- Importance of overconfidence. If you think you can't lose, very often that belief will itself cause you to lose, as you get careless. Your opponent, meanwhile, is in a "fighting for their life" mindset and will often play surprisingly well. Similarly, when you play a weaker opponent, it's hard not to play carelessly.
- Working on your weaknesses. Anyone who gets really good in chess, has set out to find their weaknesses and fix them, one by one.
- The better the player, the more time they spend considering their opponent's next moves, possibilities, resources, plans, compared to their own.
- Accuracy of calculation. One slip during hours and it can all be for nothing. And also trusting yourself, not endlessly rechecking but calculating once (or twice!) and believing in your thought. Then when you do make a blunder, not dwelling on it but recovering quickly psychologically, starting afresh.
- Learning from defeat. To get better you study your losses and where you went wrong, get to know the characteristic mistakes you make and why, and do something about it.
It's this particular sense of space which I found was improved by playing a fair amount of chess, and there were moments when I had to deal with more aggressive people and I found that I wasn't so flustered because I knew I could create space when I needed it.
When I was a beginner I always counterattacked. Now I see that that most attacks (and counterattacks) are built on insufficient foundations and assumptions; better to develop, create space, anticipate your opponent and build a plan. Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy, but that plan is better than no plan, or imprecise aggression.
i use the short puzzles to both focus my concentration, as well as gauge my cognitive depletion levels
good list, looking forward to more interesting responses ;)
simple geometric games work well too. the purity of ms-dos era xonix is profound