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Fear of Losing
Path: MentalityPath   · Prev: FearOfWinning   · Next: GoodHabits
   

I guess fear of losing might cause too cautious play when you're ahead (thereby allowing your opponent to catch up). That's small stuff. If you figured out how to get ahead in a game in the first place, overcoming this fear should be easy.

Real fear of losing is agonizing over your next move for days (playing on a turn based go server), all the while not being able to sleep or work because you're convinced that your next move will decide the outcome of the game. Fear of losing is finally being able to set aside a few hours to logon to KGS and play, but deciding to go over Graded Go Problems For Beginners again instead.

It's also found in the attitude "I'll start playing at the Go club when I get to 15k" and in the practise of escaping. It's related to the fear of a decrease in rank.

Things I try to remember to help me overcome fear of losing:

  • It's only a game
  • Don't Play To Win?
  • LoseYourFirst50GamesAsQuicklyAsPossible (or 100, or 200).
  • You can learn from your mistakes
  • You've probably lost already, anyway...
  • If your rank goes down, you get an extra stone in your next game - Bonus!

--sngrfxz


Myself, I've noticed fear of losing can manifest itself in playing the simple instead of the correct move because things might get complicated. --BlueWyvern


In my case, logging on KGS but no playing at all... or just playing a free game once a week... I should stop it soon or I'll lose all my level, being as little as it is by now. RBerenguel



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This is a copy of the living page "Fear of Losing" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.