Avoid the Biggest Chess Pain

Introduction

Sometimes, when we are completely winning, our brain just turns off, and that's usually when the disaster happens.

And don't lie to me... I know you already lost games while being a queen up.
And it's totally normal; it even happens to Carlsen.

But the problem is when it happens over and over again.
So, in this blog, we are going to cure this syndrome of losing winning positions.

I had to go through the dumbest moves I made in my life, and believe me, there are a lot of them...
So grab some popcorn and watch my suffering.

Why do we blunder so often in winning positions?

1. Excitement/Stress

This is the most common cause for big blunders, although it can easily be fixed.
It happens when you think more about the result than the actual game. You start to imagine your new Elo, tournament position, and reactions instead of focusing on the position.
Here's my personal experience with it:

2. Overconfidence

When winning, our brain is unconsciously thinking: "There's no way I can lose that."

After losing our first piece, it says: "It's just a piece, trust me, there's no world where I lose that."

And then when you miss checkmate... "He surely cheated, there's no way I just lost that."

STOP YOUR ILLUSIONS!

When you are winning, think instead: "The game is not over. I still have to be aware and calculate."
Don't lose your patience, and play as if the position was balanced.
Your evaluation of the position should not change your mindset.

Your result will then be much better.
I learned this thanks to this game:

3. Overthinking

This happens when you start losing your patience because you don't see an instant win. So you try to find forced winning lines, but after wasting all of your time and energy, you end up playing some random and losing move.
That's how it looks like:

4. Brainrot

We all have moments during games where we think about anything except chess. Our brain is not always calculating 24/7, and that's okay, but we have to make sure to always double-check for tactics before every move we play; otherwise, it could lead to this:

With just one quick tactic check before playing my move, I could've surely avoided blundering like this. Instead, I just stopped thinking, and what had to happen happened. Here's one last peak example:

How to avoid such blunder ?

It's all about the mindset; that's why you should change your way of thinking first. If you don't, then you're going to keep making the same mistakes.
Your chess mindset has to keep your emotions as far as possible from your analysis.
If you're sometimes getting overconfident, remind yourself that you can lose everything in one move. If you're too excited, take a deep breath and refocus.
Always double-check for tactics before every move.

But, to be honest, you can try to avoid blunders as much as you want; you are human after all, and they are going to keep coming at you. So the best way to really avoid them is experience.

Conclusion

Nobody is safe from blunders, and they can happen anytime, but with the tips and examples given in this blog, you can avoid many of them.
A good reflex can save you from the biggest blunders.

What are your biggest blunders? Feel free to share them in the comment section below.

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Thank you very much for your suport, really.

-@Syltstonks