I have recently been thinking about meta-game psychology in competitions, more specifically, knowledge of opponent's skill level and knowledge of opponent's knowledge of your own skill level, and how this all affects outcomes. In other words, instead of being 'psych out' by 'trash talk', is there any indication that you can be 'psyched out' by knowing how you rank up against other players. Any links for more information would be appreciated.
Part of my routine is to play a few games of on-line chess everyday. I noticed when ever an opponent with a vastly superior score comes in the room, my confidence is shaken before game play, I become nervous. If my opponent is only slightly better than me, I am calm and confident that I can win. Chess rating systems work by giving the worse ranked player more points for winning a match, this makes it so that if I am matched against a vastly inferior player than myself, I once again become nervous because I do not want to lose to such a player.
Here are my opponent's strength and how I feel before playing:
Over the last few months decided to block the rating of players that play with me and I noticed that I consistently feel more confident that I can win because I am no longer thinking about how much better or not better I am than my opponent. I don't know if it really helps, because my improvement can be attributable to playing more, not necessarily because I blocked out my opponent's rating and chat (Yes, people do trash talk in on-line chess and it does psych me out sometimes).
I am curious to know what other people's feelings are when it comes to knowledge of opponents skill, it would be nice to have a few responses filling out their feelings on the following:
It would be useful information to see what the majority reaction is, as useful strategies can be developed. For example, assuming most people are crushed to hear that they are vastly outmatched, and you are accurate about your skill being in the 5th percentile, then it would be beneficial in competition to make it known, perhaps?
The thing about your performance in a game being hurt by fear of a superior opponent's skill is basically the same as David Sirlin's idea of a "fear aura."
...If your aim is to intimidate the opponent, then I am all for that. But there are polite, sportsman-like ways of doing this. The best way by far is to win tournaments. See what your next opponent thinks of you then. Just give him something as simple as a half-hearted glance and empty-sounding “good luck” before the match and he will probably fall over like a feather from your presence. When a
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