Whatever I do, I am physically incapable to make myself to think. I tried forcing myself into analyzing positions for a minimum of twenty seconds each turn, I tried taking breaks whenever I felt overwhelmed, but it simply does not work. Even if I make a play the move in my head, I end up making something completely random, which, naturally, ends up being awful and exploited.
Like, I just played a few games against the AI. Throughout the whole game, as usual, I kept cheating by moving backwards each time I screwed up, I tried "thinking" each time, but I simply cannot do it. I make a random move, it turns up to be awful, I get into a bad position, I'd lose the game, and now I am feeling badly, because of the instant realization that I am incredibly and shamefully horrible at something that I like, and because I discern the fact that even the trickery isn't helping me be even remotely coherent on the board. It's like a mental block of incredibly solid concrete that does not allow anything productive to take place inside my mind while I'm playing. It's like a blank space. It's unbelievably frustrating. It's tearing me apart from the inside.
Has anyone else experienced this? How do I resolve it? Are there any, like, techniques that I could use to get better? Any books? Movies? Articles? Something? Anything?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to whoever got up to this point of my Internet weeping.
I actually have the same problem now. Some of it depends on age and levels of impatience. Of course, my brain is no longer quite as wondrous as it used to be. I used to have a 2K+ rating, half a lifetime ago, when I did calculus and quantum physics in my head for fun. Now, after a bit of fever & drug induced brain damage, I'm pretty much crap at this game.
All I can suggest is looking at each piece (I find this easier with a real board in front of me and not on a screen) and picturing all possible moves available for that piece at once. For example, a knight sits in the middle of an 8 petaled flower, where each petal lobe is a possible end point. When you look at a knight, you should see all possible moves for it simultaneously.
I've often seen alternate paths to victory using that method, though these days I can no longer track every piece on the board simultaneously. And trying to walk through them individually gives me a chance to practice my patience. So far, I suck at being patient. 8^P
Maybe try keeping a board next to you IRL and plotting out each move as you go? You can test a move before making it online, so when you do something that you immediately see as foolish, you haven't committed to it yet? I might have to try that myself, in fact.
First of all, I'd like to thank you for responding, Gerrinson. Though it's the Internet, it's always this kind of a warmth that emerges whenever a person takes out of their time to hear you out. For whatever it's worth, I am grateful.
Back on the topic. I thought something somewhat similar is happening to me actually. I thought maybe it was a natural development considering the life I've been living these last couple of years. Outside of my field of study, I haven't really been involved with a lot of other "intellectual" activities, which, I rather firmly believe, chess counts as. And it's funny, because I used to play chess A LOT when I was younger. I thought maybe the brain is exceptional at specializing and sorting out everything else, especially considering the kind of "restricting" society that we're forced to live in everywhere/almost everywhere around the globe, which would then make the thing that I am experiencing completely "normal".
But here's the tricky part. Few days ago (yesterday included) I retook old things that I used to do before getting so exclusively into what I am/was studying (philosophy; which by the way I would imagine as something that could make a person rather very susceptible to mental or creative blocks, without being even close to knowledgeable at psychology/neurology/neuroscience). I found my old mathematics sheets. I got my linguistics class papers. I managed to dig up my physics notes. Even some music exercises that I even had forgotten about at the time. And I sat down. I though, "F it, even though this will probably get me even more depressed over my extremely lowered intelligence, I might as well give it a go." I got into doing and redoing several exercises from each area. I wouldn't exactly say that they were anywhere near sophisticated or hard given the fact that everything was on a high school level (I am 21 years of age currently), but not even once did I experience what I felt while trying to play chess. This incapability of rationalizing choices, the very sudden feeling that something is wrong, the realization that I simply cannot make a logical move, surprisingly, were not there AT ALL. Not even once did I feel so powerless, which makes me believe that the problem probably lies somewhere else. Maybe it's a psychological issue, self-esteem problems, complexes, anxiety that would then function as a close circuit that would feed the incapability the more "incapable" I got... Something reasonable like that. I simply cannot accept that I suck at chess, which I do, but you know what I mean. Just like that. It makes me go nuts, really. I refuse to believe it.
