Chess makes me depressed (serious post) I Need Help

@ the TO. If you're serious go to a psychotherapist. It's neither to recommend nor really possible to give the necessary information in a forum, especially if it's full of trolls. Respect yourself and search someone respecting you.

really ? this guy is looking for advice for his chess problem on a chess site? same old recipe : whine about your miserable life and then sit back and watch how people run to comfort you. If you have a drinking problem you don't go to a bar to get help. And just because you can't see him for the troll he is doesn't mean you should take it out on me.

Drink more!

I totally agree with kaynight that he is a spineless little snitch btw ,it is not that we always have differences.

Take a look at a post in section Chess players I put up the other day: "Ding Liren, a special one?". Deals with the kind of top GMs that suck at blitz. I thought Liren was the only one, but other members showed similar cases: Caruana, Yaren Wi, Wesley So. It mighty help you understand blitz is not actually chess. Sucking at blitz doesn't mean you can't play real chess very well.

If you really are depressed don't look for help on the internet. That is all I'm going to say about it. Or with the words of Basil Fawlty: "depression is a bad thing, before you know it, you can't face life anymore and you end up running a hotel". Watch Fawlty Towers a few times. Always works for me. It always seems as life is rather fair on you, after watching :)

You need to find another source of dopamine, one that does not require a lot of thought and frustration.

Go to chesstempo website and start practicising there. Do,not come here until your rating is good there.

See there you go. I'll just rephrase that for you: " We are both rather difficult and different." Now we have a connection.

I have a love hate relationship with chess as well. I mean I always love the game, but when I play a live match and I lose a game I know I had in the bag, it irritates me. I think the issue is just our ego. Try to remember it is just a game, and in the large scheme of things it doesn't matter, win or lose. What matters and the entire point of playing SHOULD be to have fun. And remember, it doesn't hurt to take a break. When you come back the game will still be there, and more fun!

First off you don't dislike chess because you don't play chess. You play blitz. There is a big difference. In chess, the object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king. The object of blitz is to ensure that nothing happens in the game at all and just make meaningless moves faster than your opponent. Some people think it is the same because chess pieces are used. But that doesn't make it chess any more than playing hockey in an indoor rink makes it figure skating.

Blitz players also tend toward moral depravity. Blitz players rave in the most foul language, they threaten people with rape and violence. You don't see that stuff in chess. And it isn't just the internet either. They were that way when I was in high school 35 years ago long before the internet. I don't know whether blitz made you a bad person or if being a bad person made you take up blitz. Who is to say?  Thing is that horrible people dislike other horrible people and blitz has far more of them.

I have many vices but blitz ain't one of them.

Hope you feel better soon!

alright tom petty, serious response regarding to this:  standard is not really literally 2 hours to move, but u get a darn lotta time to make a move, no stress.  i like standard better than blitz.  however, when u play standard for a certain amount of itme, u may like blitz, cuz it's more fun IN CERTAIN ASPECTS, and it's a short game—not like a standard game, where the game lasts from 30 minutes to 2 hours.  still, standard gives u lots of time to deliberate ur moves. 

and don't harrass ur opponents

and ur taking chess more seriously than u should.  i mean, i respect people that do take it seriously, but lost games are nothing to be depressed about.  get over it

and if ur opponents harrass u, disable the chat, cuz that's wut i wud do.

and don't worry about berating ur opponent, they r fine

and ur rating goes down, so what?  there are ups and downs.  keep training, and get better.  when i first started chess.com, my rating was around 570.  look at my rating now.  and i continue to rise.  i am currently beating opponents rated 1300-1400, which makes my rating rise a a faster than normal rate.  by the time i get to around a 1300 rating, i will have improved, and i will continue to rise.  u should be like that too.  you will not be stuck at the same level all the time.  and if u feel like ur rating keeps staying the same and ur not improving, so what?  train harder, practice more.  with time and effort and practice, you will definitely get better.  

and imagine a statistical graph.  the line may be going down, or may be going up, or may be staying relatively the same, but nevertheless, most of the time, the line will be in a zigzag formation.  there are ups and downs, but the general direction is either up, down, or it stays relatively the same.  the same goes with chess rating.  my rating has ups and downs, and yours should too.

hope this helps.

