I can’t handle trash talk. My ELO rating for Chess is 1780 (I’m pretty good) and I recently played some some amateurs, probably below 1400 or even 1200. Just not very good. One of them beat me twice, and I never beat them. He wasn’t good–not at all–but he kept the pressure on me by throwing me off my game verbally. To say he underminded my confidence is putting it lightly. I’ve lost a few recent games as a result of this against my usual opponents and I’m on a losing streak he is taking significant credit for. The sad part is, it slightly arouses me, so I haven’t worked on trying to overcome it at all..
