Thursday, September 23, 2010

Self sabotage

I said its about raising our awareness. That we have to bring up our negative emotions/thinking from the subconscious to the conscious. The reason for that is when it's buried in the subconscious we have no chance of ordering it. It lurks in the dark and attacks us without warning. That is why denial is so destructive.

But in order to raise it to the conscious we must learn to live with negative feelings. Allowing it space to express itself so that we recognise it. There are tools to deal with it once it is recognised and defined.

There are so many examples I can give of matches that I have witnessed where our players sabotage themselves. In fact that is much of the training I give to Mark. To recognise those signals in himself and others.

Consider this. With primarily that training, he has got to the stage of a National Junior. The sum of Marks technical training was the short stint with Ziaur prior to Asean. I am curious to see how he would perform when his technical is stronger.

You can do it too. A good way to begin this process is to look for inappropriate responses to events in yourself and others. Look at my statement in 2 cents worth and the angry and not so angry responses. Why do you think that is? Consider it deeply. And begin your journey to more awareness and a stronger chess career.

More comments here.

An analysis of the game under debate. Here.

14 comments:

  1. From my observation, Mark may think he is technically stronger because he learnt something from Ziaur's stint. Moreover, you may think those technical aspects will help him but sad to say it won't.

    I believe the technical learnt will not make any significant impact in his chess understanding for higher level play or have much different from the level before the "too short" stint.

    All I can say you need to learn at least another 50hrs or so with Ziaur. Then, you and Mark will start to see what's the real technical (not the type he can see now) which both of you will end up to have more understanding why a player that is 300 points lower can't move a mountain that occupy by a super GM, the most can be achieved (due to own technical limitation) is shared the mountain together.

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  2. What I meant is Pure technical training, not the one that preoccupied with sparring games like the group stint Mark had experienced.

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  3. Thank you for your sharing. I guess you are not ready yet for the next step. But if I may I would like to correct some inaccuracies. Mark does not think he is technically stronger. In fact he knows he is not. The teaser I posed is that he became a National Junior despite that. And mind you it was even before his stint with Ziaur. Perhaps you can give us your reasoned analysis for this.

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  4. It good that Mark is aware that he is not technically stronger. I would just said he "so happen" to be playing better in that 1 important tournament that made it. Just look at other tournaments like the smaller one at Jax's place, his result was rather disapointing. Why?

    He needs a technical trainer to grill some basic chess fundamentals. All your effort in Mind coaching will be meaningless if the real technical stuff is missing. A strong mind only help a person able to defeat a player up to Nat Rtg 1800 (if he is less than Nat. 1600) or 200 points higher from where his current level since he is higher than 1600. Anything higher rating will be only a dream that can never be realise without the correspond technicality.

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  5. I agree with you again. His next step will be to improve his technical. But just for your information, at Jax's tournaments he was trying all sorts of openings because we didnt know better. So we experimented alot there. But Ziaur has given us a roadmap for which we are grateful. Now all he needs is the time to investigate that fully. But he has SPM this year. We are fully aware of the need for technical and I am still trying to identify the correct trainer. I am just saying that that alone is not enough. As you correctly identified, when the players are around the same technical strength, mental strength carries the day. I have witnessed many occasions where the weaker technical player has done just that. I would have liked to have seen Mas fight on not because he can win. It's more for him. For him to know that he gave it his all. There is no shame to fight all out. In fact you may learn something about yourself when you do that. Something good.

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  6. "I would have liked to have seen Mas fight on not because he can win. It's more for him. For him to know that he gave it his all. There is no shame to fight all out. In fact you may learn something about yourself when you do that."

    Only if the said match happens in Rd 10 or Rd 11. Then, I agreed.

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  7. Another secret for you to tell Mark: In a chess, one must not fight every battle unless he is super fit physically.

    I've seen so many title "pretender" fight all the way but end up nowhere near the Championship. If you ask me, why? I would just say no told them this secret tip and more importantly how to choose opponent to fight.

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  8. I have considered that scenario. I look at it as a few step process. Fist learn to fight, then develop stamina, physical and then lessening mental resistance. Finally we look at tournament strategy. If the player has already mastered the other 2, then yes I agree with you.

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  9. "I have considered that scenario. I look at it as a few step process. Fist learn to fight, then develop stamina, physical and then lessening mental resistance. Finally we look at tournament strategy."

    Another tip: Do not play yourself into an uncharted water in big tournament.

    There are big differences between training game, small tournament, big tournament game.

    For training game aka tournament simulation game, one can try all sort of things and played one brain out to the max.

    For small tournament game, one can try all sort of things but WITHIN boundaries of training game, and played one brain out to the max. Btw, game result is not important. [I can say most of Msian players fail to follow this rule. Instead they use the method I spell out for training game].

    For big tournament game, one DO NOT try all sort of things but only focus on things WITHIN boundaries of training game that worked, and try to achieve the maximum impact.

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  10. For big tournament game where we are really serious, every decision along the line would have been carefully considered. You are dropping the ball. Try to hold all the variables under consideration. This is not theory. This is real life. The bad decisions have been made. Now what?

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  11. Whatever decision that was made cannot be changed. If proven bad, then learnt from it and just live with it. Life goes on. What if just a subjective perspective, your view against mine, then fight another day since there will not hv real answer and Life goes on .....

    The sad part is no one individual can control the selection process, to the naming of squad, to training the candidates, to playing the game by himself, to own the responsibility of failure or success all by himself.

    How I wish I just can do all these things and I will called myself "superman" but again others will not prosper under superman's presence because superman does not need help, bty no one is competent enough to help superman. What happen when "Superman" left the country, or become a dictator? Either way, it will not be good to Msian chess.

    That's why we need a team to work together. Just too bad that not everyone in the team are competent to the tasks put upon them. Then, what - Fired them? Who hv the authority - U or me?

    Do we really have an answer - Just live with whatever our team members can or can not do.
    Life goes on .......

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  12. Are you aware that you are beginning to dissasemble?

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  13. I'm sure that I'm not dissasemble. What make u think so?

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  14. It's ok. I hope you keep reading and contributing. All my best.

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