How I regained my energy for playing chess
You may know this. Lots of work, tasks, head working all day and no rest. I don't need to tell you how it affects the desire to work with chess. Here's my story of how I dealt with it.
After a week's break I am back with a new edition of this newsletter. And what was the reason for the pause?
For the last few weeks I've been lacking the energy for a proper chess practice. And chess in general. I have a lot of client work to do during the day and in the evening I just want to switch off completely.
I finally scheduled about 2 weeks off. I rescheduled one game in my spring weekly tournament and went for a long weekend out of town - to the spa and countryside.
I have to say, even those few days were enough to relax me. Somehow I have unexpectedly a lot of energy for both work and chess again.
Which may have shown in yesterday's game from the spring tournament I mentioned.
I had white, gained a pawn, but at the same time allowed my opponent to be active and a bit threatening on the queenside, where I had my king.
In this position I was on the move and at first I thought how I had messed up the game pretty badly.
The last move was 20…. a4. And I thought that both my knight on e2 and bishop on e3 is lost after 21.Qe6 (the only move) Rxc2+ 22.Rxc2 Nxc2 23.Kxc2 Qxe2+. But there is a little trap, which fortunately my opponent fell into. Would you find it?
So, after six rounds of the tournament I have 3.5 points (+2, =3, -1) and I am looking forward to the last three games :-)
And now it is time for your move
How do you deal with chess fatigue? Or with work exhaustion, which then spills over into a dislike of playing and practicing chess? Do you take a break or do you try to work through it and just keep practicing even though your brain is in "off" mode?
Feel free to post it in the comments!
And have a great time until the next Friday!