I reached 1400 in blitz! Weirdly, I think it was harder to play 1100-1200s!

Yay, after strugging for months at around 1200, I improved to the point that I finally broke the 1400 blitz barrier! It's definitely fleeting, and I might be down to 1200s tomorrow, but it's nice to have achieved it once.

Weirdly, I had a much easier time beating 1300s-1400s than I do beating 1100s-1200s. Some of my toughest games (this month!) were against 1150 rated players that just didn't blunder!

I also think that the haywire openings that the 1150s use that are wayyy out of book, makes it harder to play sometimes - at 1300, people tend to play at least similarly to the main lines, so the pawn structure isn't so nutz. At least that's my theory. I'll bet right now, if I played 10 games against 1150s, I'd lose at least 3 of them! 

Anyone else encounter this weirdly backwards difficulty in beating lower-rated opponents?

I don't call it Weird, but it is a fact.

Better players play "normal", like me, the "lower" players try strange openings and positions, known to them but costing me a lot of time in 3 and 5 minutes games.

1400 players blunder like crazy at first chance available

lets play 2 games. I am 2000 in blitz

I killed myself against skotheim2 just now. Be careful 

I'd love to play you! I'd have no expectation of winning, but it's always great to have the rare opportunity to play significantly stronger players. Playing (and losing) against folks 100+ points higher than me is always a special treat for me on chess.com - I haven't kept track, but it seems the majority of my games are played against lower rated opponents, which makes it hard to follow the guideline of 'play slightly stronger opponents.'

I've been looking for a good, consistent computer sparring partner that pushes me just enough to win without blowing me away but haven't settled on one yet. I think training with such a partner would help my game a lot now, as I study a lot of tactics and go over master games here and there, but the problem is often actually incorporating the knowledge into play.

So far, the CPU opponent I like the most is actually the chess.com android app - at least 1400-1600, it seems to set up not-so-obvious tactics (for me at least) that will give you a win if you find it, but it'll otherwise punish you if you miss it. Only problem is that it's on the phone - I hate playing on the phone.  I can't install java at work, so I can't use the web version of the chess.com CPU.

log onto live chess and we can do it

Weird - I looked at my rating literally 2 weeks ago and I was in the 1180s! I swear, I wasn't sandbagging either, plus historically I've been in the 1180-1250 range for a year now so that's where I normally live.

I've been expecting my rating to tank any second now and drop back down to 1150, but I'm hanging in there right now. 

I haven't been doing any crazy study tricks, but I have been doing tactical problems regularly that are slightly harder than the ones I normally do (I get 'em almost all wrong the first time!) I've done this before though, and usually my rating doesn't budge, so it's hard for me to believe this is the magic ticket.

I literally can't explain it - anyone else run into weird 'streaks' like this? It took me like a whole year to go from 1150 to 1200, so it makes no sense to jump 1200-1400 in like 2 weeks. Did chess.com change their blitz ratings recently? That might explain it.

Just a little update - 

I went to various computer opponents and played them to see if I my rating on chess.com is really wacky. 

I picked computer engines with settable ELO ratings, and set the time control to 60 minutes per side, although I found the computer played its moves almost instantly in all cases, and I played blitz-style, finishing almost all the games in <3minutes, and most in < 5minutes. (I've been focusing 3 & 5' blitz lately, no long games doh.)

Fritz - I play it even at around 1850. I played like 40 games against it yesterday, and I have about a 50% score against it went playing 'rated' (no takebacks, can't just stop the game without resigning)  games. Cranked it up to 1950 and it beat the pants off me - not totally crushing, as I could get to endgames and felt like I almost won a third of the games, but all in all, it kicked my rear.

lichess.com which uses Stockfish in "play the computer mode" - I beat it the majority of time at it set at 1800. Only played about 6 games, think I won 4 of 'em. I found Stockfish was a bit bizarro world in its play - did the most nonhuman things - literally will play ok, then throw a piece completely away with zero compensation - not even a 900 player would do that! Then it'll go back to playing as it did.

chess.com Android app (I haven't been playing the PC-versions - no Java) - I play it even at about 1700, but I gotta admit, if I don't concentrate, the 1400 engine will punish me. I actually like this engine the most, because from 1400-1700, it seems to set up a 3-4 move losing tactic at some point, but if you miss it, it'll punish you a bit, kind of like real humans.  

All in all, I honestly can't explain why I made a recent jump in the past 2 weeks of 200 points on chess.com blitz, and for sure some of it is being on a lucky streak, but it's still bizarro world to have been rated 1200-1250 as recently as 2 weeks ago, and stuck at 1150-1250 for the entire year before that,and then suddenly jump entirely past the 1300s into the 1400s.

Weird - I wish I could bottle whatever I did up and drink it again, but I have no idea!