Fabiano Caruana shared his opinion about which skill is the hardest to teach. Caruana believes that you can’t really teach a person to handle losing, and notes that many players struggle with the fear of losing.

Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano Caruana

World's No. 2

“I’ve noticed one thing people struggle with. It’s a struggle being okay with losing or struggling with the fear of losing.

I think people sometimes have that — a struggle to being able to just put yourself into the game. I’ve seen a lot of people who hate losing, so they don’t really want to play. Even if they’re very talented, very good chess players.

And that’s something that maybe you can’t really teach. If you just don’t enjoy the process and part of that process is potentially losing, then you shouldn’t be doing it if you don’t enjoy it.”

Elite chess players have admitted in interviews that they had struggles with accepting losses. Gukesh Dommaraju said he was impulsive as a child and used to throw a lot of tantrums. Jan-Krzysztof Duda said he could not stand losing as a child and called himself an impulsive person.

Credit: Lennart Ootes / FIDE