My Rating Keeps Reducing! My mind is CRAZY!!! Help please.

This is very long, but please read the whole thing since this problem is SO hard to explain.

I have started with this website a month or so ago. Back then, I never knew what my rating was. What I did know was that I had been playing chess since I was five (now 15), but hardly read any books or studied.

As I played my first few games, I noticed so many people with a 900- rating in blitz. I thought these ratings were so puny, and confidently played about 10 of these players and won almost all in a row in blitz. My rating had initially gone way down hundreds of points since I was tired or something, but was again shooting straight up. I was not used to blitz, so my rating hit a 1100 and I got tired, which made it go down again. I thought my brain was temporarily fried from playing about 30 more blitz games in a row. However, my rating just started to go to an 850, then 800, then 750, then 700... Now my blitz is below 700!

I have tried reading much more often and doing tremendous amounts of research for weeks. I now know at least 2 or 3x the openings, gambits, middle game techniques, end game techniques, etc. I now feel like a genius when I compare my self to the way I felt a month ago. I feel SO MUCH more knowledgable. 

I feel like the more I think and worry about my rating dropping, the more its drops. And it drops at a slow, but steady rate. I also notice I am making probably 5x the amount of stupid blunders I did a month ago. I have always had good luck playing chess while listening to music (classical). I have tried everything from Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to greensleeves. I have even been pretty relaxed at times, but nothing works now! What's even more scary is that I find little difference in luck between playing a 900 player and a 1300! Infact, it's not rare that I'll beat someone that is 1300-1400.

My rating has been doing the same thing for all types of live chess, but especially blitz. I am 99% sure it's just a psychologically created phenomenon, but I am simply unnable to help it. My interest in chess has never been anywhere close to what it is now. I have played many, many games in my life, but have never been exposed to all these famous players and other aspects of the chess world. I am now playing much more chess than before. Maybe that's the problem. I would like to know if anyone else has had the same problem or knows how I can resolve this terrible spell-like thing I have.

Please help.

Thanks.

Improve your way of thinking in chess!!!

Wow. If that is the case, play higher rated players. If you win, your rating will go up a lot, but if you lose, your rating only goes down a little bit. I bet that you can improve your ratings, (seriously, I'm an 11 year old with a correspondence chess rating of 1276) by continually playing high rated players.

If you're making lots of the blunders you're not seeing a lot of the tactics. Play some games with longer time controls for a while so you have time to blundercheck all your moves and look for tactics. Once you start seeing more of the tactics your blitz results will improve.

Below 1500 most games are decided by tactics so it's not unusual that you don't see much difference between a 900 player and a 1300. To get to the next level you need to improve your tactical vision and make fewer blunders.

Do lots of tactical puzzles. Play both blitz and longer time control games. When you blunder review your mistakes and try to see where you went wrong. In short, you need to get better at tactics.

Good luck, and happy chess.

First, stop playing Blitz and bullet completely. Play chess only if you have at least 40 minutes of spare time and play at least 15 | 10 or slower.

Second, your last game in standard - I observed that you made 2 tactical blunders.

In the first one, the tactical setup was actually in your favour. You were winning a piece.

In  the second one, you simply overlooked the fact that his knight was threatening your Rook. It wasn't even a fork.

Therefore, the solution is to practice tactics and improve your vision. No amount of "openings, gambits, middle game techniques, end game techniques" is going to get you any advantage when you hang your pieces and miss obvious tactics.

Let me state the advantage of openings and techniques. At the highest level, players will not make many errors. Therefore, the game becomes relatively sharp from move number 1. But at your level, it doesn't matter at all.

All you need in terms of knowledge is to know K+Rook vs King Endgame and King and Pawn vs King end-game. Almost all your games will be dictated by tactics. Once you master tactics, and are able to eliminate obvious blunders - you will be in a better position to apply your 'knowledge'.

I suggest that you get a basic book on tactics and learn motif by motif (not all at once).

I appreciate all the posts so far. I understand that I am making terrible blunders, but I still don't understand why my blitz rating used to be 1100 and would have gone higher if I hadn't been so tired on the day I peaked.

I play about 2 games of chess a day with my dad. He is a very good player, someone I have never beat in my entire life.  Both him and I noticed that I have improved a lot in the past month from all my studying, besides the blunders. If it wasn't for these blunders that I wasn't making a month ago, I woudn't be surprised if I were a 1200+. I will try to find some puzzle books, including an old Bobby Fischer puzzle book my dad has somewhere; we might try looking for it this weekend. Puzzles are something I've never really done, so I'll be looking forward to the results.

