imporvement

why is it that improvement always seems to come in 100-200 rating points at time with long periods of leveling off?

It may be that chess skill (the way I see it anyway) comes in two parts.  The knowledge and the application (theory and practice if you will).  You can learn a lot from books, but then you have to internalize it in a way that you're able to apply it, and then... you actually have to apply it to your games, which can be quite a process.

In the meantime you've likely acquired a good amount of knowledge and lessons from playing... but you can only practice, or try out so many new ideas at once.  This block of new ideas transferring from theory to practice within an individual over the course of many games eventually reaches a point where it crosses over.  Not only have you put into practice 1 idea, but the whole batch as well, and so your results (and your rating) jump at once.

Back to the learning and incubation period, now we have a plateau where you may even get slightly worse as you gather information and try to find the correct practical implementation for the next batch.

This is one way you can think of it anyway.

yes I had a 200 point increase... mind you i think that is a lot easier when you start off sucking...  I was just more wondering about these platues I hit and stay at for along time .. then one day I'm up.  Big.

My biggest short-term rating gains (200-300 each time) have come after leaving chess for a few years. My theory is that mankind gets stupider every time I stop playing chess. So it's all my fault ... CSI Everywhere, George Bush, Lady Ga Ga ... I am so going to burn in hell.

Ah ... someone in the room just pointed out that mankind is getting stupider all the time anyway, and I likely have nothing to do with it.

It may be as much of an error in perception as anything else.

Hmm.

If we ever go to a tournament, I'm driving.