I got an email from Patty describing a consideration:
Candidate idea, ie strategies. I will come up with a idea (strategy) and run with it. But rarely will I come up with more than one idea. In my post mortem I seen a million different things I could do. But I never trained myself to come up with different ideas, just look at different moves. (which translates to different ideas) Just seems easier to wrap my mind around coming up with different ideas or strategies. When a position is per say static, and i have to come up with something I normally only try to develop one plan based around the best move. Versus coming up with multiple plans based on the best move, the position , weakness. And so on.
This is the extent of the information I have been given. Based on this I will have to make a number of assumptions and guesses to try to say something meaningful about this situation. Forgive me for this.
My first thesis about why this is happening is that we all have a tendency to revert to out default way of doing things, especially when stressed and under pressure.
The second thesis is that Patty mainly thinks in move-move-move during the game; the good old I go there, he goes there, I go there – and so on.
It becomes clear that once Patty is relaxed and the immediate pressure is gone, he is able to think of things in a more open way, considering things from different perspectives and so on.
My suggestion
For this reason I think the main focus here should not be on the chess (though there are some interesting questions about how Patty thinks and if there are potential for adding some ways of thinking to the mix – f.ex. by reading Positional Play and do the exercises in that book), but on why Patty is so tense during the game.
There are some people that believe that when you feel agitated, stressed or in other way in a sense of urgency, you perform better. They probably would not express it in this way, but they act as if it is true. So, I would call it a firm life strategy.
I believe that I can do anything with passion and joy without losing focus or perform worse. My results show that it has worked for me. Obviously I do not enjoy losing, but I do not fear it and I do not fall apart when it happens, as many other people do (whether or not it is their behaviour towards themselves or others that malfunction is irrelevant to me; their character collapses, which is bad). I would suggest focusing on playing good moves and enjoying the thrill of the fight more than focusing on the result and feeling terrified about it.
There are some people that only can function under pressure. There are also people who can only function if they had their fix of caffeine, nicotine, heroine or whatever. To use adrenaline is maybe less unhealthy, but it is not healthy and it is not a great strategy. If this is you, think it over.
I see confidence as preparation in action. You will feel more confident during the game and have more confidence in what you are doing, if you have done training. Deciding to do things another way, without training your neural pathways to do it rarely works. And when it works it is never with anything as difficult as chess.
So, do training, be conscious of what you are training and pay attention to whether or not you are actually managing to train what you are trying to train in the process. It will get easier all the same, as it is with learning any new skill.
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