Igor Smirnov - Champion Psychology

First published in 2015 by Remote Chess Academy.

Copyright 2015 Remote Chess Academy

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 781942 104353

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email: support@chess-teacher.com

website: http://chess-teacher.com

I gor Smirnov is a chess Grandmaster, coach, and holder of a Masters degree in psychol- ogy.

Hes the founder of the Remote Chess Academy company that has helped thousands of students worldwide to improve their results.

GM Smirnov has developed lots of chess video les- sons, articles, webinars and training courses, includ- ing the famous courses The Grandmasters Secrets, The Grandmasters Positional Understanding, and Calculate Till Mate.

You can follow his blogs and social media sites from below links:

About

The Author

/RemoteChessAcademy/

/+GMIgorSmirnov/

/GM_Smirnov/

http://chess-teacher.com

/user/GMIgorSmirnov

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Games

Introduction

The world is a tragedy to those who feel,

but a comedy to those who think.

Horace Walpole

I dont want to be at the mercy of my emotions.

I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Oscar Wilde

I once saw statistics about the most stressful sporting activities. I was really surprised to see chess in second place (next to sky jump- ing)!

Strong emotions energize a hu- man, supporting intense physical activity. It used to be fighting or running away for the generations of our ancestors. Thats the way prescribed by nature.

However, in the modern world, this logical scheme has become broken. For instance, you may have stress in your work but nor- mally dont fight or run away.

We experience the same psy- chological pressure while playing chess. You must stay focused and do your best. You know that even one mistake can lead to a loss. At the same time, you have to sit calmly and think hard.

This psychological pressure can harm your normal thinking and lead to lots of typical problems:

Strong emotions dont let you stay focused (and may lead to blunders).

You may get tired faster.

You may start checking the variations more than once (which will lead to time trouble).

And the list goes on

Thats why, strangely and unfor- tunately, your performance in an important tournament battle may be worse than in a friendly game

So, how to get rid of nervousness, fears and psychological pressure?

The bad news: theres no way to do so.

Theres a psychological joke:

Try not to think about a green monkey .

Its simply impossible to do so. If you try to not think about a monkey, then a monkey is exactly what you are thinking about.

Another good analogy is the ques- tion,

How to get rid of darkness in a room?

Theres no way to get rid of dark- ness, but instead you can turn on the light.

We may also recollect famous war- riors of the past. They put their lives on the line many times with- out any fear.

Did they find a secret pill against fear?

No, they set their minds to some- thing else instead. Some of them had religious motifs, while others were protecting their families or stayed true to high ideals of free- dom, honor, etc.

Whatever the truth may be, great warriors have set their minds to something important and mean-

ingful to them. This great IDEA has filled their mind, not leaving any free space for other thoughts and emotions to creep in.

Luckily, we are in a much more comfortable situation now. Even if your king gets killed (which is the original meaning of checkmate), theres no danger to your own life.

Therefore, its definitely possible to stay cool, play well and enjoy the royal game of chess.

Theres no way to get rid of ner- vousness. And theres no need for that. Instead, you just need to set your mind to the right things.

What are these right things?

Well talk about that in the next chapters!

Congratulations! Youve just won a special free bonus!

Handling emotions during a chess game is just the same as in any other life situation. Therefore, af- ter reading this book, youll be able to realize your full potential in chess,as well as in other areas of your life.

Magic Pills

P eople have always been tempt- ed to discover magic pills. Im talking about a certain solu- tion that can be applied easily and bring you great results.

For instance, the inventor of alco- hol probably thought that he had discovered a cure for all diseas- es .

Now we know its rather the oppo- site.

Generations of alchemists wasted their lives searching for an easy way to get rich finding the way to convert anything into gold.

However, some magic pills do exist. For instance, there are spe- cial techniques that help you over- come nervousness and bring you into the most optimum condition.

Ill share several psychological magic pills with you in this chap- ter. They have proved their effec- tiveness, both in the games of my students and some of the worlds top players.

Nevertheless, Id like to warn you:

as with ordinary pills, magic pills haveone major drawback they cure symptoms. The real cause of the disease will remain intact and keep causing similar trouble in the future.

In the other chapters of this book, well talk about those core ele- ments of your champion psychol- ogy. It will give you a rock-solid foundation for permanent success.

Still, sometimes you need an ur- gent solution, and a magic pill can give it to you. For instance, you are about to play an important tournament game and are feeling nervous. Hence, you need to bring yourself to your best psychological condition and you need to do so right now.