I played again!

It's too much pressure!Two games on KGS today. As more than 6 months had passed since my last game on that server, my game history was empty and my rank back to [?]. In those situations I'm never quite sure what I should announce as my rank in order to get a game. KGS ranks have fluctuated a lot over the years, there was a time when I was 8k then I went back to 15k and the latest change probably puts me back again around 8k.

Anyway what matters is that I was able to overcome my fear of playing and play. In a topic on godiscussions.com about go anxiety, I said that in order to prevent that problem, I should be more detached about my games. If I'm able to play calmly without caring too much about the game then I won't feel stressed and it will be easier to play more.

Unfortunately that was not the case. The first game ended quickly by my opponent resigning even though I didn't feel I was ahead at all so I didn't have the time to get too much into the game. The second one, however, got quite interesting and let's just say that I still feel the adrenaline rush 45 min. after the end (and I couldn't stay still for most of that time). I know that the first game after a long pause always feel like that and that if I start playing regularly again it will get better.

But still, it's pretty amazing that even though I told myself not to care about the result or whatever silliness I would play in that game, I was still unable not to feel like each move was the most important thing and that I could not afford to make a blunder. Actually I even wished that I would lose that game to avoid keeping the highly overrated rank that the first one gave me but that didn't make it any easier. It makes me wonder how the pros manage to stay calm under the pressure of the important games...