I am Useless! EDIT-4K

I am actually getting a little worried.  I have been playing chess for over 40 years and I always thought I was pretty good.  I knew I would never be a grand master, but I could win some and lose some among my circle of friends.  

However, since joining this site, I have realised that I am no good at all.  I feel totally disheartened.  After my initial 5 games, I was rated 750 ish.  Since then, I have been on a pretty constant losing streak and I am down to just over 600.  I don't expect to win every game, but I am getting utterly slaughtered sometimes, like I am just learning again.  IN some games, after just a few moves, I can see that I am in a losing position and want to resign.  I have also been playing against the AI on various chess apps, and on one, I can sometimes only just scrape a win on easy level, but looking back through my history, I was regularly playing at the Advanced/Expert level.  Now I cannot even get up to that again.

It has been a few years since I played, so maybe I am pushing too much, too soon, so I guess I am just looking for a bit of reassurance that other players go through these "bad patches".  To be honest, I have started to question if this is the beginning of dementia as this has affected three of my four grandparents.

Have you studied at all? Looked at tutorials on openings, defences, endgame strategies etc? Also do you review your games afterwards to identify errors?

Losing streaks aren't unusual, most people have them from time to time. Especially if, in frustration at blundering a piece and losing a game, you then start to play quickly and reactively, I've often done this. You don't say what time control you're playing - perhaps if you play longer games and really allow yourself time to comprehensively plan moves, you will see an improvement. Good luck

Yeah, I’ve got many losing streaks as well, but my latest one is different. Here’s why: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/important-why-you-should-never-let-anyone-know-your-password Anyway, I agree with you.

My advice is to play long games (such as 30 minute rapid) and if you’re in a losing position, do the best with what you have. You never know when you gain the advantage and win !

I always thought I was good at chess too, but my ratings are not good at all, bullet 600+, blitz, 900+, rapid 1000+ classic 1500+

I am going to keep pushing for a bit longer to see how far I can go and once I get into a losing streak, I will call it a day. The fact that I am rated a novice, kind of makes me think I am wasting my time. The only way of improvement is to play lots games sticking to a few openings and that helps, eventually, but the downside, chess has become boring, playing all these games.

Join lots of daily tournaments so you always have games on the go and can make moves in those active games instead of doing puzzles. If you have a few days per move you can take as long as you need to decide on the best move and it sinks in better than faster time controls.

Thank you for your responses.

To answer some of your points, I usually play the 10 minute games and what I am lacking (or appear to have lost) is the ability to "see" the board and connect moves. I keep doing absolutely ridiculous things. As I said in my main post, mistakes I would have made aged 8 or 9 wen I was first learning. Putting my queen on a "safe" square only to see a bishop fly across the board and take her as a free gift, and not knowing where it has come from. Also, missing mates. When I watch back the analysis, I cannot believe how many times I have been one move from winning and not seen it. In a recent game on my tablet app, I was up a queen and two rooks, and lost! I just could not put a mate together and it was really frustrating. And then you, as one of you said, that leads to mistakes. I ended up chasing their king around the board and getting myself pinned and forked until I lost my advantage. I should not be playing like that with the experience I have.

BTW - The Yeti bot beat me yesterday!

I'd go to 30 minute or 60 minute games and give yourself the time you need to fully consider moves. You should find that your knowledge of position, tactics and pawn structure etc is there, you just need time to play mindfully.

How does that help them, by playing longer timed games? I keep hearing this, but it's total nonsense. If you play longer timed games, your opponents are much harder to beat tactically.

I find it helps me, because I have longer to think about my moves. I'm less likely to make mistakes and to find more accurate moves. When I analyse the 10 minute games I play, I am usually only playing with 60 - 70% accuracy, when I play longer games my accuracy is more consistent. This might not work for everyone, but I prefer to have more time. I play better and enjoy the games more.

Your accuracy goes up, but so does everyone elses. When you have reached your limit, that's it and I have reached mine. I can't get any better. I have just experienced another so called tilt moment, 9 games lost in a row, sometimes it's worse than that. One minute you are winning game after game, the opponents are easy, then you get a difficult player, then another then another, all making very difficult moves, causing you to think a lot and lose on time.

I play on lichess, I never lose 10 games in a row, maybe 3-4, maybe even 5, but never 9, 10, 15.

This site is geared to keep you playing, which now makes me think, all this tilt bollox is BS.

I have noticed that these players never blunder any pieces, you would expect out of 10 games a weak opponent or a blunder here or there.

After this weekend I am finished with this shyte site. Like I say, this doesn't happen on lichess, so I am now suspicious that what is happening on a regular basis to me is all staged to keep you playing.

I must say, I've read a number of posts on this forum which make a case for algorithmic strategies to persuade people to keep playing. There may be something in it. I have an account on Lichess, but I haven't played enough games there to find my correct rating and therefore I haven't made a comparison.

However, I do find it odd - that sometimes my opponents (between 800 - 1000) play in ways I would expect from players with that elo, eg: missing good moves, blundering pieces etc. But sometimes players between 800 - 1000 play amazingly accurate chess. We all have good days and bad days, we all have good games and bad games - but I do wonder if there may algorithms in play to keep us hard at it. Although I don't understand what the reasons would be behind this. I pay an annual subscription, so it doesn't make much difference to chess.com whether how many games a day I play. They get the same money whether I play 1 game or 100.

Lichess proves to me that something is not right. If tilt was true, then I would expect it to happen on lichess. Like you said lots of people question it. I notice also some odd behaviour, weird moves, weird blunders. My guess is the reason is to keep us addicted to the game, they need numbers, traffic, just like any other website, conversions are a percentage of traffic, so the more people that participate the better it is for them. I can't be sure 100% what is going on, but I am pretty sure something is not right on here.

They may even be using bots, I am sure I read somewhere that they got caught testing a bot in a live game, I could be wrong, it may have been on lichess, not sure, but could they be using bots? Who knows they are never going to tell you, the business is worth $100m, so they will protect it.

Well, nothing would surprise me. It could be done quite easily, creating bots at all levels, randomly generating names so they look like r/l players and then dropping them into the pairing groups. Ayou say, "they need numbers, traffic" so it's not implausible. I'm going to play more on lichess and compare my ratings across both sites and see if there's much difference.

I've just taken a look at some of your recent losses, the ones you haven't analysed yourself (perhaps because you have a limited number per day?). In at least 4 of the games you timed out in a winning position (out of the 5 I looked up). So your opponents are not playing suspiciously strong - you're losing a high proportion of your games simply on time.

Why do you think I timed out on time, did you not read what I said? Clearly not.

I was the same way at one point. when I started I was about 300, but then I went offline for a while and when I came back I started watching gotham videos and learning more openings and now I am 900 and working towards 1000. by the way, if you like my account send me a friends request. a daily challenge is fine if you think I am spamming people.

I just dropped a big clanger in a tight game, but hey ho, this is chess, its a rollercoaster.

You're not alone in feeling this way and it’s just part of the journey. Keep playing, and you'll start to see the improvements you’re looking for.

It's the one moderator who doesn't know how the site works. He edited the title, but the url remained the same.