Five Reasons Why Chess and Video Production Go Hand-in-Hand: Part 2

Click here to read part one of this article.

Since my last post in this series, I’ve continued to study and practice chess daily. I also renewed my United States Chess Federation Membership and played in a USCF rated tournament on March 4th, 2016.  I won my first game after a long struggle and lost my last two games disappointingly. Even though I didn’t win all three games like I hoped, the two losses taught me a lot about myself. The lessons I learned from my losses during my last tournament I’m sure will help me improve in my chess career as well as my day-to-day work here at ECG. Here are five more reasons why chess and video production go hand-in-hand:

1. In Both Realms, Attitude is Everything!

In both chess and video production, your personal attitude and outlook is everything. If you don’t care, it will show in your performance. Thus, maintaining a sharp and enthusiastic attitude will take you farther. Once I was playing the third game in my last tournament, I’d mentally taken myself away from the game. I felt like I didn’t care about the results anymore and was ready to give up mentally before the game started. Playing a chess tournament with a mindstate like this will certainly not bring a player desired results.

Day-to-day life can certainly be a challenge. A lot of times we feel like giving up and giving in to daily pressures. It is important that we stay focused and maintain the will to win and keep a positive outlook. An older friend of mine recently told me, “chess is a struggle.” A lot of the time, life feels like it is always a struggle as well. The best chess players in the world seem to agree that players with the most heart, will and determination are the ones who go the furthest.

Endurance and Mental Toughness are Key to Achieving Desired Results.

In my last post, I mentioned that I play blitz more than any other form of chess. In preparation for a tournament with longer time controls, playing too much blitz can be more harmful than helpful. The tournament a recently played in had a 30 minute time control for each player. This meant that the rounds were ultimately one hour long. Playing chess for three hours straight is certainly taxing on a player’s mind. After playing this last tournament, I realized I definitely need to enhance my mental endurance in order to get to the next level.

Making sure that our daily routine is healthy is most important to developing strong mental endurance. I’ve been guilty of practicing irregular sleeping and eating patterns. Over time, unhealthy routines will start to affect your performance in life and in chess. In order to maintain mental strength, we have to do our best to keep balance in all aspects of our lives.

It’s Always Better to Address a Mistake Earlier than Later.

Address errors and inaccuracies as soon as you recognize them. For me, this is probably one of the hardest points to implement when I’m playing. It is certainly bad practice to play on without acknowledging improper piece placement. If an inaccuracy occurs try your best to proactively address the issue and continue from there. More often than not, inaccuracies that go unaddressed lead to further inaccuracies and eventually lead to an unrecoverable blunder. Sometimes positions that arise from inaccurate play are salvageable. The sooner you address the issues, the better chance of a desirable outcome.

4. Analyze Your Performances, Especially Ones That Didn’t Yield the Best Results.

I hate to lose. I especially hate to lose by self inflicted damage. Unfortunately, It doesn’t seem like a day goes by without some sort of blunder occurring. I guess you could say most of my days are blunderful. Like I noted previously, most blunders are the result of inaccurate play. The second game of the last tournament I played, i believe was accurate, until I defended a pawn incorrectly. It seemed like my position collapsed soon after losing that pawn. In the third game, I just blundered a piece stupidly because I was not being careful and moving too fast. I figure that it is important to analyze your losses in order to figure out what went wrong so you can make the proper adjustments for the future.

5. Expand your Repertoire and Continue to Learn New Approaches.

Some strong players believe that you should initially pick just a few opening systems to play when you’re first delving into chess theory. I believe that this approach is helpful. I also believe that after you’ve grasped a few opening systems it is advantageous to explore new ideas that you may not be familiar with. Eagerness to learn more about your craft is essential to staying interested and growing. I’ve found it helpful to chess game to adopt a few new systems that I’ve started to employ in recent games that I’ve played online. We should continue to research and study. Our minds and crafts will continue to sharpen this way.