2400 puzzle rating but have gotten stuck in mid 1200s rapid rating

I just reached 2400 rating on the tactics trainer and I am very happy with it. However, my training with these tactics doesn't seem to translate over to my actual game play.

I was able to reach 1200 pretty quickly and have since gotten a little stuck. In trying to find a way to improve, I have started reading Seirawan's Winning Chess Strategies. My thinking being that I know how to find tactics, but I can't seem to get into positions where they start to appear for me.

Has anyone else experienced this type of stall or have any advice?

I am not really offering concrete advice but wanted to share words of encouragement and my experience from being stuck at 1100 and quickly shooting up to 1300 within a month.

You do have respectable key performance indicators such as obviously a strong puzzle rating, 56% winning percentage is solid, you recently beat a higher rated 1465 player (that’s a great milestone). Those are strong signs of playing ability.

You are strictly playing rapid 15/10 and not speed chess which is the correct ingredient. Experts may even suggest longer time controls. I am still stripping poor habits that I picked up from speed chess although I had a lot of fun. I am sure more advanced players can chime in on this for us.

Secondly, I can relate to you and you are far from poor shape. You are actually a better player than you think. I sampled a handful of your games and you got caught with obvious tactics like the queen centred on the king diagonal eying the rook. I see you didn’t have an answer to the fried liver. Perhaps review the Traxler Counter by a Gotham Chess on YouTube. Believe it or not, the Fried Liver is all theory so you won’t be a deer in the head lights next time and you can stop playing moves like a6. I cannot remember the last time playing against the fried liver. I have not seen it against 1300-1900 players funny enough. So maybe don’t learn the Fried Liver haha, it’s up to you. Definitely review basic chess fundamentals. Something I am revisiting myself as we speak.

Basically make accurate moves in the middle game and start studying end games. I was stuck at 1100 for a while but then started studying the middle game and end game, still continuing, shot up from 1100 to 1300 in less than a month. I started getting positions I liked and counter opportunities you can set up those tactics.

Although most of your wins and losses will be decided by a minor piece blunder, but the end game is very important and a critical facet of all strong players have. I’m still working on converting and simplifying games from winning positions. It’s very frustrating when you let your opponent back in the game and draw. I actually had a winning position against a stronger 1600 player not too long ago and had I traded queens, I would of converted the win based on piece activity and pawn structure but I got fancy going for tactics and the mate then ended up losing on time. Wins at the 1300+ level are more decided by accurate play in the middle and end game.

Are you also analyzing every game?

Lastly, play stronger players. I’ve had the great opportunity to play 1900 players and even beat a 1800 player. Play an Arena and you’ll get the opportunity to be paired against stronger players. The down side is, you get weaker players as well. Still a great learning experience.

Keep up the hard work and keep playing. You show promise from what see. Best of luck.

Thanks for the words of encouragement and advice. I will continue playing and trying to improve my opening principles and middle game. It seems that if I play solid chess and get into decent positions out of the opening, I can start taking advantage of tactical positions that appear.

How much time do you spend solving a tactics puzzle?
How much time do you spend on a move during a game?
The time in a game should be more, as in a yactics puzzle you know there is some tactic, while in  a game you have to assume there is a tactic until you are certain there is none.

I have read chess books and played over the games in the chess books. I play all the time controls. My chess ratings were once higher than they are now. I don't focus on my chess ratings. I just enjoy playing chess.

hmmmmm, do more tactics I guess. Try puzzle rush to improve your pattern recognition. Be more patient in your games. Do not go crazy and sacrifice pieces for nothing. There are so many things to look at in chess. Anyway I hoped I helped!

I also had the same problem. I had just hit 1200 rapid and I started to focus on puzzles and soon after I hit 3000, I thought I would destroy the other 1200s but I ended up dropping 100 rating points. After tilting so much, I decided that I would cap my play to 2 games a day and mainly focus on improving my play .I watched big chess creators such as Daniel Naroditsky, Hikaru, and Levy Rozman. I also recommend playing in USCF tournaments to challenge your self, but don't let ratings deceive you, the 1150 USCF rated players I played against were about 1600 or 1700 chess.com .So even though I played poorly during those USCF tournaments, after a while I started challenging them, and soon winning. To sum it all up, set a limit on games to avoid tilting, play higher rated opponents, study more than you play, get a small set of openings and master the theory, and analyze your games. If none of this works then maybe just take a small break for about 3 days to a week.

In regards to puzzle ratings, this may digress but I wonder how the average difficulty of the last 100 puzzles successfully completed compares to our rating. I'm pretty sure it's several hundred points lower than the rating, since minimum 5 points are always given for wins. Certainly also puzzles are skewed to finishing combinations that usually start with a check. They are not geared towards incremental improvements of a positioning leading to a better game. They are not geared towards best defense when in actual play that is as important. So it's just a narrow slice of a game. But a fun slice. Less stressful for me than a game!

I agree with puzzles being just a slice of the game and not helping with the whole picture.

I have found that I was doing so many puzzles that I would treat every position like it had a tactic and make a move that would end up being a blunder or was just 'hope chess'. I stared studying openings and positional ideas more lately and it has stared to click. Now I do a quick run down of potential tactics but if I don't see the continuation, I just make general improving moves. This has led to me slowly improving. This game isn't all tactics. You need to survive and play solid until a tactic presents itself. 

Just hit 2400 puzzles myself. Stopping here for a while to savor it.

One thing I find is that doing puzzles carefully does reduce blunders in complicated middle game positions and not blowing it is at least half the battle. The carefulness translates into higher accuracy probably too. But I don't play more than a few rapid games a week because of the nerves involved. 

I think 2400 puzzle rating is normal for someone that's 1200 rapid.

I've got the same rating difference between my puzzle and rapid rating (3200 puzzles vs 2000 rapid).