Difference between puzzle rating and live chess

1300 rapid 2300 puzzle

I know this hasn't been commented on for a while, but my rapid is 700, bullet 600, and my puzzle rating is 1700. Does anyone maybe have any ideas or tips as to what I'm doing wrong? Many thanks in advance!

But my rapid rating is ~1100, and my puzzle rating ~2500

It means that you are perhaps performing badly at the opening, or not able to see threats (meaning you have to work more on your defensive skills) or you are not able to build up positions where you can use your attacking abilities. To find out what is your case you should make a list of your most common mistakes, like after analysing 50 to 100 of your losses. With this list you will be able to set priorities on your practice. Just by making the list you should improve 100 or more points because you will begin to make less of those common mistakes.

Thanks, this is really great advice! Sorry to be an inconvenience, but could you please suggest how I should approach identifying and naming mistakes; this should be obvious but I'm a bit slow regarding such things! Once again, thank you so much for the help!

First, better would be to have a friend or a coach, someone who is stronger than you, to help you with the analysis. Doing together with someone is funnier and more effective.

One of the best sources for a list of mistakes is chapter 5 in Pump Up Your Rating, by Axel Smith. Here are some points of this chapter.

Don't use an engine. Accepting that we do a lot of mistakes is the first step to accept this task.

I have to go, later I go on.

When analysing focus mostly on the moments that you felt critical during the game. Write down your analysis, the variations you calculated.

Attach every mistake with ?? or ?!. Think about the reasons behind the mistakes.

Check the lines with an engine,. Be curios and check the lines until you understand the moves and evaluations.

Analyse the opening phase carefully.

Make a list of mistakes.

The categories are divided into opening, tactics, positional, thinking model, attitude.

Here some examples of positions mistakes. Wrong plan, bad exchanges, piece placement, misevaluation, missing prophylactic moves, unnecessary prophylaxis overestimating pawn center, overestimating passed d pawn.

450 live; 1500 puzzle

big difference

Someone did the statics comparing these. I don’t remember the link. But if I am remembering correctly I believe puzzles are on average about 800 points higher than your blitz rating. Surprisingly blitz has a better correlation with FIDE and USCF ratings than rapid. So if your puzzle rating is more than 800 points higher than your blitz rating your next chess books should be the two volume manual of positional chess, my system, or at least an entry level book like Silman’s strategy book or the chess bible visual book. If your puzzle rating is only like 1800 but your blitz is 1400 then your actually worse at tactics for your rating level in comparison to the average player. Then you should probably work on being able to better visualize the board and basic tactics next. Lev Alburts comprehensive chess corse books are fantastic, but the tactics for tournament players should be the next read if your puzzles are only a couple points higher than your blitz rating.

Someone did the statics comparing these. I don’t remember the link. But if I am remembering correctly I believe puzzles are on average about 800 points higher than your blitz rating. Surprisingly blitz has a better correlation with FIDE and USCF ratings than rapid. So if your puzzle rating is more than 800 points higher than your blitz rating your next chess books should be the two volume manual of positional chess, my system, or at least an entry level book like Silman’s strategy book or the chess bible visual book. If your puzzle rating is only like 1800 but your blitz is 1400 then your actually worse at tactics for your rating level in comparison to the average player. Then you should probably work on being able to better visualize the board and basic tactics next. Lev Alburts comprehensive chess corse books are fantastic, but the tactics for tournament players should be the next read if your puzzles are only a couple hundred points higher than your blitz rating.

I’ve been 450 rapid for 3 years or so? I recently hit rated puzzles pretty hard and I’ve settled at about 1650 - so its a 1200 delta for me 🤷🏻‍♂️

I remember seeing that. It was very comprehensive. Thousands of players and ratings of all abilities. You are probably right, but I thought it was closer to a thousand point difference. Maybe it was 800 average and the thousand was just for a certain level of player.

I imgine that blitz will only correlate well with slowplay rating for very strong players. My blitz is way lower than my true ability. I keep getting it up to 1600 and then get a cold or something. If I had the determination to only play blitz when I feel great, it would be far higher. Even when I was 1950 FIDE at slowplay, my blitz ability varied wildly depending on how I felt.

I’ve seen players at over 2200 in rapid and only 2400’s in puzzle score. So for them it is approaching a very direct correlation somehow??

I'm 1800 cc, my puzzle rating is 3000+. Peak at 3200

I guess 3000 is very good! Are you doing a lot of puzzles daily?

1050 rapid 2900 puzzles lol

Wow. And I thought my 875rapid, 2300 puzzles was a big gap.

Nah, that's a tiny gap. Seriously, I'm pretty ordinary, and still - my gap.