Finding it Hard to Focus During Games

Hey guys,

I don't typically make posts like this, but I'm on my biggest rapid tilt I've had in quite a while, so I thought I'd see if anyone had suggestions.

I've been struggling a lot in rapid recently. I reached my peak of 2430 two months ago, and, after hovering for a while in the high 2300s-low 2400s range, I dropped and have not been able to get back up since (except for two brief games, after which I dropped the next day).  Today, I dropped almost 60 points (2362->2308), and am now at my lowest rating since June.

There's probably more than one reason I haven't been doing well lately, but I feel the biggest contributor is a lack of focus. Specifically, in the last three to four weeks, I just haven't been able to think clearly and have missed relatively basic things constantly or struggled to convert easily won positions.

Just looking for some advice from anyone who has had similar focusing issues. How should I go about getting my focus level back to normal again? Any advice is appreciated.

Start thinking nall

Hi Caden,

That actually happened to me not too long ago, as you can see here:

I think the biggest help (except from doing tactics/your regular stuff) is to change your mindset. I personally think the biggest issue with tilting is to regain your confidence. Especially after losing lots of games when you weren't supposed to. Therefore, when you play don't play under the impression that you are on tilt. The idea here is that there is no way your physical Chess skill could decrease drastically over such a short period of time.

Anyways, people usually recover after a while, unlike me which I was on tilt for a month. Easier said than done.

Also don´t neglect the possible physical aspect of this issue. Chess, especially when taking very seriously, is a very demanding sport. Chronic stress due to private life, intense playing for extended amounts of time, or sleep deprivation make it much more likely to experience negative thoughts like tilt when playing.

Taking care of physical health can help with this - I think having some kind of regular physical activity as a serious chess player is absolutely essential, to counteract the mental workload coming from chess. Daniil Dubov for example is known as a strong calisthenics athlete, too.

Another thing worth checking, if you are very serious about being at top performance level, is nutrition status. Magnesium and B-Vitamins for example are nutrients that many people are deficient in, yet are essential for mental health.

If all things stated above are already in place, probably just take a small break like already suggested. A decrease of around 100 elo with an all time high of 2430 does not seem statistically significant, it probably is just expected to happen from time to time. Just keep in mind that it can happen, but that does not mean you got worse in chess in any way. Eventually you will get out of it and continue improving.

I agree

Do not play deep into the night, and please don't have the "cannot end on a loss" mentality, that's good for blitz or bullet but in rapid you will tire your brain out. I tilted 300 points in 2 days by pulling all nighters to rekindle my rating, get some rest then it will come back naturally.

Pet more cats.

Thanks everyone for the advice! If tilt persists, I will make sure to try these suggestions. I played a bit better today (I actually won games lol), but still definitely not as good as last month. Perhaps this is a good sign though.

It's probably worth mentioning that I almost exclusively play rapid chess late at night. Oddly enough, it just seems to be the time I perform the best, likely due to the fact that there aren't nearly as many distractions.

Great advice though about the mentality of having to end on a win. I've fallen into that trap before and it often just leads to bigger tilt

Go for a run and just do some outdoor activities, that helped me a lot.

Did you pet more cats????????

You’d be shocked to find that this is incredibly common. Truth of the matter is that human fallibility is part and parcel of any chess player’s rank. If you’re in tune with the Super GMs of today (or yesteryear for that matter) you may have heard comments about “2019 Caruana” or “2014 Magnus” or heard comments about how some GM or another has been underperforming this year, or even this tournament. Might be wondering where some up-and-coming youngster went after all the buzz died down only to check and see they’ve fallen into a bit of a slump. Check out the Chess.com YouTube video of the highest rated players of every year and you’ll see that all of them vacillate wildly. Some here have been kind enough to provide photographic evidence of their own slumps, I will be joining the lesser few who merely put in the effort to provide anecdotal testimony. Recently, as in a few months ago, I reached my all-time peak blitz rating of 1906, then saw my rating undertake a meteoric plunge down to 1620 merely a month later! My confidence in my abilities wavered, yes, but I’ve observed this phenomenon before and so I pressed forward. And now I’m rated just below 1900 after re-peaking 1922. 
Don’t lose heart, my friend, keep pressing onward.

I would not put too much weight on a drop of 50-75 points. Ratings for rapid and blitz are unstable and such drops are normal.

Even in classical OTB events, a drop of 50 points can occur if you have a single bad tournament.

in classical OTB chess, performance can be subpar if you are experiencing anything that interferes with cognitive functioning: a cold, a fever, allergies, fatigue, sleeplessness, stress.

if you are concerned about online ratings, don’t play when you are not at your best.

Or a week or 2. When u return ur gonna be more motivated & driven, I believe that enhances focus.

I think people get burned out of they're doing a task too much too often. That's in anything, not only chess.

Thanks for the advice. In general, I like to avoid taking breaks unless I'm convinced the problem is simply burnout, but it's always possible that's the case here.

Thanks. I definitely am most focused on OTB improvement, but in the time in between tournaments, I probably do have a habit of focusing a bit too much on my rapid rating (since it's the most serious chess I play outside of OTB).

Indeed I did lol

I remember when I used to play on here a LOT, and by a lot I mean I would probably play 10-30 games per day + 1-2 online tournaments on chess.com. (on an old account btw). I experienced many of these tilts and rating drops. My worst ones involved dropping 200 points, from 1500 to 1300. I think I can also remember dropping 1450 to 1200 one time.

When I lost a lot of rating points because of being in a negative headspace I would just step away from the game for a bit. Sometimes even for 3 days if I had to. Give your mind some time to reset.

When you come back, don't be discouraged because of your lower rating. Come back to the game knowing that you are capable of playing at the rating level you dropped from. Take things one game at a time and slowly build back up to where you were. When I experienced these lapses in rating I would come back and only play 2-3 rapid games that day and really take time to focus on those games very intently. When I did this, I found it much easier to build back to where I started.