Give it to me straight. If I am under 1000 elo after almost 2k games w/ studying, am I simply dumb?

Honestly it's probably just being around people

I have played 2,995 games. I got to 1020 on a lucky streak, but my rating still sits stably at around 900.

There are people who are fast learners. There's someone I met who went from new to 1300 self-taught with no formal coaching, in around a year.

But there are also average people like you and me, who are not blessed with that gift. And it sucks.

I'll be honest, I have no idea how to react to this reality either. It's one of those hard truths we just have to... live with. Some people are born greater than us. You could train your entire life and still be beaten by someone who hasn't trained at all, and that's true for any skill. It's completely unfair.

But I guess all we can do is work with what we've got, right? A lot of people support you, and are improving alongside you. Some faster than you, some slower than you, all wanting to reach quadruple digits.

You're not dumb. I think it's normal for this to happen, especially if you have no formal coaching and are self-taught. That one 1300 guy is the exception, not the rule.

In fact, people who learn fast might not get a sense of accomplishment from reaching such a high rating, since it's so easy for them. They may be harder on themselves when they do make a mistake, because it "SHOULD be easy." Fast learning is a double-edged sword. If you're learning fast, but not feeling a sense of accomplishment when you reach your goal, is the learning even worth it? We, however... We have to work for it. So when we finally reach a stable 1000, we know that we won, even without all those genetic advantages. And it'll feel SO much better.

Don't give up, we're in this together. You've got this.

@BennyBlanco_Bronx "Enjoy life, a life with chess as your beloved game. One day I will go over, or fall from my 999, and the Earth will still be going around the Sun, my wife and cat will still love me. You will still be loved as well, whatever your "online chess rating" is."

I'll be honest, this is a big part of my fear and stress. I feel like if I don't have this, I have nothing, and I will be unlovable. If I can't love myself, what chance does anyone else have? This is obviously going beyond chess at this point, but that's likely the source of my stress. People will think I am a loser if I'm anything below fantastic at the game.

Hoenetly not sure what rating I was beforehand cause I started between 1200-1600 when I joined chess.com(got to 2000 within a year). with the right amount of practice people will probably get to 1600 within year or two. but honestly that takes a lot of effort and really knowing yourself and your play style how to improve etc and that's hard for beginners to understand . If you can figure out how to self teach effectively it's insanely helpful but that's also one of the things in chess that's hardest to learn . But honestly 2000 games and around 1000 elo is normal. And if you have this all or nothing mentality you will get stuck XD you'll get suck anyways but it's not helpful .

@GraysonKellogg My problem is largely that I can't accept that I'm average. It feels so incredibly defeatist. Average sucks. A huge part of my self image is being a smart fast-learner, but the more I realize that's a total lie the more it hurts. It should be easy for ME. I should be that fast learner. I was until something inside of me broke. I got to 900 from nothing, no training or anything. I knew the first 3 moves of the London and then I just winged it. I had the genetic advantage, where did it go? And no frankly, it's not going to feel better because we started bad, at least not for me, and we are not winners. Feeling good about getting 1000 is loser talk, and I want no part of it, but that's just ego talking. I thank you for your kindness though, that does help me. I really should save this stuff for my therapist.

Fast learners arnt always good at chess can't be good at everything I did have prior experience playing with friends before hand which helped me out but if your completely new (or even if you do play with friends ) you'd probably be in the 100-300 elo range and 800-1800 in a year or two

@BigChessplayer665 Isn't being able to get kind of good at everything in a relatively short time the point of being a fast learner?

Tbf chess is a pattern recognition game it's not exactly the same as "oh memorize this line quickly and suddenly I'm good "

@BigChessplayer665 That is true. Fast learner I guess really applies to openings more than anything

I am a retired college professor of psychology. So I have decades of experience with teaching, as well as professional knowledge about cognitive processes such as learning.

In college, the expectation is that every hour of class lecture should be supplemented by three hours of outside work (reading, exercises, projects, studying, etc.), in which students actively process the class material. It is this active processing that produces actual learning.

A common problem that I see on chess.com is that people think that playing blitz or watching videos is “studying” chess. It isn’t. if you watch a video, you then need to think about what you learned. When you play, you need to actively think about applying the lesson. If you get caught up in grinding speed chess, then you aren’t applying the lesson and so both the video and the games played are worthless.

Stop worrying about the outcome of the game. Forget about the rating. Focus on the lesson. When you can follow the principles you learned, your results and rating will improve.