You know, a large part of the problem might just be that you're getting a lot better at seeing your own errors after you've made them, which is a real sign of progress - just gotta work at spotting them before!

Play the game, not your rating. The more you concentrate on getting your 'online rating' up the more frightened you will be of messing up and putting pressure on yourself to win games.

Play games with longer time controls. I used to play a lot of 30 I 0 games and improved my tactical vision no end. I play a lot of blitz too now and am hovering around the 1100 mark, which I dont take too seriously. I play it to win sure, but most of all I play to enjoy the game. If you want to improve, first start playing to enjoy and dont keep putting pressure on yourself!

Do as others say, play to enjoy the game. I am same as you, never read or studied chess, just self-taught through games only. I went from a 1 min player at your rating to touching on 1800 now in a few short months. I now need to improve my blitz & standard, read books daily, learn openings, middle game, and end game, and I have now started to do chess puzzles. Today I completed 50 mate in 1 scenarios, and 50 mate in 2 scenarios. Things like this are going to make you a lot smarter on the board and the good thing is they are a lot of fun to do.
I also have a chess game where I only play against grand master oponents, I am learning from this also after defeating all on it rated 2000 and lower. 

Calm down/play more attentive and play no more than 10 games in a row if you become tired

Youre a beginner, you make beginner mistakes.  If you truly want to improve, lay off the blitz, and bullet, and play longer time controls.  

I am trying very hard to do exactly what you said. It seems like the more I try not to focus on the rating, the more I end up doing so. Infact, I am starting to think that's the biggest problem. When I first started out with chess.com, I had no idea what my rating was, nor did I care that much. I also was sure that I was not going to be anywhere as low as it is now, which it wasn't at first. I wish there was an option that dissables me to see my rating and other peoples ratings!

By the way, the book I'm currently working on is Tarrasche's "The Game of Chess". This book starts off at a very easy level for me, and then gets much more advanced further on. The book claims that once you're through, you should be better than most club players! If a GM like Tarrasche predicts wrongly about me, I don't know whats wrong with my brain! It will take me a very long time to get done with the book, since I'm still in the beggining. In a few months when I'm done, I'll be looking forward to being a "good player". I'm skeptical though.

Also, it's really not the theory of chess that I'm lacking. I'm losing a lot because of these terrible blunders durring the late-middle or end game!!!!!!!! I also am usually winning at the beginning and middle of a game that I would lose at the end. 

Exactly. See...rating is not important it depends on the other players you play, if you play for the sake of rating you will surely be sad if you lose first few matches ,you will be in sorrow. Throw away the rating first be a good chess player study about the game.Be good in playing not in rating.

When i played chess on chess.com before I just learnt i taught "it is just a game". At that time i didnt had any coach, I have now, I study about chess. My rating was 794 Online chess, before, now it is 1448! highest is 1724! because now i am better than before.

Once again, DONT PLAY CHESS FOR THE SAKE OF RATING, RATING IS NOT IMPORTANT THAN BEING A GOOD CHESS PLAYER. 

Well my age is 11.

Dude, are you trying to bore the guy out of chess?

Your advice is so boring...

Work on clculation and learn positional play. Once you learn this you will automatically recognise certain patterns.

But he's right- don't play blitz, you can't excersise techinique there. 

I'm a weak player myself. I was once as low as 800. Then I stopped worrying extra about tactics and my rating doubled.

Of course I did tactics but I also learned technique

It's fairly normal to go into slumps, and it's also normal for your play to have chaotic periods, especially when you study a lot and your brain is trying to utilize that new information on your thought process. Don't fret to much here, continue to study and learn, and play often to practice using that new information. Sometimes it can help to take a few days off from playing after or during a lot of new studying, your brain still works on processing that information just less efficently.

Feel free to message me if you'd like. Good luck!

STOP playing for 4 days.

Good news! My last several games have been mostly wins. It seems like I am becoming a better player now. I am also taking Whip_Kitten's advice. 

Also, I'm now discovering that a few months ago when I was much, much better, I would easily find really good opportunities to win a piece from a good opening I had. I have been focusing hard on my openings and vastly improving them, but I have also been missing many opportunities. When I play with a chess engine, I often find the computer in an identical or very similar possition to one I have been in before. Then, it will devastatingly crush me from there on! I found that playing with strong chess engines and watching GM-played games helps me keep an open when I play.