Help! Unable to get out of horrible losing streak.

Up till a month back, I was playing well (for my level ofc) and progressing well too.  I was at 1242. I didn't know a great deal of openings, positional play, pawn structures neither am I a tactical monster. 

I was merely practising a few puzzles everyday and playing a couple of 30-min rapid games.  It was nice n cool. I took a week days of break and suddenly I lost my rhythm. I fell into a horrible losing streak and am now getting beaten by guys who are 1050+ and making horrible blunders too.

What should I do now? Take a complete break for a week/work on my attacking skills/learn more on middle game strategies/study pawn structures or anything else? (links to resources are appreciated)..

Any advice is highly appreciated..

watch youtube videos regarding chess, and focus + calculate more during games.

Are you analyzing each game afterwards?

Quit playing for a little while. 

Yes, I want to stop playing for a while completely..

Thanks, focus is missing. Trying too hard could be the problem. I'm gonna take a break..

I'm in the same boat, I think the algorithm makes sure we have highs and lows, but usually after a long losing streak my rating tends to go up slightly higher than it was before I started losing.

I took a break and watch grandmaster's game then i get better

I may have some great news for you @Wirefish

You may increase back all that rating "and then some" in roughly a month from now! It isn't a 100% guarantee, but allow me to share the reasoning:

Most all chess players know the ups and downs (usually down it feels) with chess rating fluctuations. However, there is a difference between natural variance and dropping for burnout or tilt. Assuming your aren't suffering from chess burnout, or tilt (based on your description, I'm guessing it is the option I haven't shared yet), then this is where my chess observation comes into play

I've noticed that separate from those fluctuations, there become times where I feel good about my chess and motivated, but then I keep losing and my rating may drop even 100 points. This isn't tilt and this isn't burnout. This huge drop usually comes from me getting winning positions in like 75% of the games and then blowing the advantage on one key move or two (usually tactical, but sometimes a positional element harder to see in a game, or me missing that a move comes with check etc. - basically a small detail like that and I lose the game). 

If this is what is happening to you, then I've noticed that (assuming you don't tilt under the pressure of losing or blundering) this slump will last a while (anywhere from 1 day drop to a week I've had), but then you'll slowly gain it back and then boost your rating even higher in roughly a month from now! Say someone experiences this at 1200 rating. They may drop down to 1100 in one day (up to a week) and then hover around 1100 for a bit only to slowly work their way back up to 1200, but then the rating keeps climbing and they'll end at 1250 or 1300! 

This process happens many times in a chess journey, but it isn't talked about much (perhaps many don't recognize it as part of the process and simply attribute it to tilt etc.)

You wanted links, so here are some references you may find useful:

https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/dropped-more-chess-rating (chess success is celebrated a lot, but writing about things like this is less common, yet very real. Here is me dropping a lot of rating in the same observation I shared which you may be going through now @Wirefish )

https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/today-is-the-day-2000-rapid (Here is a blog post roughly a month later, but this huge drop and then boost has happened to me many times before at other rating levels too)

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/fun-with-chess/my-online-chess-rating-59795420 This link might also be good for a chuckle because it is good to laugh things off sometimes. Just realize that your temporary losing is normal and happens to everyone eventually (and many times if they play chess enough!) The rating numbers also don't define your ability or chess knowledge by itself. If you are 1200 one day and 1000 a month later, then you didn't "forget" 200 points of chess knowledge, nor are you 200 points weaker at chess now. On the contrary, you now have more experience than before and are likely a stronger player once you recover the rating. I look at rating in terms of milestones because you can NEVER lose them. If you get a new high rating and then drop down, nothing ever changes the fact that you once had x-rating. You may temporarily be lower again, but you've made that number before and that fact won't change

Simple explanation:

Your rating improves – you face higher rated opponents – now, you lose a few games – you now face opponents with lower ratings – you start to win more, your rating improves again – once again you are matched with stronger opponents again and . . .

Yes, you will still face players across a wide range of ratings, but you will find the higher you go, the more often you will face someone 150-200 points higher than you. The lower you go, the opposite is true. When your rating starts to yo-yo between two discernable points, that is your range.

You really also ought to try analysing some of your games; many answers lie there.

You are a diamond member but most of your games have not been analysed. To improve you need to learn from your past mistakes. What were the bad moves that cost you games? What are the best moves that should be played in those positions?

Does it show what games they analyzed? How do you know they reviewed the games or not? Or do you just mean that they didn't show many game annotations?

Hi Kevin,

       Great to talk to you again. Thanks, first up! Your unflinching desire to help people is amazing. I should have contacted you straightaway (A few personal issues kept me dogged down, I also ran a fever briefly).

Actually, my chess training involves Lessons, Puzzles and two to three (or four at max) 30-min rapid games.  I religiously solve puzzles for an hour everyday. They helped me pattern recognition as they rightly claim..  Lessons helped me immensely too as my chess understanding has gone up massively and is THE reason why I subscribed to Diamond membership in the first place.

As you put it (rather comprehensively), it was burnout + blundering a key move/missing a tactic + bad health and yes, the roller-coaster emotions and all those elements which you put across rather articulately. 

whatever, I'm gonna take a week to 10 days off and come back fresh with a more systematic training schedule. 

I don't mind losing to better opponents( in fact I do that all the time), but it rankles me when I lose to my own mistakes and blunders. 

Of course, I'm a hobby player too jus like you and there's NO question of losing sleep over it. But, we love Chess, Ain't we? And the effort should be genuine.

Thanks for all the resources which you provided. I shall discuss with you at length when I come back all over again.

Cheers bro!

I do mate! I religiously analyze every game after I finish playing it. At least, I check the key moments if not the comprehensive analysis tool. It helped me hone my skills.  In the last couple of days, I started playing Arena games which I didn't before. I'm yet to analyze those..

This big drop of 150 points(in short time) is my first time and hence felt a little  dispirited. I posted in the forums to know if it's normal or unusual and If yes, what could I have done differently to arrest the slide. 

Thanks anyways,

best!