lichess.org
Donate

How's the top?

As a 1300 classical and 1096 bullet I lose most of my games (319 losses and 159 wins). Recently I won a game where the opponent was slightly better (rating) than me and I thought yes this is why I play chess. The feeling of winning was so great however I usually get the feeling of defeat. I know to keep practicing and play longer games in order to get better.

I just wanted to know how you feel as a stronger player particularly when you win more often than lose. Many discredit themselves and I know with guitar that you get used to your skill faster than you seem to improve but I thought hey they win much more than they lose that must be great.

So I just wanted to ask how it felt to be in that position; to be one of the people at the top of leader board, the many digital trophies and all.
People who win more than they lose play against too weak opponents. Except for the very top Magnus Carlsen etc everybody should strive for about 50% win ratio by playing opponents of sufficient strength.
I'm not at the top, but I win more than I lose. And yet I can tell you I feel a great frustration when I lose a game. I feel like I'm the worst player in the world. I totally forget that I win more than I lose. Many many players feel exactly like you do.
I guess I'm top 1% classical in this site. No trophies though.

I feel like you tend to forget how far you have already come because you always look upwards, push yourself to get a higher level. When you lose to a 2300-2400 rated player you feel pain because you see that you are almost there, very small things separating you from there, often simple things such as routine and solidness. It gets you mad when you lose 3-0 vs these opponents, because you know you could beat them.

So in a way, I still feel like a losing player, because I am losing when I look upwards.

Also, sadly getting good has brought in arrogance and taking competing seriously in a negative way. You might feel an arrogant smirk against a much weaker oppponent. You might be comepeting with blood lust and insulting your opponent in your mind (some people write those insults in chat). If you lose a game, you say in your mind: "you lucky little shit", even though I do not believe in luck. In the end you are just angry with yourself, for not playing your best game. Which again has to do with pride, you expect perfection from yourself and punish yourself with anger when you are nto perfect.

But that is the dark side. The light side is when you lose yourself to the position, you forget youself, you forget time, you forget you are sitting on the toilet playing on your smart phone. You just love the position, love the game and the position and the game start living their own life..... and then you come back, you are looking at a screen saying you won the game and you ask yourself, who was playing? Since I wasn't here, only the game was.

I win much, much more often than I lose. I currently have 9092 wins, vs 5153 losses, which is a 63.8% win rate.

The "hedonic treadmill" is the tendency of a person to remain at a relatively stable level of happiness despite a change in fortune or the achievement of major goals. According to the hedonic treadmill, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.

Due to this effect, I am just as grumpy as you.

Come join the team of grumpy Whizzes! Everyone is welcome, but you must frown a lot. en.lichess.org/team/chesswhiz-tv
i average 2200 and i lose more than i win too. it's ok, man :o
I was on the top in some other game. It was rare that anyone could give me trouble and yet I had more fun when i was just starting to play it.
The better I become the more frustrated i was with every little thing.

But even when I reached a level where no one could touch me I got bored with the game.

Mind is a strange thing.
Being a (sort of) high level player in atomic and a not so high level player in basically everything else, I can tell you that the difference in mindset between when I go into a game of atomic versus a game of regular chess is that in atomic I feel a lot more confident, knowing that I can beat anyone, even someone 600 rating points higher than me because I know that if they blunder, I am much more likely to see it. Whereas in regular chess, I would not see blunders that a top level player mind make.

This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.