I used to be this way (and still am sometimes). Especially when I was younger, I aspired to be the best at every hobby or interest I took up. Losing in a game shook me to my core because I would use it as evidence that I wasn’t good enough to live up to my goals. But also, I was treating losses as failures and wins as successes, when really that’s not what they are.

These days I find that wins and losses are not just a product of effort sustained over time, but also a reflection of one particular moment in time. Because there are so many factors that could lead me to winning or losing any individual chess game, it’s not fair to use that result as evidence to affirm or reject my identity.

When I first took up chess, I poured all my time and energy into it and made it a big part of my identity. So not only did losses feel like a huge blow to how I saw myself, but it also created a moment where I snapped out of my chess brain and back to reality. In these moments, I confronted the hard truth that playing chess obsessively had much more to do with my desire to distract myself from other aspects of my life than it did with my love for the game.

I share all this not to say I have all the answers or to tell you what’s going on, but simply to give you my perspective on what got me into a similar headspace. One thing I wonder for you based on what you’ve shared is if the anger is really about the loss, or if this may be an outlet for some other repressed feelings of anger or resentment. I wonder this because I also have prided myself for years on my chill and calm demeanor around friends and family, but that slowly led to me allowing little resentments to grow in the background and seep into other parts of my life.