Performance, Knowledge and Motivation

It is helpful to consider an equation sometimes used by sports psychologists:

Performance = Knowledge + Motivation

In chess terms, the meaning of this is that a player's performance from one tournament to the next will vary entirely with his motivation. Knowledge builds up slowly over the years and does not vary much in a short time, whereas motivation has massive swings up and down, accounting for good and bad form. Of course, other factors, like luck, can play a part and the above equation only holds as a rough approximation. Competitive players should treat their motivation very seriously indeed and look for ways to improve it. It is not only intelligence, talent for the game, knowledge and understanding or physical fitness that count; will to win, pure unadulterated motivation can also count for enormous variation in the levels that different players reach.