I want to take a break from chess.

Hello everyone!

For people who don't know me : I am Mirko Jevtic, founder of "ChesswithMirko" community, which was founded in August 2023. With my consistent action through the weeks and months and constant support of other members in community, I managed to grow it into really positive, constructive online place, with 200+ players worldwide. This project required a lot of effort, where I invested countless hours. At the same time, I am holding chess lessons online, working on my chess, playing FIDE games for my local club, being constantly challenged for the game by Instagram/Lichess followers, constantly asked about the improvement / community questions, developing side projects, looking for new members, preparing adequate infrastructure, imagining new ideas and making them come true, etc. May we agree that I was on a good path to the burnout? No one may blame me for taking a few weeks off.

For people who know me : Mirko would never say first two sentences.

As I mentioned previously, through this two years, I met many great people worldwide, with different motivation about this game. If someone asked me to make some classification, I would do it this way:
1. Players that no matter what their current form is, still enjoy the game. (30%)
2. Players that try to play the game and don't enjoy nature of it. (2%)
3. Players that don't know how the chess works, and hidden potential of it. (68%-99%)

As previously mentioned, I am grateful that I have a chance to organise worldwide community with a Classical League inside of it, which gives a great chance for all of us to meet many positive, constructive people, have great training games with analysis, improve (foreign) language/s, etc.
However, through the Seasons, I see a pattern which repeats - players who perform well can't wait for the next Season to start, and players (not all of them) who underperform, come to me with following texts:
- I think that I want to skip next Season. I feel that I need a break.
- My schedule gets pretty busy these days. I'll take some weeks off chess.
- I won't be able to participate in the next Season - I have too many conflicts.
- I want to focus on the other stuff, please exclude me from the event.
and many others.

At first, I believed into these words without questioning. What happened is that after some time, I see exact same players spending hours and hours online, playing 20-50 games daily.
First I felt offended - not because they won't participate in next Season - it is because they didn't tell me right reason about it.
I was thinking for many months about it, and I came to a conclusion - I think that these players spoke the truth (at that moment).

This article (especially this part of it) is really designed to give another perspective to players in that category.

In about a month, I will be 29 years old.
Last time when I was excited playing chess was when I was 17 years old.

What? Am I serious? If I lie, why am I writing that? If I speak truth, why do I play chess at all?
Because I see a bigger picture.
In my opinion, there are three main categories of motivation in the chess world. All of them are very different.
1. Studying chess
2. Playing chess
3. Playing competitive chess
Which one is the most enjoyable, and which one is the least enjoyable? What do you think?

Brain fog, blundering Queen/Rook in the game, laziness to calculate, headache, negative mindset about playing - I won't say that I experienced it too - I will say : I experience it now.
I hate playing competitive chess. Yes, I do.
Do you find it surprising? You want more surprises? I think that majority of improving chess players hate it.
There are two things to conclude :
1. Your experiences are not only normal, but they are expected, and they couldn't be avoided (and they shouldn't be avoided).
2. Now it is time for you to consider if you really can handle the nature of chess.

This is my exact point of article. Do you see a value standing in front of your nose?
Chess is a discipline that may truly give you a mental strength to endure tough situations. It has many ups and downs, and I am unhappy that many players only see value in the moments when their results/ratings are rising. I see even bigger value when I do everything and my results stay the same - that means that I really didn't do "everything", and I am going to raise my standards/capacities.

Most important thing - this transfer to all life areas, too. This is why I find chess so much important in life, and irrelevant if you are going to be titled player, FIDE rated player, or just amateur player.
I think that it is wrong strategy to force ourselves to like something, and to constantly look for reasons to be motivated.
I think that right strategy is to do things that are right, no matter what our feelings about it are.

Remember, I hate playing competitive chess. But, it is the right thing to do, and I am doing things the right way.
You don't believe that this may exist? I have question for you : Do you believe that someone does things which likes, but are wrong to do?
Maybe one day I will start enjoying it again, but until then, see you over the board, and be ready for a tough game. I am not going anywhere.

Thank you for your attention! If you find this article useful, be sure to give a like! :)