One of the most crucial elements of chess, is patience. A lack of patience often leads to rushing, and rushing leads to blunders and missed opportunities. Understanding the importance of taking time to think through your moves can significantly improve your game, and prevent mistakes in your play.
Why is patience so important in chess?
- Patience allows you to find the best move instead of settling for the first idea that comes to mind.
- Impatience gets in the way of seeing errors that can lead to improvement.
- Rushing into an attack can leave you vulnerable to counterattacks. A player needs to take time to build up their position, strengthen their pieces, and wait for the right opportunity.
- Patience is connected to long-term planning – thinking ahead and setting up a series of moves that lead to eventual victory. A player needs to know when to wait and not rush their plans even if they don’t quickly see the results.
- Patience leads to a calm mindset which allows a player to stay composed in challenging situations and find ways to improve their position.
- Patience allows players to make better decisions, think several moves ahead, and avoid unnecessary errors – giving yourself the best chance to win.
- Patience allows you to create stronger positions and wait for your opponent to make mistakes.
Tips for becoming more patient (both on and off the board)
- Understand what patience does and doesn’t look like and identify what triggers your own impatience.
- Remind yourself to be patient throughout your chess game.
- Slow down. Take time to evaluate your positions, check for your opponents’ threats, and consider your options before making any moves.
- Practice mindfulness - close your eyes and take a moment to focus on your breathing pattern when you feel stressed.
- Accept that you can’t control everything and adjust your expectations.
- Practice optimism and try to find the positives in your situation.
- Practice delaying gratification. In today’s society we are conditioned to get immediate results – food can be delivered in to our door in a matter of minutes and Amazon can bring anything you need to your doorstep in a day – but living in a world of immediate results isn’t always a good thing. One way to practice delayed gratification is to create a wish list instead of adding items to your cart when shopping online. Wait a few days to go back and re-visit your wish list before actually making a purchase. Another way to practice delayed gratification is to force yourself to read or exercise for a designated amount of time before allowing yourself to watch TV, scroll, or play video games.