Everything happens for a reason

Before I get into the post, I should say that I am drained. So excuse me if my writing isn't as good.

Introduction

I haven't written an article for 2 weeks now as I was busy playing tournaments and preparing for my exams. My exams aren't finished yet, but I want to write this article today. During my time out of Lichess, I played in two tournaments. I played the first one pretty decently and finished it undefeated. But the second one was an absolute disaster that made me think I should quit chess.

First tournament

The first tournament went pretty well. I played decent chess and finished undefeated. I felt like I was on a downswing during the tournament and my mentality wasn't great, but I prevailed. It wasn't a tournament I enjoyed though. Compared to my last two tournaments, this one was exhausting. I wasn't walking my talk. I was attached to the results. I wasn't trying to improve myself. I was focused on gaining and winning the event. This was a big mistake. And I didn't realize it at the time. Hence, this continued to the next event.

Second tournament

Absolute disaster! I lost all the rating points I gained from the past couple of tournaments and felt absolutely defeated and disappointed about the decision I made to play in this tournament. My mentality during this event wasn't right at all. I wasn't paying much attention to my mentality. I was too focused on results. So my game was out of aim, and this cost me everything.

But there was another wrinkle to this tournament. When I decided to play in this second event, I knew I wouldn't be in my best shape. I was in a state of medicine throughout the event. My coach told me not to play, but I thought I would be able to manage it. But I couldn't. I want all of you to take this as a learning experience. I am a good player. But when I am not in my best shape, I am not the one I was before. It's a completely different story. When my games go on for more than 3 hours, I can't concentrate at all. My mind would refuse to focus on the game and it would wonder off into a completely different world of thoughts. I knew this would happen, but I thought I would be able to take on the responsibility of playing good chess, but I couldn't.

Lessons

• Have the right mentality - One of the best articles that I have written so far was about mentality. How to be mentally stronger. But I failed to walk the talk. This won't happen again. I promise myself that before every tournament, I will spend some time to recorrect my mentality so that I can perform at my best
• When you are not at your best, don't take on responsibilities if it's within your choice to refuse

Baseline

Everything happens for a reason. This is something that had to happen at some point. Now that it happened, I have learned my lessons. From now on, before every tournament, I will take some time to recorrect my mentality and for god's sake, I will never play in an event when I am not at my best.