Breaking a horrible run

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mrblackbat

Went on a shocking run yesterday, and it's continuing today, dropping a good 130 points or so in ranking with a run of just 4 wins in 30 games. Would have been worse except for a little run of a few wins on the trot at the end of the day, but already undone those today.  

What are your approaches to turn things around?

Pomni6969

It's called tilt, and it happens to everyone (even GMs). Personally, I also lost a lot of games, and went from ~2200 Rapid to ~2130 Rapid. Maybe the best thing to do is to not care that much about rating. Caring about rating leads to you just "Playing one more game to recover some elo" and then losing 10 games in a row.

marklovejoy

Agreed, #2.

mrblackbat

Yeah there was definitely a "one more game will break the run" thing going on. Whilst also being really annoyed at myself so continuing to play stupidly....

mikewier

Ratings for rapid. blitz, and bullet are fairly unreliable, so you can expect large swings. If your true skill level is 1000, you will fluctuate between 900 and 1100. So a drop of 150 or even 200 points is not necessarily “tilt.” It may just be a correction.

RubberSoul54
I feel your pain. I thought I was playing well and then couldn’t buy a win. But, I was playing lousy and not being very attentive.
ChessMasteryOfficial

Look for patterns in your recent losses.

Sobrukai

Rating swings are - as @mikewier suggested - quite common, especially at lower elo. I suggest taking a break from playing chess for just a few days to give yourself a mental refresh so you can come back to the board calm and ready to play.