How to get out of a slump?

I played a lot of chess when I was a kid, but then stopped for a couple of decades. I decided to pick it up once again some time ago. At first I had a bad "blindness" problem, in that I would constantly be completely blind to some piece of mine hanging. However, once I got mostly rid of that problem, I relatively quickly raised to about 1450 here at chess.com (in 15|10 timing), where I remained about stable for some time.

Now I have hit a strange barrier, a slump, where I keep losing tons of games. I lose perhaps something like 80% of all games I play. I have dropped at worst back to the 1360's. And this slump just seems to continue.

I'm not citing those rating numbers because I would be obsessed with them. I'm not. I'm just citing them to give a picture of my current strength. The major problem is that constant losses gnaw at my very motivation to keep playing.

This is not the first time this has happened to me in a board game. This happened to me in Go, but a hundred times worse. When I started playing Go years ago, I started at a normal 20 kyu rating, and over the timespan of a few years I steadily rose to 4 kyu, which is relatively decent for an amateur casual player. (My proudest moment was playing a live tournament as a 4 kyu, where I won 3 games out of 5, one of those victories being just magnificent.)

Then I hit a barrier really, really bad. I started losing tons and tons of games, and I couldn't understand why. I lost to my estimate between 80 and 90% of all games I played. Losing streaks are, of course, completely normal in all games, but this wasn't just a regular losing streak where you lose most games you play over a few weeks or months. No, that losing streak continued for two entire years! The first year I played regularly, as always, and I struggled and struggled. I tried everything under the sun to break the streak. Any advice you can think of, I can guarantee I tried it (short of moving to Japan or China to study in a Go school). Taking a break? Focusing on Go problems for a while instead of playing games? Getting a tutor? All you can think of, I tried. It didn't help. Everybody kept telling me that barriers are normal, and that it will pass. They kept telling me that for a year, and it didn't pass. After that year, that's when I started slowly losing interest in the game. I struggled for another entire year, playing less and less frequently as the months passed by, until I stopped playing completely.

As said, that was like a hundred, perhaps a thousand times worse than this minor slump I'm having with chess right now. After all, I have been having this losing streak for just a few weeks. However, I'm already getting that way-too-familiar eery feeling of slowly losing interest in the game due to the constant losses, and I would really like not to stop playing. The game is nice, relaxing, and intellectually invigorating. But the constant losses may cause me to lose interest.

I wonder what I should do.

.. 2, suggestions ; Play, a  s-l-o-w-e-r, time-control ; & maybe, the following video, will help. {!?}

 

You reflected already a lot on the reasons for the losing streak or strategies how to overcome it.

You should perhaps know that it is normal to have a strong improvement in the rating at the beginning and later lose a lot of points, stabilising at a lower level. My rating in the beginning of chess.com was rather fast, but I lost a lot of points after a while. Now I am coming close again to my prior rating.

I would say you should start playing only Daily Chess, only two games simultaneously. Spend a lot of time before making the moves and much more time analysing the game (if possible with help of a much stronger player). Good player analyse a lot, weak players prefer to play the next game and repeat the same mistakes. And they stay weak, of course.

It is a good idea to train regularly, and focus more on e training when you feel you stuck or I losing motivation. I am training mostly in Chessable, opening, tactics and endgame. If I feel I am playing like a beginner, I spend more time reviewing my stuff in Chessable. With the time you get better - you will overplay your opponents in the opening, spot more tactics, defend better, or force exchanges to get a better endgame. But solid improvement needs time.

Change you mind set.

Go With Da FLOW, man, log on, play 1 game a day (usually online), 30 min or so. The exception is a OTB tournament. Analyse ALL GAMES on a computer, AND with other people (you can post some on this forum), get lots of rest, and eat healthy foods. 

Many forums deal with how to end a slump (myself included creating one at one point), however, everyone is different and what may work for person A - may not work for person B. I can really only give encouragement and offer POSSIBLE reasons why this slump occurs; I hope at least one of these solves your problems:

The following is merely off the top of my head and are not in any order, other than order of thought:

1) Rating fluctuates naturally anyway, and most do not know by how much. I sometimes for no reason I can pinpoint drop into a slump perhaps even up to 150 rating points. Luckily, talking with others reveals this to be actually more common than one would think due to the nature of the rating system we have. Do not lose your confidence and it may return to the high rating you were before.

2) Perhaps you are (consciously or not) incorporating new strategies, openings, tactics etc. and your rating simply drops; I find that my rating often drops quite a bit before I skyrocket to a new personal high (If this sounds somewhat frustrating, it is).

3) Maybe you are experiencing from a "chess burnout" where your mind is getting "burnt out" in which case a break is needed. I find this one really rare though for "slumps" (at least for me) but it is possible, especially many games of quicker time controls. With any mental activity of critical thought, studies show that our human brains perform best in bursts of perhaps 20 minutes at a time before a break is needed. This applies to learning in general (like school work, which is why people say you should study in 20 minute bursts), writers block is sometimes said to function in a similar way (or anything of creative thinking needed), and not surprisingly high calculation activities such as chess. For some people a break after a game or two helps a lot even if only for 10 minutes or so, if this "burnout" is severe, perhaps a break of a day or two is best.  

