Shattered Confidence

@Civilian366

 

I also said my friend died a day or so before that so I was kind of in a manic state of binge play. Pretty much as a distraction from the depression I was feeling over that. Bad idea and I paid for it. 🤦 And as I said I'm switching my approach to analysis after that slew of horribly played games.

I don't know about you, but personally, when I don't feel the best, I like to seek unrated rapids, which I find relaxing. Maybe that's not for everyone, but I find it nice.

Admittedly, I'm not as systematic in my approach to chess as you are (I actually play a lot of non-serious chess, especially on this account), but I can't imagine playing casual games like this hurts much.

The “right” books are going to be case-by-case generally speaking. For instance a player who flails from one opening to another might consider Fine’s The Ideas Behind The Openings (dated though it might be). 

You might begin here https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-art-of-attack-in-chess

That said, any book by a World Champion will be of value (though some of that Karpov stuff is just too technical). Also, Nimzowitch is a good fall back.
 

“What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Looking at your profile you’ve progressed very consistently. It was just a matter of time when you were going to hit a small hurdle in your progression.

I myself go through a lot more wild swings in my rating, and it used to leave me fairly frustrated. But eventually you just accept it. I look at it from a couple different perspectives now.

One is to realize chess is obviously mentally taxing, so playing at your “peak” rating isn’t sustainable. You can’t run all out all the time. Eventually your brain is going to slow down and you’ll be just jogging for a bit. That cruising speed (running analogy still) is a level where you can just casually play games and just kind of go through the motions. Enjoy that while you’re in it. As you progress your peak rating will become just a jog and won’t be as taxing. Then you’ll grab another couple hundred points, and repeat. The climb then continues.

Secondly, understand that the algorithm/rating systems are designed to pull all the players to a 50 50 win loss split. We are all being pushed to a balance point constantly. It is inevitable and just a part of online chess. This coupled with the first point, means there will always be rises and falls. It’s actually kinda great. You learn a lot about yourself through it.

And finally, with regards to your recent struggle, another stoicism quote.

“Loss is nothing but change, and change is nature’s delight.”

Rewiring defeat/loss/anything negative into an accepting perspective is a most beautiful trick.

Late to the party here but wanted to reach out and give my condolences concerning your friend and sympathy in the temporary rating dive- it happens, and I know it can be frustrating. Many others have offered ample advice already but from a more mentality aspect I’d recommend working on your performance and less on your results. You can play good chess, execute some good ideas and still not win the game. An example is playing a competitive game against a stronger opponent and still have a loss as a result. I’m happy to hear you’ve got a coach, they should be able to help you get through the chess barriers you face along your chess journey and provide more specific training ideas for you to help you improve. It’s a marathon and not a sprint, pace yourself and aim for the long term goal of improvement and less on short term rating gains/losses. As noted already, your progression is clearly good as your graph over time demonstrates. Remember how far you’ve come already, and how daunting crossing 1,000 seemed back in the day. You crossed it. No reason you can’t cross 2,000 someday. 

-Jordan

Hello BixFoxy,

although you already got a lot of replies, your story touched me a lot, because it reminds me a lot of my own chess journey. And I have to share with you some of my insights and secrets of dopamine and human psychology. In case you are interested, idk maybe you just want to share your pain and that's it.

First: It is never enough. The human brain is wired in a way to always try to best itself, to learn, to get better, it is not interested in stagnation - as soon as stagnation happens, it feels frustrated or loses interest completely. The main reason for this whole system, trying to reach 2000 is not just, because it is a goal - it is the constant search for dopamine and serotonin and 2000 is considered to be special, it's a round even number, something that makes you feel relaxed. Is it a coincidence that nobody has the goal to become a 1947 rated player? Many people share the same goal as you and the elo system doesn't allow everyone to be 2000 just as it doesn't allow more than one world champion. It's like with money. Not everybody can be rich.

