Dropped from 1340 to 1230 in 3 days

I started studying chess 1-2 months ago. When I began my rating was about 700. I improved very fast and after 1,5 months my rating was 1340.  But since I hit 1300 I am losing almost every game and dropped by 100 points in only 2-3 days. Im solving 20-30 tactic puzzles per day and I have a basic opening repoitoire. It was no problem for me to get to 1300 but now I lose against people with a rating of 1200 and I don't know why I started playing so bad. I only play Rapid games, most of the time 10 minute games but recently I started playing 15|10 games, because the internet said longer games are better to improve. I'm reading a book about tactical patterns and combinations but I never see tactics in actual games. It's quite frustrating to me that I try to improve really hard and suddenly I play that bad.

Does anybody know what I can do to play better again? Does anyone have the same problem?

Do you want a quick "fix", a medium term "fix", a long term "fix" or a chess "career" suggestion?

If you want a quick "fix", don't play anybody more than 50 points below your peak rating. You lose less points, you have better games.

If you want a medium term "fix", forget about tactics for a while and by forget I mean, don't obsess with them. Concentrate on square control. That way, you will start seeing tactics based on controlling squares. Trust me, it works!

If you want a long term "fix", focus on middlegame ideas, pawn structures and endgames. For the most part, wild blunderful tactical games are typically not found in rapid with increment, and much less the further north of 1300 you are.

For chess "career" advice... analyze games looking for ideas. Please guess the move with master games on your opening. Stop playing for a while and devote that time to studying chess.

Thanks for the good advice! When you say study chess. What exactly do you mean? Openings? Tactics?

I mean, mainly studying the decision process for moves and the general planning of the game. A holistic approach to the game...

It's normal. Look at your losses and try to understand the point at which it went wrong and why. You will probably find you've dropped a basic skill such as not completing development or not evaluating your opponents threats, etc. This is a normal part of the learning process. If you can identify a key theme in your losses and fix it, your rating should start to rise again.

My name is Lauren Goodkind and I'm a chess coach based in California.  I think everybody has their ups and down days in chess, including me.  Maybe hiring a chess coach to help you analyze games would help you.  That's certainly helped me.  

Please find out why you are losing.  Maybe you are accidently hanging pieces, or don't recognize common tactics?  If you can find out why you are losing, then take action to not make those errors again.   

   Remember, the most important thing about playing chess is having fun, right?    

Dear EmilioFausto,

I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.

You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals.

In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.

I recommend you to solve around 4-5 puzzles before playing games. It's not the best if you solve too many puzzles (e.g. 20-30 pcs) because you'll be too tired for the game.

On the other hand, solving too many puzzles in a row can be dangerous because you can lose your patience quickly and you won't think on the right way. The quality is more important than the quantity! It's much more useful for you to solve only 10 puzzles per day with at least 80% accuracy than solving 50 puzzles per day with 60% accuracy.

You have to think ahead without moving the pieces and make your move when you see the solution from the start till the end. This is very important! That's how you can improve your visualisation and calculation skills on the most effective way!

And that's why I would never recommend you to play too many Puzzle Rush or Puzzle Battle games because they are time-limited, so you have to make fast and superficial decisions. And this is very harmful if you really want to improve at chess.

Of course, you can try this '4-5 puzzles before the game' method and if you feel that you are able to solve more without being too exhausted for the game, you can increase the number of the puzzles. But again...quality over quantity!!

I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck for your chess games!

Thank you all for the helpful answers! I will definitely try your tips. I analyze almost every game I play (no matter if i won or lost) and like you said I don't see the idea behind why a move is a mistake or even a blunder. My problem is not that I don't see when my peaces are hanging. While analyzing my games I've often seen that I lose in a winning position.

congrats!

I wonder if you have considered burnout. I think sometimes I can play too much and it is especially damaging to my rating when I want to break a losing streak and I just keep losing. I say this as a possibility for you only and if you think it might be the case then you could examine factors such as how many games you play and have a good lifestyle with rest, exercise etc. Perhaps playing fewer games and analysing them may help you in the long term. 

I don't think I have a burnout. I'm not playing that much games.

If your rating change is correlated with your shift from 10|0 to 15|10 games, then perhaps it's not a decrease in playing strength but rather a difference in the player pools. I'm not sure how much crossover there is between rapid time controls. I personally have only played 15|10 so far.

Hello I am Iranian.

That's what I thought too. 10/0 is the default pool so it pretty much has to be softer. Plus 15/10 is a way, way different game given the extra time and no danger of being flagged. I like 10/0, but it is sort of an island unto itself and really doesn't fit the rapid or blitz pool. 

I'd suggest OP not panic and learn to use the extra time. When I try 15/10 I feel like I'm being careful but then I look up 20 moves in and see 14 minutes on the clock. 

Thank you all for the good advice! My losing streak is now over .

I dropped from 1367 to 890 in around 2 weeks

congrats!