By the way, I forgot to mention that I am sorry for what happened to you. I had a friend who went through something similar with various substances involved, and I like to believe that I've seen some of what you might've outlived. Don't take it as pity. It's rather human empathy 101. Or at least that's how I thought it sounded when I typed it.
Again, thank you for responding, and sorry if I am kind of forcing you to talk back by giving such an unnecessary prolonged answer. Don't feel obligated at all. Also, I will definitely try playing against the machine on a "physical" board. I think it might be a good idea.
Cheers.
Perhaps I'm not the best to respond to something like this considering I often don't follow my own advice and make moves based on instinct, but it often helps students when I tell them to check what your opponent can do to react to your move, can they pull off a tactic due to your move, or take a hanging piece of yours? Does your move leave a piece hanging? Make sure your pieces are defended properly and pay attention what pieces of yours are being attacked. Practicing many basic tactics puzzles can also help with this. This is a simple exercise that perhaps you're already doing, but it's extremely important to think not only of what moves you can make but what your opponent can do as well. Some simple things to go over when deciding your moves are:
What is your opponents plan? What can you do to disrupt it?
What is your opponent threatening?
What has your opponent strengthened/weakened with his move?
What have YOU strengthened/weakened with your move?
What can I directly threaten, and is it easy for my opponent to escape?
Of course this will take awhile to think over every move, so thankfully there are many forceful lines where it is easy to know what to do, and a lot of moves are easy to rule out. As you get stronger you will naturally know what to do with certain pawn structures and what plans you should make. I recommend studying the typical positions and pawn structures out of an opening, and familiarizing yourself with them (as well as practicing your tactics).
I hope this helped. Good luck :)
What DrunkTal wrote should be mandatory reading material for any chess player at the start of every classical game he plays, until this approach to the game becomes second nature.
I'd like to refer to the books Think like a Grandmaster and Play like a Grandmaster by Kotov as well as the Amateur's Mind and Reassess Your Chess by Silman to study the points DrunkTal mentioned in depth.
Yes, I think your problem is very common :) Chess isn't and wasn't meant to be easy to begin with. There are lot of times when you don't know what to do and there seems to be countless possibilities. Not knowing wtf I should do has made me frustrated many times.
Actually in my younger years when this happened in tournament play my action was following:
1. Trying to think what to do
2. Understanding I have no idea where I should go with the position
3. Get frustrated, coz you don't understand a thing
4. Get angry
5. After thinking few possible plans, take the first piece that comes to your mind, don't count it all, just play something that has "some sort of idea" out of frustration (also moving a pawn in case of not knowing what to do is very usual, at least for me!)
6. Look how your opponent crushes you
I do not think that the reason behind these feelings is that you are incapable to understand or that you would be just stupid or not patient. I want to think that I wasn't either in my younger years, even though getting pretty much same feelings.
This is where DrunkTals comment comes in. You have to know what to think / what to look at. If you have no idea, of course you get frustrated! You don't solve a single mathematical problem either if you don't have some formula in your head (actually I tried this also in my younger years and got frustrated looking math problems since I had no idea what to do... very similar feeling).
You should always have some kind of plan what do you want to do with your position. You can have lot of plans in your mind and with the help of counting you just determine what is the best plan!
You don't have to make up these plans - you are copying them from others. Learn to recognize some patterns (isolated queen pawn, minority attack...) and some basic strategic plans against them. Those plans will be your guideline through the game and you have some sort of ideas what to look at or where to go with position. There will be no frustration if you have to choose from 2 possible plans. Frustration comes when you have nothing to choose from, no idea what to do. This is the thing that makes you feel uncapable.
Every chess player is a copycat and that is important part of becoming better.