On my journey I realised that I made most progress when I was finally relaxing. Relaxing reduces fear and stress and you actually have more concentration for what you are doing. Being not so depend on the outcome of the game by doing other things in life successfully too, also helps in being focused and relaxed in chess. You realize the more you climb up the rating latter the more important other physical factors beside chess knowledge become.

Second: You feel stupid. Why? There is no need to feel stupid, as chess success is NOT directly linked to intelligence. It is much more about the time investment. Did you study 10.000 master games in detail? I haven't. I probably won't do. I always wanted a master title, but if I realise that it would cost me my whole entire life, I'm not so sure anymore if it's really the way to go.

Third: You have high goals. Too high. Waaayy to high. I've been playing and studying chess for 5 years now. I have read the endgame book by dvoretsky for example and I've watched dozens of streamers and youtubers. Still, it's not even easy for me to reach 2000 FIDE or on chess.com when my dream goal was actually to reach 2200 or 2300.

Trust me, it's never enough. For me it is much more joyful to beat a CM occasionally and to know that I am better than 99% of the world than to beat my self up for not being better than 99,99% like masters are. What is even the point? Only the top 50 chessplayers are rich, the top 500 are okay, the rest is poor. I'll never get there anyway. Better to have a relationship, a girlfriend, a job, a carreer, write a book, go travelling - if you want with a chessboard, why not - than to know if c6 or Nc6 are better in a position.

Everyone tilts/plateaus, don’t worry.

I wanted to share an anecdote that is super recent for me and kind of relevant.

I know it's been stated here multiple times that it's not good to play tons of rapid games at once. Well, I'm not very systematic about my chess play and I....completely disregarded that advice.

Over winter break I played like 70-100 rapid games all at once (on my alt, so don't go looking for them on this account) for two days (I don't even know how I did it). And the more I played, the worse I played and I quickly dropped like 150 points in rating (I was holding a reasonably consistent rating in the previous 40 rapids I played).

I thought I was just bad, and maybe that was my real level. As an aside, I enjoy playing 1 min bullet for fun, so I did some of that too, but after my spam of rapids I also started dropping rating like crazy in that time control. From 1505 to 1280, which is a huge drop even for bullet. I'm typically about a 1450-1500 player in 1 minute bullet games. So I think the rapid spamming just fried my brain a bit (aside from being not very productive in terms of actually learning).

I decided I need a bit of a break, so I stopped playing games entirely except for some casual rapids I played with a ~1000 rated player today. However, I did play some bullet today, mainly because I see bullet as more of a way to relax. Previously I was genuinely struggling against ~1300 rated players but today I won 5 out of 6 very easily (overlooked something in one game), which is exactly what I expect for a 1450-1500 rated player playing a couple of ~1300s. Taking a break made a huge difference and reset my mind.

So just to reiterate, I would say, don't underestimate the effect that mental/physical health, or even just the mental strain that comes from playing too many games, can have on your performance.

Also, one note I'll make is that when playing opponents rated about 100 points lower than your true strength, you can still expect to lose about 40% of the time mathematically. Psychologically, at least for me, those losses against lower rated players tend to tempt me to go on tilt, but that isn't too logical because you would expect to lose some games anyway. So overall, I would encourage you to be patient with yourself, and don't stress out too much.

 

(small edit/note: my bullet is low rn, but that's expected as I've been playing on mobile today. I'm generally 1200 or so on phone)

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

"So just to reiterate, I would say, don't underestimate the effect that mental/physical health, or even just the mental strain that comes from playing too many games, can have on your performance."

Thats very true - you wouldn't spend 4 hours in the gym and expect to be performing anywhere near your best, would you? I find that after a couple of longer games, it all starts to go downhill. Time to stop playing and do something else.

I can’t remember exactly, but some months ago didn’t something similar occur where your pet died? What helped you cope then. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Build on that. Be motivated.

yeah what he said. persevere.

Now I’m tilting too, even blundering simple tactics :(