Fear of losing...

[Katoana]

I have played chess for about 40 years

Do you have the same aversion to losing at chess?

Yes I do! When I was younger it didn't play so big role, actually it didn't bother me at all, but when I got older and wiser it has started to bother me a lot.

[Katoana]

Last saturday I played two games (having 6 and 5 stones handicap) against my friend. I won both. I was so nervous that my hands were shaking.

You are not playing a game of Go AGAINST your current opponent, but WITH him.

Your opponent helps you to discover more knowledge about yourself.

Thanks Cassandra! And thanks to everyone! I'm so surprised that so many has replied to my msg.
Yes, you are right, I can now understand the AGAINST/WITH difference! It could be my friend that is causing the symptoms. He is a person that must have somekind of competition going on. I'm fascinated by the beauty of the game, but he is counting how many wins or loses I have made so that the handicap stones can be decided.

[Bill Spight]

I have played chess for about 40 years

Do you have the same aversion to losing at chess?

Yes I do! When I was younger it didn't play so big role, actually it didn't bother me at all, but when I got older and wiser it has started to bother me a lot.

A few comments.

First, the fact that your aversion also includes chess suggests that it is more general, perhaps even affecting other aspects of your life.

Second, the fact that it has changed over time indicates that the problem is not your personality, but something more ephemeral.

Third, countering phobias is something that psychotherapists are good at, and have been for decades. You might find brief therapy beneficial, especially if the problem is generalized.

Good luck!

[Abyssinica]

Last saturday I played two games (having 6 and 5 stones handicap) against my friend. I won both. I was so nervous that my hands were shaking.

You are not playing a game of Go AGAINST your current opponent, but WITH him.

Your opponent helps you to discover more knowledge about yourself.

I disagree - if your goal is to win then you are against him. if you don't care and only want to experiment tonlearn, it is with him.

[EdLee]

from near the North Pole (well, almost ).

Wow! Are you near the North Pole for research ?

[Bill Spight]

Last saturday I played two games (having 6 and 5 stones handicap) against my friend. I won both. I was so nervous that my hands were shaking.

You are not playing a game of Go AGAINST your current opponent, but WITH him.

Your opponent helps you to discover more knowledge about yourself.

I disagree - if your goal is to win then you are against him. if you don't care and only want to experiment tonlearn, it is with him.

Every game with a winner and loser requires both competition and cooperation. Without competition you don't have a winner and loser, without cooperation nobody plays at all.

[Katoana]

from near the North Pole (well, almost ).

Wow! Are you near the North Pole for research ?

Hmmm... let's just say that I'm living in the northern hemisphere.

[Abyssinica]

Varying degrees of with and against

[EdLee]

Hmmm... let's just say that I'm living in the northern hemisphere.

Hi Katoana,

We're practically neighbors!

You ask a very common question. If you do a bit of search here on the forum,
you'll find others have also asked very similar to identical questions as yours.
Some ask about online anxieties. Some ask about face-to-face anxieties.

And the kind folks here provide similar to identical replies as the ones already given above.
With the expected disagreements, even with a question like this. Welcome to the internets.

Along with the usual suspects: normal 50% win-loss, nothing to fear but fear itself,
fear specific to Go or in other aspects of your life, what are your goals in Go, etc. etc.,
here's my usual glib --

We can all thank our ancestors for this primal instinct of fear.
Without it, we'd all have gone extinct eons ago.

One definition (or idea) of courage is not the absence or lack of fear;
rather, it is action in spite of fear.

There are a few very interesting (and exceptional) cases in medical history
of people who literally have no fear. I seem to recall a lady (in the UK ? or US ? I forget)
who has no fear. None. Because her brain is physiologically different from most of ours.
A mugger tried to rob her at gun point, and her (extremely unusual) behavior freaked him out and he ran away.

Enjoy Go.

[xed_over]

I think that many who have this feeling equate losing with being stupid. It's just not the case. People win or lose because of their go skills and go performance, and while that may reflect other aspects of a person (for example, I recently had the realization that precision is not really my thing, and that this probably accounts for a chunk of my losses), it does not mean that a person is dumb, bad, incompetent or any of the other epithets we paint on the mirror when we play poorly. If you are berating yourself when you lose, stop. You played poorly because you didn't know how to play better and you made one of the zillion possible game losing moves. So what? It's not a big deal, and you are no less of a person because of it.

Thanks daal! You are absolutely right! It is my Go skill that needs to be upgraded, not necessarily my personality! It should be fun to play and I'm taking it too seriously. But that is in my personality! That's the problem.

This resonates with me.

People are always asking me why I don't play anymore (my most recent tournament game was 2009), and I've never quite been able to put my finger on it -- until now perhaps. I too hate losing. And I feel stupid when I don't improve as much or as quickly as others, especially after so many years at it.