4) You are dropping in rating because you have not gone back to look at the fundamentals, even GMs constantly review the basics. The chess player will often see things differently at different levels, so looking back at "old" material is often extremely helpful. 

5) You are maybe not "learning" from your mistakes, therefore repeating them, and making the bad habits worse - resulting in dropping pieces, and losing to tactics a player rated several 100 points lower could see. If this is the case, study your games to see what went wrong or how a game could have been easier for you; this is best done with no assistance with a physical board, but a computer analysis can often be beneficial too, if used properly. Play longer time control games, and check your moves before you move: "If I go here, are any pieces hanging?" "Are there any immediate threats?" What is my opponent planning right now?" and so forth, even a 10 second check can help eliminate these troubles significantly.

These are just a few possible reasons provided from my own experience. I recommend looking at basic endgames if you are rated approximately what you are, you may have seen them before, but it is a good place to start if you want to look back at "old" material - you may see it a bit differently than when you learned it. Practice converting an extra pawn, checkmate with two Bishops, and basic endgames like that, they will help converting to wins often times. 

I hope this impacts you for the better - Good luck breaking the slump, I have complete confidence in your abilities, as I know you will accomplish what you set your mind up to.

 

 

.. Courtesy of this website, as of, no more than 25 min. ago !

https://www.chess.com/blog/EOGuel/path-to-chess-prosperity-18-shaking-off-rust

Already down to 1332, and the downwards spiral just continues. I suppose before long I'll have dropped to the 1200's, and then to the 1100's.

You are not in a slump. You are just not playing as well as you would like, and, sometimes your opponent plays better than you. Your rating, which may or may not be reflective of your true ability, is only down about 120 points from it's all time high. The vast majority of chess players have ratings that are below their all time high. Plus you've only played about 140 games. Half wins, half losses, and a few draws. To me it seems like your play is extremely normal, far from a slump. 

Well, I just found this blog because I've also been in a slump and was wondering how to get out of it!  It does make you feel stupid when you lose almost every game just because of dumb moves, so much so that after awhile you stop caring.  Maybe it's time for a break...

Take several deep breaths and shake it off.  Close your eyes and gather yourself to regain your fighting spirit.  

 

Go over your recent losses and pinpoint your blunders.  Learn from your losses, learn from your blunders.   You get stronger with all these learnings.  And you will enjoy the fight and appreciate the struggle as you toggle between winning and losing and drawing. 

Look at your losses as an opportunity. An opportunity to discover what you are doing wrong?  [for sure you are making the same mistakes over and over again]

If you know what you are doing wrong--you can improve by trying not to repeat the kind of moves that do not follow good chess theory.

Find someone quite a bit stronger than you who will look at a few of your games. Maybe a 1900 or 2000+ rated player.

He/she should be able to tell you some of your basic mistakes and then you can learn. [ I do not think you are at the point where you can learn much from analyzing your games with a computer.]

Sit up straight

Well, by the looks of it, DJVortex is back again into the mid-1400s. End of slump.

I think I read somewhere here that below 1900 or so, ratings tend to be very volatile. I.e. there is not much difference in skill level between 1300 and 1500 players. So what people may think of as a slump, is merely a statistical blip.

(Or at least, that's what I keep telling myself now my rating has dropped from mid-1500 to the low 1300s. )

If the problem (or one of the problems) you are having is complete blindness to your own pieces hanging, I had that problem for a long time as well. You get over (mostly) that by just playing a lot. With time, and enough gameplay, you learn to see if any of your pieces is hanging and needs protection. (It may take a bit longer to see situations where your piece is not directly hanging, but in danger of being captured eg. via a fork or a skewer, but you learn to see those as well, with enough practice.)

Yeah. At some point I just stopped losing game after game, and succeeded in raising back to my previous level. Maybe it's something psychological, or maybe it's just pretty much luck. Sometimes you just don't see the errors you are going to make, and this may happen in many consecutive (or almost consecutive) games...

With so many chess.com members it is a little odd to say "This is why nobody really plays chess in 2018".

@DjVortex -

From your profile you play exclusively fast time controls....you are unlikely to improve significantly doing this.

Conclusion: By playing fast time controls you have no time to think about what you are doing.  Therefore I suggest that you...

1. Play longer time controls - a higher percentage of your games should be daily chess...so you have time to think about what you are doing...

https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-blitz-and-bullet-rotted-my-brain-don-t-let-it-rot-yours

2. Study fundamentals - learn what you should be doing...

Food for thought here....

Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

 

I couldn't disagree more.  Masters, IM's, GM's etc., didn't reach that level by playing exclusively fast time controls.  However, after having developed their skill by lots of study coupled with playing longer time controls, they do play rapid time controls for fun.  That's ok.  Play rapid chess for entertainment.  But to become good at the game, you not only must study it, you should play at time controls which allow you to think about how to apply what you have studied.  There is a reason why World Championship matches are not played at fast time controls - doing so would not allow the players to produce their best chess.

And consider that no titled player is going to recommend that the way for a beginner-novice to improve their skill at chess is to play exclusively fast, rapid, blitz, bullet, etc., time controls.  

^