Couple fine lines about these issues:
"I haven't born to be like this (strategic mastermind in chess), I have made myself to be like this"
"what is originality - a well hidden plagitarism"
So let's go and COPY!
Best regards!
The rest of the advice is very good, I'll just give a couple more that (kind of) work for me and that are not immediately related to extended practice:
1) Play games that make you care. For me, the simul with Blitzstream a few weeks back was a real trigger. Suddenly, there was more at stake than beating a stranger on the internet, namely a) don't be the first to lose, b) make him think, possibly frown, c) try to get a draw. Playing over the board with friends is also a powerful motivator. You can try to develop a rivalry with other players here, play in tournaments rather than pools, etc.
2) Don't play too much bullet, it just conditions you to making instinctive moves. Bullet chess is very gratifying ("fast pace! instant reward!") but only trains very specific skills.
About 15 years ago I was in this very situation. I felt like no matter what I was trying, I couldn't win. I was even losing games to extremely poor players. Being at that time, I was playing upwards of a 1700 rating on Yahoo chess, it was very frustrating to suddenly drop below 1400 in a matter of weeks. Eventually, I made the decision to put the board away, as I was getting far too angry with my losses.
What I didn't realize then, that I realize now, is that learning comes in stages. Often times we reach a place where we have a deep understanding of certain elements of a problem (in this case, the game of chess). However, once that happens, we often plateau for awhile, not really thinking about other elements to the problem. Eventually, one of those other elements comes up. For me, it happens when opening theory a lot. I get to understand quite a few positions that result from openings that I play often, and my responses to those positions often lead to an advantage and a series of wins. But then someone will play a move I don't expect. Here we have reached a new stage in the problem. This can often happen in such a way that we find ourselves going from a comfortable environment where everyone seems to be playing into our opening theory, to suddenly a long string of surprises. These surprises almost always lead to losses, since we aren't sure of the positions that arise. Then, we might decide to try other openings, and find ourselves on even more unfamiliar ground: more surprises and more losses.
Ultimately, the best advice I can give in your situation is to take a break from the board, and then go back and analyze your games with an engine to see where you started going wrong. Sometimes we focus too much on the blunder we made that lost the game, without realizing that we were making a great deal of inaccuracies that gave a substantial advantage to our opponent, making mistakes and blunders almost a guarantee! Find where you misplayed one or two moves in your opening, and try to learn WHY they were sub-par moves. Understanding why something is a good move vs. a bad move is far more important than memorizing books worth of theory.
Finally, just keep playing. The more you play, the more positions you see, the more you find those moments of clarity and start pushing yourself back into the W column. I started out on this site playing nothing but casual games for years. I recently decided to make an account, and found myself losing almost every game I played! It was disheartening to go from winning about 70% of my casual games to having a 900 rating in a matter of hours! But I realized it was because rated players were using far different openings than casual ones. I kept playing, and I eventually started finding ways to get positions I enjoyed rather than positions that were theoretically sound that I didn't understand. I also try to play higher rated opponents as much as possible...you learn far more from losing than from winning, imho.
Good luck!
Autokrater, I have to say, I'm jealous of your ability to 'go back' to that other stuff and be able to work through it. I guess my experience doesn't line up too well with yours.
You're not bringing up bad memories, though. The 'drugs' part wasn't substance abuse, but I was so out of it with the fever and being ill that I was double/triple/quadruple dosing on prescription meds without even realizing it. I've got a lot of skill when it comes to getting really sick/damaged in weird ways. 8^) That just happened to be the one that pushed me over the edge.
Good luck getting past your block!
Gerrison, I have a very hard time believing that you used to be a 2,000+ player and now you are extremely weak (1164???). That sounds so ridiculous. What drug exactly were you taking 2-4 times your prescribed dose of? I have taken a lot of drugs and often waaay more than 4 times a prescribed dose of them, and my rating is just steadily increasing.
Sorry but that's absurd; you used to be over 2000 and now you're not even 1200.....