Did you just start a low-carb diet?  It can affect the brain's serotonin levels as carbs tend to be rich in tryptophan, which produces serotonin.  

 I would suggests improving your endgame technique and general board vision and tactical acuity, but improvement would just place you in a higher category so your win-loss ratio would remain the same, putting you back to square one.  

You're not alone.  Chess makes me angry too.

The trick is to see ratings for what they are, a relative ranking within a large pool of players.  It is not a score.  A 25, 50,100 point gain or loss in a day has not moved you very much in the pool.

The second trick is to realise you can and probably will eventually meet or pass your high rating mark.  If you did it once, you can do it again.

Not playing blitz helps but it really isn't much better if you blunder a 30 minute game. At least it gives you something to go back and analyse. You're standard rating will likely be 1800+ so that is at least a decent marker to have as you play and hate blitz and bullet.  How good you are at blitz and how good you are at chess is not the same thing.

Tom I was ready quite chess around the first of the year but as you say it's hard when your addicted to it. I found myself always playing (because honestly it's more fun than studying) and kinda like you said just wasn't improving. I decided to start taking lessons from a GM. They aren't "cheap" and I was very nervous about it because not every strong player can teach and there is always personality conflicts ext... But I found a GM who has helped me see the game differently I'm improving quite a bit but my blitz rating isn't going up much and I'm still loosening a lot of games ext... But I feel better about chess because of the positive feed back from the GM. So my advice is to find a GM to take lessons from (not an expert or low level master) this may help you. Lots of people say you should play for fun and not be so critical of yourself but I feel it isn't very fun to lose the only way we will win more games is to improve and we don't improve by playing (expcaily fast time controls) but by studying and a strong teacher will help you do that more effeciantly than on your own. But no matter what remember your opponents may be improving as well because they also hate to lose and as hard as it may be we have to refrain from from being mean to them this is the gentlemens game.

Good luck Tom hope you enjoy chess again soon

I would play on sites anonymously, where there is no rating to display.  Play a few crazy chess games - just try to get as wild a position as possible.  Don't care about whether you win or lose, just play wild moves - the more complex the position the better.  Play by pure instinct - don't calculate.  Get all the losing out of your system.  Bottom line: No one cares about winning or losing at blitz unless you're a GM playing a rated blitz tournament.  Really, no one cares. If you stay depressed, then I think chess is not the reason. See a professional cognitive behavorial therapist (CBT) and read this book: Feeling Good, the new mood therapy, by David Burns, MD.  Good luck.

Maybe you should take a break. You're attaching your happiness and self esteem to your performance and results, which is detrimental to your chess and only leads to an endless cycle.

You should start not caring about result so much and focus on having fun and improve. I use to not like to play because I'm scared losing to people. But then I decide to stop caring about winning or losing and focus on learning about the game and exploring it, and improvement easily followed.

you want stopped from playing it-- cuz it makes you miserable - but stil you play and play?

hmmm.... I don't know. perhaps you should write a long farewell to the chess forum. we've seen that!

but my advice is slightly different.  get into a DIFFERENT games.  take these video games all the kids play.  there's no skill to them.  most are more movie than banging away at a mouse (though quite a lot are BOTH).  anyways- if you get into the video game- you gain Experience- you 'sword' gets stronger- you get defense.

you IMPROVE without really improving in anything.   this is addiction without none of the trappings of study or anguish.  practically guarenteed to amuse you.  thats my advice.

for something even MORE brainless watch TV.  get into sports.  get into fishing.  TONS of easy time wasting stuff to fixate on.

---

never mind all the chatter about a pychiatrist.  at least here in the USA- you can't afford them- and if you really DO need them- it takes forever to get an appointment.  Not a good mental health system at all....