There is only one way to enjoy chess
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Next Level Chess Podcast. I am Grandmaster Noël Studer, your host, and today I wanna talk about enjoying chess

And I don't mean the dopamine hits of winning a game, but like truly enjoying the process of playing chess And it's a topic important for me because, well, I didn't manage to do it so much, especially once I started playing chess as a professional player So here is my story. I always believed that if I became a grandmaster, I could be proud of my game and start enjoying chess fully.

But then I did it, and to be honest, nothing changed. If anything, I felt [00:01:00] more stressed. I started setting a new goal. It was 2550. I achieved it. Again, nothing changed. Same for Swiss Champion making a living as a professional player, and so on and so forth. Then one day, I wrote in my diary, "I wanna become European champion, reach a 2700 rating, and then I can finally retire."

That's when a thought hit me. Why not retire now? That's what I did a few months after

There's a version of this everyone falls for, the hope that if we just achieve a certain goal, we will be able to relax and enjoy our lives. It is a lie. If you can't enjoy your chess games at a 1,200 rating, you won't enjoy them at a 2,000 rating. When I realized this, it was too late for me. I already lost my enjoyment of playing [00:02:00] chess.

It became more of a burden and something I did because I was good at it, and I wanted to prove myself and to show how good I am, and not because I just enjoyed sitting down for an over-the-board game and battling it out and seeing what happened

That is one reason why I ended my career so early at, I think I was 25 back then, and basically at my all-time high rating, because not playing anymore was a relief

Now, I hope you aren't at that stage yet where it is too late to change mindset, to start enjoying chess

Now, you know that this is a chess improvement podcast, right? So I talk a lot about improving, and there seemingly is a tension between the enjoyment in the moment and the wish to improve. I sometimes even say, "Hey, you gotta do the hard thing. You gotta be consistent even when you don't feel like it."

But there is a way where we [00:03:00] do the hard thing and we do the things that make us improve, but we also enjoy the process of it

And the end of the day, it sounds so simple, but it really is a decision you can take, especially for you listening to this. You're an amateur player. You picked up chess as a hobby. You don't need to prove yourself to anyone. You will never make any money with chess

You can decide for yourself that chess improvement is something meaningful that you wanna do, that you wanna grow as a player, that you wanna challenge yourself, that you wanna do the hard things and not fall for the whole opening trap and win easily thing that we see so often in chess. But you can then also, on top of that, decide that you want to enjoy the journey of it That you accept the ups and downs, especially the downs

That you can enjoy games that you're playing and losing. That you can [00:04:00] enjoy testing yourself with difficult positions and getting them wrong and learning from it

Because at the end of the day, your goals can give you a direction where you wanna be heading. But what makes it special is the journey

And I can say that fullheartedly because I achieved so many things that many would say, "Hey, this is a destination, you know, worth doing for the destination's sake only." And I can tell you, it's not. If you don't enjoy the journey, if you start being so anxious and stressed about this whole thing playing chess It's not worth it, no matter how much you achieve

And the thing is, the harder you try to avoid the lows, the losses, the difficult things, the more they will come and make you miserable So here are four things that I wish I knew 10 years ago. Number one, no achievement of a goal will change your inner state. Number two, [00:05:00] you can improve and decide to enjoy the journey.

Number three, it will be hard, but it doesn't have to make you miserable. Number four, enjoyment can only be in the now

And here's the absurdity of it all. It's that when we relax just a little, when we're not all cramped up and taking it so seriously doing games that we wanna do the best and, oh, I have to win, then suddenly we're playing better. Obviously, we still have to do the right things, but when we do the right things, we just relax our shoulders a little bit, breathe out and say, "Okay, I'm going to play a game.

I wanna improve, but, you know, I'm just doing my best. Whatever happens, happens." You enjoy it way more and you're playing better

So I'm doing this episode because trying too hard made me feel miserable. Don't worry, I feel much better now. But it also kept me [00:06:00] stuck at some point. And this is recorded with the hope that it's not too late for you, and you can do better. You can both improve your chess and also enjoy the journey

Hey, guys, just two quick things before you take off. If you enjoyed this episode and want more structured chess improvement tips from myself, check out my

newsletter at nextlevelchess.com/newsletter. It's totally free. It will always remain free, and it goes out every single Friday with the best, latest chess improvement tips that I have. Most of the podcast episodes that I record are based on a previous newsletter. So getting the newsletter, you'll get the advice earlier, and you'll get it directly into your inbox every single Friday.

It's totally free, as I mentioned, and you can unsubscribe any time. So go to [00:07:00] nextlevelchess.com/newsletter to sign up. And one last thing, if you enjoyed this episode and if it helped you, then please take a few seconds and review this podcast. This helps a ton. It helps other people see, oh, yeah, many, many people profit from the advice given in this podcast.

Let's give this podcast a try. And if you can, if you know anyone in the chess world that would profit from this episode or any other episode, make sure to share it with your friends, with your people online. That's super helpful. Podcast growth is really just working through mouth-by-mouth recommendations.

So thank you, thank you so much for listening, and thank you for spreading the word about the Next Level Chess Podcast. Now, that's all from me. Thank you for listening, and see you next time.