Nihal Sarin spoke about how he recovers after losses and losing streaks. Nihal says that playing online in fast time controls helps him. Sarin notes that a few wins online help him remember the feeling of winning over-the-board. Nihal spoke about it in an interview with ChessBase India.

Nihal Sarin

Nihal Sarin

Indian GM

“When you lose it’s very hard to remember that things have also gone your way. And for me personally one way I try to deal with it — sometimes when I’m having a very bad streak or bad tournament — I like to try to just play some games online.

Just try to get some games. Just to try to remember and relish the feeling of winning a game again. It could actually seriously help, I think.

When you get some wins, it can flip a small switch like: ‘Oh, okay, I still remember how to play this game! I can still win games!’. It could help.”

Nihal Sarin ranks 4th and 9th in the Blitz and Bullet leaderboards on Chess.com respectively. Nihal won a silver medal as part of the India team at the Chess Olympiad 2026 at the end of September.

Credit: Lennart Ootes