chessfeels: conversations about chess, psychology & mental health

Julia and JJ solicit controversial opinions from their listeners on twitter, and proceed to debate the merits of these ideas. Does playing the Fried Liver make you a bad person? Would chess be a better game if there were no draws? Is Chessable overrated? Julia and JJ discuss their listener's worst opinions. Brought to you by Chessable.

Julia and JJ talk about what short and long term goals can look like. They expose the types of mistakes most of us make when setting goals or making plans towards achieving them. They also announce their new partnership with Chessable, but neglect to talk about whether using chessable can help with goal-setting. They pressure each other into sharing their own personal chess goals on the air.Links:Levy Rozman's tweet on ceilings vs floors100 endgames you must know courseGeller - Bolbochan 1962, discussed after 13...Qb7 and 20. Rxd5 as examples of planning

Sam joins JJ and Julia to discuss her journey back into chess obsession and improvement after coming out as trans and finding a newfound desire to put her all into life. Julia provides feedback on Sam's tendency to collapse in endgames against higher-rated opponents and in high-pressure games. JJ discusses the importance of perspective and reflection when determining whether a tournament was a success, and how this can impact choosing which section to compete in.  tw: discussion of suicide Follow Sam on twitterUpvote Sam's photo so she overtakes Levy and Hikaru on reddit againSam Shankland's Classical Sicilian LTR on Chessable, which Sam describes as "pretty life-changing" 

JJ and Julia are joined by opening researcher and blitz badass NM Gopal Menon to dispel the myth that your opening preferences can tell us anything about your style of play or your personality more generally. Once this is out of the way, they turn to the more important question of which openings correspond to what sorts of sexual kinks and proclivities. Don't worry, we obviously address the most important question for anybody building an opening repertoire: which openings fuck? This one is particularly NSFW. 

JJ and Julia are not feeling it this week. They address questions they've gotten from listeners about the phenomenon of "tilt," and after discussing various strategies for getting over or working through a tilted episode by finding ways to reignite your passion for chess, switch to the more general question of what to do when that passion just doesn't seem to be there at the moment. They discuss the pressure of feeling like being a chess obsessive means the fire 'should' always be there, and why episodes of disillusion can be defense mechanisms against fears of bad play. This one's kind of a bummer. We'll be happier next week, we promise. 

Why do so many chess players obsess over their ratings? What does this obsession look like, why is it often an impediment to progress, and what can we do to get over ourselves? Fresh off an almost-good tournament, JJ recounts their experience of getting fixated on the possibility of a large rating gain, and how hard it was to re-focus on their chess once this happened. Julia expands on the pernicious effects of ratings-fixation. JJ suggests less results-orients ways to refocus measuring chess improvement and progress, and Julia provides advice for how to navigate ill-timed intrusive thoughts about rating-panic. 

Julia and JJ question whether there is a connection between an aggressive style of play over the board and aggressively alienating personalities off the board. And, even worse, could aggression still improve your chess even if there is? JJ laments that many of their students describe clarifying, forcing, but ultimately simplifying moves as "aggressive." Julia explains how different conceptualizations and types of aggression can map onto chess in different ways. They then dunk on GM Reuben Fine's psychobabble from the 1950s about chess and psychology, and close on a conversation about how misconceptions of aggression within a game of chess can alienate marginalized groups of people within the chess space more generally. 

Jon Mackenzie of The Chess Pit podcast (and Tifo football analytics?) joins JJ and Julia to discuss what he describes as his own ambivalence towards the game of chess. Why is it that chess differs from other sports fandoms in terms of its focus on improvement? What is it about chess that can inspire such unique emotional pitfalls? Could JJ and Julia beat the Chess Pit guys in a fight? 

What would therapy for a tournament chess player look like? During a "therapy" session, Julia helps JJ unpack a number of questions that plagued them throughout a frustrating tournament where JJ kept running into familiar problems. Why do we sometimes get fixated on a single, unnecessary variation that costs us precious time on the clock? Is there anything we can do at the board to reset our nervous system when panic sets in? Sit in and listen to our trusty duo as they attempt to get to the root causes of the psychological blocks JJ encounters within and beyond the 64 squares.

We're all obsessed with blitz, but could it actually be addictive?  Our resident clinical psychologist explains why playing online chess might actually be addicting and assesses whether JJ's blitz behavior meets criteria for an addiction. Follow along and see if you do, too,  just in time to learn more about possible interventions for your blitz-addicted loved ones. JJ and Julia question what mechanisms chess websites use to promote addictive behavior and explore how we could use blitz in a way that fosters chess, and life, improvement.