exactly where you are and what the next best move is.
- Positive Self-talk: Affirmations might seem a little corny or woo-woo, but believing in yourself has a powerful effect on your mental health. You can’t recite a mantra at the board (no talking!), but you can remind yourself that you belong there. A little internal pep talk is a very common strategy for athletes and other competitors to psych themselves up during competition.
- Visualize Success as a Process: Many people think “envisioning success” is solely about the result. Coaches know the real power lies in envisioning success as the process of succeeding. Rather than narrowly defining success as a win at the end of the game, consider all the steps in-between and how you might conquer those. If your game can’t be derailed by a mistake, rather rerouted, it will help keep you from melting down over one mistake.
- Rest and Reset: Most chess tournaments have you playing more than one game over the course of day. Those breaks are important! Make sure to use the time to eat something, drink some water, and let your mind destress and relax. Taking a break outside, especially if it’s sunny, can be particularly refreshing. Acknowledge the games you’ve already played and then let them go. The only way forward is...well…forward!
The Etiquette of Winning and Losing
A congratulatory handshake and acknowledgement of “good game” should be considered the bare minimum of chess sportsmanship. It goes without saying that pounding the table, throwing pieces, or shouting are well out of bounds. Chess players can be sanctioned or asked to leave a tournament for throwing a tantrum at the board. Preserve your chances and your reputation, even if all you can manage is a head nod and handshake.
Psychologists have a strategy you can use in these situations called “act opposite.” When you have negative emotions in a place or time where expressing them isn’t appropriate, pick the opposite emotion and temporarily switch your outward demeanor to match. You may be sad, angry, or disappointed, but “putting on a happy face” can preserve your reputation and help reset your nervous system. Once you’re out of the public eye, take the time to process those negative emotions privately and (hopefully) constructively.
Winning a match spawns a whole different range of emotions. Elation, relief, satisfaction, triumph, or mixed emotions are all normal. As your opponent deals with their loss, keep decorum in your celebrations. There will be plenty of opportunities to bask in the glow of victory without gloating in front of the defeated player.
Special Circumstances: Fair Play and Disputes
While the vast majority of matches demonstrate squeaky-clean adherence to fair-play rules, there can be technical and ethical violations. If you think a player has violated the rules, whether through a mistake or cheating, those concerns should be raised with the Tournament Director (TD) in accordance with the rules of that chess tournament. Keep a few things in mind when considering reporting a violation:
- You should not confront the other player directly during or after the match. The arbiter or TD is there for this reason.
- Always leave room in your philosophy for a misunderstanding on your own part until the facts have been reviewed.
- Take a minute to calm down and review your facts (and the rule book) before you talk to the TD.
Whatever you do, don’t run to the internet with unproven allegations. Social media is brutal, and just making the allegation can be enough to ruin someone’s reputation even if they didn’t do anything wrong. Summoning an internet mob will not make the situation better, even if it salves your ego for a moment. Leave your phone in your pocket and go outside for some deep breaths.
Emotional Regulation Improves with Practice
Like many skills, emotional regulation needs to be practiced regularly for optimal performance. Chess builds these skills in people of all ages. Anxiety, anger, perfectionism, and frustration are all part of the game of kings. Next time you’re having a tough day at the board, these tips will help you rule those emotions with a steady hand.