Even before you touch the first pawn, something has already happened. Tension builds in your shoulders. You assess your opponent’s strength, reputation and rating difference. You wonder whether you are prepared enough.

Emotions are part of a player’s experience. To understand what they change, retain a distinction: an impression during a game, an observable decision and your proposed explanation are not the same thing.

Ego and results: when a game becomes a verdict

You may have a rating to defend and catch yourself avoiding a playable complication. That does not make you a permanently fixed “type of player”. The same cautious choice may be motivated by fear, the tournament situation or a correct technical assessment.

“I am a 1600” can become a narrow way of describing yourself. A more precise account helps you work: in this game, you overlooked a defence or mishandled an exchange. A defeat can then become a working document rather than a judgement on your intelligence.

This connection is a proposed approach to analysis. It is not enough to attribute a mindset or psychological vulnerability to you from a single decision.

Out of preparation: returning to a concrete question

Your opponent deviates from a line you know. You now need to assess a position you prepared less thoroughly. That may feel uncomfortable without meaning that an “overheated System 2” has entirely replaced your intuition.

Start with the available information: what threat does the last move create? Which pieces have changed roles? Which candidates can you check in the time remaining? An unfamiliar position does not require recalculating every rule of the game.

You can train on positions outside your repertoire, at a pace that lets you explain your choices. Its usefulness depends on what you learn; it is not the only healthy way to face uncertainty.

Tilt: noticing a change in your behaviour

After a blunder, you speed up, want to “make up for it” immediately or start another game without deciding to. The word tilt can describe that sequence. It is not a clinical diagnosis or proof of who you are away from the board.

The meta-analysis by Shields and colleagues (2016) shows that acute stress can affect working memory and cognitive flexibility, with more nuanced effects on inhibition. It does not measure the mechanism of every online blunder.

For analysis, note the emotion and mistake separately: “I was angry”, then “I did not check the intermediate check”. You can then seek a concrete adjustment without treating the emotion as a sufficient explanation for everything.

If you can stop a session that leads to repeated regretted decisions, try that interruption. In a tournament, where you cannot freely suspend the game, return to a simple check and the time actually available.

Time trouble: a real constraint

Running short of time reduces what you can examine. It is not always fear of the clock or a quest for perfection. Poor earlier allocation, a difficult position or a demanding time control may also explain it.

Planning a short routine may help: look for forcing threats, choose among candidates you can check and look at the clock. Trusting trained intuition may sometimes help; it does not justify ignoring a tactical reply you still have time to verify.

The article on time management explores this constraint without reducing it to a character flaw.

Doubt and confidence: questions separate from ratings

Clance and Imes (1978) describe the impostor phenomenon in a clinical sample of highly educated, recognised women. Their text does not measure its prevalence among chess players.

You may nevertheless recognise an experience of doubt: feeling your results are not legitimate and fearing exposure. To distinguish that feeling from a playing-strength issue or a diagnosis, see the general article on impostor feelings. Approaching 2000 Elo deals more specifically with the milestone and variability in results.

Conversely, a winning streak does not prove your next choices will be correct. Keep checking positions rather than treating confidence as a prediction tool.

Flow: appreciating engagement without mythologising it

A game may produce a feeling of absorption, fluency or control. Ashinoff and Abu-Akel (2021) discuss overlaps between flow and hyperfocus, as well as limitations in their definitions.

That experience is not a guarantee of accuracy, and losing track of time may create a practical clock problem. Chess is not established here as the activity that induces flow most easily.

You can create working conditions that suit you: a clear objective, an appropriate challenge, fewer distractions. Then observe your decisions and enjoyment without attributing “total psychological mastery” to a champion when their games cannot measure it.

A useful record after the game

Choose a moment when your state seemed to change your choice. Note what you felt, what you calculated and what later analysis shows. Leave room for “I no longer remember”.

The aim is to find an adjustment you can try and reassess. One game does not, by itself, reveal your identity, childhood or entire relationship with failure.

Sources

  • Shields, G. S., Sazma, M. A. and Yonelinas, A. P. (2016), The effects of acute stress on core executive functions: A meta-analysis and comparison with cortisol, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 68, 651–668, article.
  • Clance, P. R. and Imes, S. A. (1978), The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 15(3), original.
  • Ashinoff, B. K. and Abu-Akel, A. (2021), Hyperfocus: the forgotten frontier of attention, Psychological Research, 85, 1–19, review.