Recipe to become a Champion (from Word Freak) March 11, 2007
Posted by Hans in Analysis, Tips & Advice.trackback
Here’s some advice that I jotted down a while back when I was reading Stefan Fatsis’s book, Word Freak. I can’t remember the name of the (champion) player who shared this advice with Stefan.
Recipe To Become a Champion
- The ability to desire to be the best, or desire to WIN whatever championship is important to you.
- Unshakable honesty within oneself to answer the questions about your own strengths and weaknesses
- Control your breath
- Finding a way to control your emotional states
- The X-factor: The seemingly extraordinary state that any given champion has during the winning tournament
The player also indicated:
- To win, you need the ability to win. You have to develop your mind to the point at which seeing the plays and considering the best options over the board become possible.
- You also need an equal or superior word knowledge as your opponent. There is no need to close the board.
- Don’t go over words you’re never going to miss. Only look at combinations that are words you want to know.
[...] game seemed to improve. Then, I started putting into practice some of the tips from Wordfreak on becoming a champion. Those tips helped, but for some reason I wasn’t entirely convinced that this information [...]