Just One More Game to Get My Elo Back...

Hi all,

One more small post before the end of my vacations to share a frustration I am sure most online players felt at least once.

Let's start from the begining: some days, you will play bad chess. Maybe you are tired, maybe bored and playing for the wrong reasons, or maybe you are distracted. Maybe it's just one of those days.

They have to exist, of course, if only to allow the existence of the good chess days. The problem with those days is that they will be felt for weeks to come, especially if you enjoy rapid games like me.

Let's say that (like me over the last few days...) you lost 100 points playing bad chess. Assuming you play against equally rated opponents, you will need to win 13 times in a row to get that back. To be realistic, we can assume you will lose at the very least six more times. This means you need a win to compensate for each of those losses. That's a total of 13+6+6=25 games. With 15 minutes of gameplay on average (for a 10m game), this is roughly 6.25 hours of your life.

And this is assuming all goes well, which it won't, and here is why.

Playing to win, a bad idea.

I am not talking here about a tournament or OTB chess with some friends. No, I am talking only about something quite addictive: online chess.

Playing to win has a very different meaning in this realm. When one says a tournament game:  "he is playing to win" it means you he doesn't aim for a draw.  But, in the context of this post, "playing to win" means you go in front of your computer or get comfy on your favorite couch with your pad to win at chess. Not to play chess, mind you, no, you go there to win; more specifically, to win back your lost points.

This, my fellow chess addict, is a bad idea. At least for me.

When I enter into this costly mindset, I play horribly. The classic symptoms are:

1. Playing the opening automatically, forgetting to punish my opponents' mistakes.
2. Overpressing a drawn position and earning a loss.
3. Getting into a winning position and then blitzing all my moves as if the game was over until it is... with another loss.
4. Skipping the analysis of the game.
5. Resigning positions with a slight chance for a draw.
6. Making old fashion blunders all. the. time.

You don't lose all games of course. If only you did, you would realize the errors of your ways and stop. But to be in this mindset, you first had to lose 50 to 100 elo points. So even though you play below your level, you are also fighting opponents below your level.

Since you win, you think you have a chance to get your elo back, and you keep at it. And those 26 games end up in a 13/13 win/loss split, or even a 12/14, and the elo slowly drop lower and lower.

This has been me over the past few days. After a few weeks, around 2150, I dropped to 2100 and wanted my points back. I started playing more often and badly. Now I am below 2050... Which is, of course, honorable, but it's below what my competitive brain has now defined as "my level," and I want to go back to it.

The cure

There is a cure, of course, a simple one you know just as much as I do. Just stop playing.

Stop playing for a few days, at least. If you want to do some chess, go for tactics or learn new openings, but do not play.

I say this but, right after I finish this post, I will go back. After all, I only need 13 wins in a row to get to 2150!

A positive note

One could say that I am wasting my time.

Indeed, I am not productive, nor am I improving at chess, and I am sure as hell not gaining those elo points back.

What I am doing is accumulating frustration, which, I would argue, is a good thing.

This is where I pull up the old switcheroo and end on a positive note.

Those days spent hating my chess, feeling stupid after missing every tactic, hitting myself on the forehead for premoving the wrong move, and getting up in anger just to go back to chess ten minutes later, those days are spent caring about chess.

Any day you forget that it's just a game, any day you live your wins and losses as if nothing else matters is a day well spent. It's one day you got 100% into a hobby shared by millions and beloved by chess addicts like me, even when we hate it.

It's because you lived those days that you stick at it, and, more importantly, it's because you lived those days that you can fully appreciate that one perfect game you played which, for a minute, made you feel like a GM.

That's it for today. I have to get back to playing. Just a few more games, and I'll get my elo back!

Until next time, happy learning!