Practical Tips to Strengthen Your Mindset at the Board
Your performance at the board does not only depend on your pure chess skills. Being a winner also requires a mindset that is able to cope with lots of stress and setbacks during hours of uninterrupted concentration.
Just like technical chess skills, mental toughness can be trained. There are simple steps you can take that will help you to better realize your potential. Professional mental coach and chess player Werner Schweitzer has been working with chess teams and individual players for many years.
In this book Schweitzer presents practical tips and tools that will help you to improve your mental power during a game. You will learn how to:
- increase your concentration and stamina
- recognize your own strengths and weaknesses
- cope with losses as well as victories
- increase your self-discipline when studying
- handle disturbing thoughts and feelings during a game
- boost your self-confidence
- avoid underestimating (and overestimating!) your opponent
- make better decisions while under pressure and other mental skills.
These lessons and simple mental workouts will help players of all levels to unlock the full power of their brain and win more games.
Werner Schweitzer graduated as a mental coach at the University of Salzburg, Austria. He knows from experience which mental factors have impact on a chess player’s performance. Schweitzer has been coaching players and teams for many years.
“The focus is on offering simple advice and encouragement in a variety of practical situations. It rang true in reminding me of some typical scenarios and problems that I had encountered in my games. I felt it was a useful refresher ahead of my next competitive outing.”
Grandmaster Matthew Sadler