We like to think we're in control of what our brains do.

There's a mild existential dread we need to scoot around when we consider whether or not that's actually true. I spend way too much time on the edge of that dread.

But, bigger picture implications aside, we can't say we're totally in control of our brains during Chess games. Because we can't say we're in control of our working memory.

The processes around that are far more primal than our conscious minds.

Throughout this series, I've talked about the loyal labrador, a metaphor that helps me understand, appreciate, and forgive the part of my brain that runs that stuff.

When our working memory has too much to do, the loyal labrador tries to help. It rapidly decides which information or functions are the highest priorities. It makes space in your working memory for those things, and sacrifices the rest.

It acts with the love and dedication of a labrador. But, unfortunately for our rating, the Chess understanding of a labrador as well.

All it understands is where our attention is pointing in the moment.

It will sacrifice anything it needs to, if it helps us to keep engaging with whatever has our attention.

If it sacrifices thinking space, we Freeze.

If it sacrifices information, we Forget.

And if it sacrifices self-control, we Freewheel.

Freezing, Forgetting, Freewheeling. The three Fs causing your most painful Chess blunders. Each one enough to make you mutter a very different F under your breath.

The three Fs are a fact of our Chess lives. They're a natural reaction to the insane mental demands this game places on us.

Chess requires us to juggle too much information, consider too many options, control too many different emotions, and focus for too many minutes at a time. Something's gotta give.

While there are some things we can do to try to catch ourselves before we make a three Fs mistake (see the previous parts for those), the best thing we can do is be prepared.

We can do the work ahead of time to make our brain as resilient to the pressures of Chess as possible.

We need to address the physical, mental, and Chess-specific factors that influence our overloads. Here are some ideas for how to do that.

The first thing to address is our physical resilience. Our biology's ability to handle the pressure of a Chess game.

In a wonderful, candid interview from 1938, Alexander Alekhine was asked how he handles the mental strain of a Chess game. Alekhine responded that it's not the mental endurance, but the physical endurance that's the hardest part.

To best prepare our body for the grueling demands of Chess, we need to ensure we're getting the right amount of sleep and eating the right sort of food to enable sustained energy.

I recommend Shawn Stevenson's Sleep Smarter for sleep hygiene ideas, and this article on tournament nutrition from GM Noël Studer.

(Fun side note, here's a technique used to train soldiers to sleep in foxholes. I taught myself to do this a few years ago, and it works like a charm for me! Your mileage may vary.)

If you play tournaments regularly, you know how draining they are. After 60-90 minutes, most players start to run out of energy. And when we're tired, our ability to handle mental pressure drops dramatically. We overload much faster.

Tournament games, depending on time control of course, can demand 3-5 hours of concentration. When was the last time you did 3-5 hours of high-intensity Chess training in one go without any distractions?

Most players only manage 60-90 minutes of training in a go. So it makes sense that we start to tire out shortly after that in our games.

It's difficult to find the time as adult improvers, but I recommend adding the odd extra-long, high-intensity session to your training regimen.

You don't need to do a full 5 hours. If you can even get your body used to hitting 2 hours, or 2.5 hours, that's likely way longer than your opponent will last.

If you can train yourself to feel alert when they feel tired, that's a major advantage. Even if it's only for a few moves.

Next, we want to look at our mental resilience. Emotions are such a big factor in our overloads. Nothing will take you from zero to overloading faster than a spiking emotion.

I've written at length about emotions in the past. This article breaks down exactly why emotions affect our game so much, and this article talks about what you can do to help keep emotions in check during games.

And finally, we need to make our brains better at handling Chess information in the first place.

The most effective thing we can do to reduce Freezing, Forgetting, and Freewheeling is to help our brain become more efficient. Store more information in fewer slots. Create more of a buffer before our labrador needs to get involved.

Conceptualization is the interaction of your working memory with the information of Chess. It's about how well you take in the information of the position, recognize the ways each move affects that position, and how clear your sense of future positions are when you calculate.

The stronger your conceptualization skills, the less strain these things place on your working memory. The more pressure you can withstand before your labrador starts making sacrifices.

Start your conceptualization training with the Chess Visualization with Aiden Rayner podcast (Apple | Spotify) (free). Then, when you're ready for the big leagues, join over 300 members in the full Don't Move System (paid).

I hope this series has armed you with a better understanding of why you make the mistakes you do.

If you've followed my recommendation from Part One, you should have a record of several painful recent blunders.

Go back through those mistakes, really look at them. Ask yourself if the mistake happened because you lacked knowledge or because of one of the three Fs. Which F was it?

There are a lot of adult improvers trying to resolve three Fs issues by accumulating more knowledge. And that will never work. It's aiming at the wrong target.

Correctly diagnosing our problems is the key to resolving them. When you're analyzing your mistakes, refer to this series. Did you make that mistake because you Froze, Forgot, or Freewheeled?

And if you see the same three Fs mistakes over and over, experiment with the various tips and techniques we've discussed. Reach out if you need guidance. Always happy to help however I can.

Our three Fs mistakes are our most painful, but they're also our most natural.

They happen to everyone, at all levels of the game. You, Magnus Carlsen, and Ju Wenjun all struggle with the same underlying issues.

We all Freeze. We all Forget. We all Freewheel.

The only difference is how much pressure the great players can take before their labrador freaks out. That's it.

Eventually, under enough pressure, everyone will overload and make a mistake.

It's inevitable, it's unavoidable, and it happens for one simple reason:

Someone put a dog in charge of damage control.

Here's to the journey,
Aiden