Epic blunders and slow but steady progress (Road to Improvement #5)

I played in a Monday night club tournament this week. I lost all 3 games so it was a bit of a humbling experience. The first 2 games were against 1500+ players so I was just simply out classed. I didn't really make many bad mistakes or blunders so I was generally happy about that.

But then the 3rd game happened against someone around 1150. As you will see I should have had it but blundered it away at the end.

I tried not to show it while I was still in the club but I got incredibility angry at myself for this mistake. I thought I had moved beyond these pathetic bone head moves. I guess not. I have since got over the anger part I just need to let this serve as a lesson and try to never let that happen again.

On a more positive note my live rating on chess.com continues a steady rise. I am up nearly 200 points in 60 days and broke 1200 just recently.

So I am improving even if it is't starting to show in my OTB results yet. I even started playing some blitz to try and help cut down the blunders under time pressure. I think I gained like 100 points in one day but since I almost never play blitz my rating wasn't accurate. I'd like to get to 1000 in blitz I think it would really help my game under time pressure. But that being said I don't plan on spending any more than 25% of my playing time on blitz. Since I stopped playing any daily chess I play 30 minute (rapid) games almost exclusively.