Don't get me wrong -- I love this game. I enjoy watching/reviewing (even memorizing) high quality games. I enjoy teaching the game to beginners (and it doesn't bother me to lose those games). And I love being involved in the community.

So I try to tell myself to equate it with baseball. The best batting averages are still such a very low percentage of success. So I shouldn't care if I lose.

And I tell people that its actually possible to lose every game, but still improve your skill (I have anecdotal examples from several of my own "students" who refuse to take enough handicap to beat me, but as I improve, so do they, yet they still lose every game)

After all, even if I lose, I still win -- because I can learn something from the game. So unless I'm playing for rank (or trophy) -- which I don't do any more -- I no longer care if I win or lose. I only play for fun and learning.

[daal]

I think that many who have this feeling equate losing with being stupid. It's just not the case. People win or lose because of their go skills and go performance, and while that may reflect other aspects of a person (for example, I recently had the realization that precision is not really my thing, and that this probably accounts for a chunk of my losses), it does not mean that a person is dumb, bad, incompetent or any of the other epithets we paint on the mirror when we play poorly. If you are berating yourself when you lose, stop. You played poorly because you didn't know how to play better and you made one of the zillion possible game losing moves. So what? It's not a big deal, and you are no less of a person because of it.

Thanks daal! You are absolutely right! It is my Go skill that needs to be upgraded, not necessarily my personality! It should be fun to play and I'm taking it too seriously. But that is in my personality! That's the problem.

If you know something is true, and act as if it were not, then what you are doing is deluding yourself. By calling it a matter of your personality, you imply that lying to yourself is necessary for your self-definition. I don't think that this is the case. Taking go too seriously is not something that you have to do, it's something you choose to do. We all have voices in our heads that chatter away incessantly about the way things ought to be and what we should be doing instead of what we are doing and what saps we are for not doing everything better. Paying too much attention to these voices instead of doing what we are doing is just a bad habit. My serious suggestion is to look into mindful meditation to practice focusing on what is actually on the table as opposed to what your mind may be dishing up.

[Pio2001]

I begin to study Go books and play through games of old Masters. I even start to memorize some games. But, when I start to play games in the Net, or against computer (CS2013), or against my friend, I'm so frustrated after a lost game, that I don't like to play anymore.

This is something that happened to me last month. I studied a lot, then lost so many games that I lost confidence in myself.
I was telling myself that it was just the usual symptom of assimilation of the new knowledge, but it didn't seem to improve after some time.

Eventually, I found one of the culprits to be frustration. When I am frustrated and I want to do better, things only get worse !
A good sign that I am not playing properly is when I don't use all my thinking time. A solution is not to play any stone before having answered the question "what if my opponent answers there ?". When I am frustrated, I rush for moves that seem best, but I omit further reading, which decreases my ability a lot.
Another thing that I'm loosing when I am frustrated is a fundamental principle that is not often taught in book : to pause the reading and count the game to see who is ahead.

Two fundamental strategic principles that no reading ability can compensate for are :
1)During the Fuseki, pause the reading and check for the status of all groups of stones. The priority is to cure our own weak groups, then to attack the opponent's weak groups.
2)During the chûban, as soon as all groups are more or less stable, pause the reading and evaluate who is ahead. If you are, stop all attacks and just defend. If your opponent is, start a reduction, or an invasion.

Out of frustration, these two principles just vanish into a "play-the-biggest/smartest-move" rush.

One definition (or idea) of courage is not the absence or lack of fear;
rather, it is action in spite of fear.

I like this. It reminds me of one of my favourite lines in a belgian comic (Spirou et Fantasio), when the heroes come to help a prisoner evade from a military prison in a foreign country :
"Aoh ! I was wondering if they'd find courageous people to come and rescue me !
-Well, they didn't find any, so we came with the jitters !".

[Katoana]

If you know something is true, and act as if it were not, then what you are doing is deluding yourself. By calling it a matter of your personality, you imply that lying to yourself is necessary for your self-definition. I don't think that this is the case. Taking go too seriously is not something that you have to do, it's something you choose to do.

This is something that I didn't find in chess: intelligent help when you need it! I'm so grateful that some of you have time to send your own thoughts of this matter. It sure isn't a big problem, but if you don't have anyone to ask help, it could come a oversized hindrance. Thanks!

[Katoana]

Along with the usual suspects: normal 50% win-loss, nothing to fear but fear itself, fear specific to Go or in other aspects of your life, what are your goals in Go, etc. etc.,

Hi EdLee! Maybe the word "fear" was too strong in my first msg. "Discomfort" could have been more precise. But the question would have been the same: why that negative feeling after a lost game is so much stronger than the positive after a won game? It empties the batteries you know...

[Katoana]

Varying degrees of with and against

I think so too, but I believe that you're so young, that you have more "against" power. There aren't any trophies for me to collect, just the enjoyment of a good game "with" a friend.