Average sucks...ow

True the best advice I've seen is just analyze your games after and try to figure out your mistakes without an engine then apply new strategies in-game blitz or no blitz.Long games 100% help but I just like making sure begginers have proper time management first. you can't be spending only ten minutes in a 60 minute game which is what alot of people do at that point just switch to blitz or practice time management most people probably aren't going to be thinking for more then 5-15 minutes to start anyways as they won't even know what to think .I would actually suggest longformat games with a coach that helps you walk though positions to develope a thought process that is more helpful if you don't know any time management skills then just playing random 60 minute or ten minute games and your using the time in game efficiently to walk though stuff and come up with ideas. But most people either can't or don't do that so.

I'm just giving my own advice cause it might be helpful to others since I learned by myself I didn't have any coaches and learning with a coach requires a different style then someone who's never had one tho I'm not a phycologist but I do know how to get good at specifically chess and iv seen a lot of people give advice that's more coaching based rather then just learning by yourself .

You're completely correct and honestly it's a problem that I need to accept I have and get over. I don't do dedicated learning, mostly arrogantly, though a bit of anxiety as well. This is why I struggled in college too.

Honestly, you are NOT the only one feeling that. I should be a fast learner, too. But unfortunately, things happen.

The flame flares, flickers, fails, falls.

Showing ourselves, we refrain, the child inside us, already slain.

I definitely get what you mean, man. Everyone is suffering through the same problem. If you want, we can be chess.com friends and play games together, it might help us improve!

If I may add another dime to this, let me tell you about anothrer "side hobby" I have: music. I can say with some certainty that I am a sort of "musician", specialized in the electric guitar. Not a "virtuoso", not a great player, but I have managed to put music together, in a coherent and pleasing way, enough for some people to go out their way and listen to me. My music, I may say, is "good" music. Though I have never worked on marketing it etc., it has recurring listeners around the world, people I have never seen in my life got some of my music into their spotify playlists. All I did is sign up for distribution services (Distrokid), and they send out my songs to a plethora of streaming services. The only platform I follow the numbers on to check my "performance" is Spotify. These are my "numbers" for the last 12-month period on Spotify:

In one year, a certain set of my songs got listened more than 1000 times. This means that some of my music was listened to, on average, 100 times a month.

Okay, what has this to do with our chess thing? Well, music is VERY IMPORTANT TO ME. I have dedicated a LOT of time to it. I learned how to play instruments (bass, drums, keyboard), I learned how to "play" the virtual instruments that I can't have physically (Brass sections) and use them correctly in my compositions, I learned timing, melody and harmony principles to be able to put a piece of music together. I studied, by myself, how to mix and master music tracks. Nonetheless, though I have put all that work into music, I don't have any "significant" result, in terms of audience, compared to the industry standards. Will I think less of me because of that? NO. I enjoy so much the PROCESS of composing, recording, choosing the right tones for my guitars (what amplifier will I use? what speaker? what will be the mic position infront of the speaker? etc.), the right sound for the drums, the right bass lines, the right ambience for the overall composition while mixing etc. One 5 minutes d#mn song takes at least 60 hours to be finished, and yet, they have like less than 1% of "listening time" of what they needed to be made. I am a less-than-average musician, despite all the time and effort I have put into music. It doesn't matter the ammount of detail and crafting I have dedicated to each track: no one ever reached out offering to buy the rights for one of my song and use it in a movie, series or whatnot. No other musician ever reached out to me offering a parternship due to "how awesome" my music is. All that I have are quiet, less-than-10k-a-month streams by anonymous people. I am nothing, and I am ok with it.

I love music, and I won't let what I love to become a burden. I love chess, and it goes the same way (remember: despite all the effort I have put into chess, even coaching sessions with an NM for the last year or so, I just can't go beyond 999). You love chess, don't let what you love become a burden.

Chess is just a game. Your ability at it doesn't define who you are as a person. Recognize that your self worth is defined by who you are as a person - your values, your morals, how you treat others, your resilience, your passions ...

That said, if you're stagnating at chess, it simply means that there are mistakes in your play that you are continuing to make.

To correct these, you need to analyze better. More thoroughly. Try to find at least one thing that you could've done better - something that you can understand and remember for the future.

Do this with every game you play. Don't get lazy with it. If you're looking at a game and you can't find anything to learn, then you're not done analyzing yet.

...

I like to say that playing is just to practice and hone what we already know. But analyzing is where learning and improvement occurs. If you want to keep climbing, you have to put more effort into how you analyze and review.

I have been moving chess pieces for 20+ years and still play like trash

dayum... I looked at your stats. 1400 blitz would be a Life Achievement for me! hahahahahaha