The Elo Plateau(s)

Back today with a new post for people who want to improve while having fun.

For those of you who didn't read my original forum post, I started playing chess seriously 4 years ago with an elo of 1000 in blitz on my good days. A few days ago, I reached 2100 in rapid for the first time.

So as someone who knows the grinds, who improved by being serious about chess, I want to write a bit about plateaus. The key letter being the "s" at the end because those four years of improvements were everything but a smooth growth of elo, and I know how discouraging it can be.

But first, I want to spend a minute on an important side note. I write this piece not because I believe my chess progress reflects my level of intelligence, but because it shows the time I spent on it and some of the good learning strategies I chose.

I hope that my advice can help motivate someone who wants to improve because the journey has been (and still is) so much fun for me. I wish it on anybody who wants a stimulating hobby he can be proud of.

In other words,  I truly believe that anyone can improve a lot. For sure, not everyone can become a master, but with the right discipline and motivation, everyone can add 400 or 800 to their current level!

Parenthesis closed. Back to business.

Prepare for a bumpy ride

In the figure below, I show my "stats" for rapid here on chess.com.

The graph is a bit deceptive because it looks like I stopped playing rapid for a while. In truth, I stopped playing 30-0 games and moved to 10-0, which chess.com only recently re-defined as rapid. However, there is some truth behind those flat lines and even more into the sudden jump.

When you progress, you do it in big jumps, which can be great. Gaining 50, 80, or 100 elo points in two weeks is thrilling. The counterpart is that a 400 elo gain over two years is five to seven "good months," and the rest is stagnation.

In statistics jargon, this is a random jump process with no memory. This means that looking at past numbers gives you no information about the probability of improving.

Also, when we are on these plateaus, we have no way of knowing whether we will improve one day or we reached or max...

I assume that what I wrote above is news to nobody. We all know plateaus are unavoidable, either because we guessed it or, most likely, we lived through them. Nonetheless, as I know how discouraging it can be, I thought I could try to help.  I feel I am in a position to motivate a few people by showing that there is light at the end of the tunnel. To that end, here are a few anecdotes and patterns I encountered along my chess journey.

1: The opening jump!

My first elo jump, which you can see in the graph above, occurred when I learned a tiny bit of theory. I watched chess.com videos about the London system, and that's it. I was too lazy to learn openings for black. In those days, learning a system against e4 and another against d4 seemed impossible. So I ended up reading about opening principles (My System by Nimzowitsch), which was enough to make my elo jump by a few 100 points.

Full disclosure: I also started doing more tactics at that time which probably helped. It's hard to disentangle the two effects.

2: The long droughts...

I experienced quite a few long plateaus. I can't recall all of them precisely, but I believe I:

1. spent 6 months at 1500, even though I worked almost every day on my chess.
2. was stuck at 1700 for at least 8 months.
3. was stuck at 1800 for another few months.
4. was stuck between 1900 and 2000 for at least one full year.

There is no single story of how each plateau ended. Sometimes it was clearly tactics, others endgame, others I still have no idea what changed. When I reached 2000 in rapid, I intuitively assumed it was my maximum. I kept working on my chess for the fun of it with no goal in mind. Then, one day, I suddenly hit 2060 after one hot streak of victory. Then the demon woke up. I worked hard on it the next month or so, and finally past 2100.

3: Falling down...

This happened to me many times. And I am not talking about the light fall when you randomly reach a new height one day and don't hit it again in the next few months. I am talking about being stuck at some elo for a few months and then losing 100 points, sometimes 200 points, and not being able to go back up for months...

The most significant jump down (200 elo) was after switching my London system for an e4 system. The first time I tried the switch, the fall was too much for my pride, and I quickly gave up. I ended up switching again and sticking to it something like six months later.

Most of the time, these falls are connected to overworking. Maybe you have some stuff in your non-chess life. Perhaps you just tried too much. In any case, my advice is to take a short chess break; maybe one week, maybe two. And then come back with lower expectations.

Take it from me. These things happen. You shouldn't panic or feel a long plateau says anything about you as a person or even your true chess potential.

4: Over drilling and the small jumps down

Losing 50 points or so for a few days or weeks happens regularly to every player. To me, it happens almost every time I over-work one single aspect of chess. When I spent 30 min a day for a week drilling openings, I lost at least 50 points in the next two weeks. Same story when I did too many tactics. If you are worried because it happens to you, well, you are not alone. If it never happens to any of you... well then I am allone, but that's ok!

An important side note is that many of my "jump up" followed one of the small losses when I focused too much on one aspect. So you should definitively not actively avoid these periods of over-focus. My classic "down-up" pattern is linked to tactics:

1. I start working more systematically on my tactics
2. I gain 100 or more tactics elo on ches.com
3. I lose 50 to 100 elo points on my games
4. Four weeks later, I gain my points back plus 50 more!

5: The fear of losing a round number

Round numbers have power. Whether it's my tactic elo, rapid, or blitz, I care about reaching 1800 infinitely more than 1799.

I could say that it's stupid (because it is) and that I shouldn't care, but I don't believe that's true. Elo is very motivating. The desire to reach some high round number can help you find the strength to drill those tactics, analyze those games, and come back to your hobby with fresh energy.

The only drawback comes when you don't want to play anymore to keep your elo where it is. I confess it; I've done that many times. Sometimes not playing rapid games for weeks just to keep my shiny new 1500 up there.

Ever since I discovered this pattern, I forced myself to go the other way. I let my new high score up for one day, and then I play again no matter what. If I have to go below this holly round number, so be it. The important thing is to rip the bandaid right away!

6: Plateaus as signals

Most plateaus are just a time your brain needs to spend at this level until the new understandings are drilled into your brains, so much so that you can start to learn new ones.

However, some are caused by bad training habits. Perhaps you do too much blitz, maybe not enough tactics, or too many tactics. I'll do a post later on how to detect bad habits in your chess routine. But I thought my list today would not be complete if it didn't include this fact: Some plateaus are signals that you should change something about your approach to chess.

Conclusion

I said it before, and I'll say it again, I think elo matters.

I don't believe people suggesting you should ignore it do you any favor because:

1. You won't ignore it, no matter how hard you try, and more importantly,
2. you shouldn't as it's a great motivation tool,
3. and one should always be proud of their achievement.

The first trick is to view elo as proof of how hard you worked, not how "intelligent" you are.
The second trick is to always keep in mind that plateaus are part of the game.
So remember:

1. Everyone experience plateaus,
2. The process has no memory --> it's not because you didn't improve much in the past that you won't improve in the future.
3. You never know how high you can climb the chess ladder, don't give up because you have a plateau. I reached 2100 and was stuck at the same level for an entire year. I am sure I am not alone there.
4. Learning and improving do not instantaneously translate into elo. It will at some point for sure, but sometimes there is a lag between understanding something and being able to put that into your  games.

That's it for today!

Until next time, happy learning!