Is This Variance Common For Higher Rated Players?

This is not a tilt and complain thread even though my rapid rating has been dropping a lot lately. I've always had a fairly high variance (rating ups and downs) due to my chess playstyle (positional and often sharp, so it is common I'm ahead a lot of the game and then blow it at a critical moment or two...or get a nice win. Little in-between there). 

I am specifically referring to my Rapid rating over the last year or so. A year is long enough to see trends and even here we can visually see the many severe drops in rating. For those who don't know my personality, I'm usually pretty calm and I don't tilt that much. The 1 year representation doesn't really show this well, but those massive drops are usually 2-3 sittings and not just one session of tilt like many experience. 

I don't think the answer is to just grind playing games and I don't really know what I can do to minimize these severe drops over multiple sessions. If one sitting then it would likely be a stop-loss system or some form of tilt/burnout control, but I'm not sure if this applies here. Maybe it is a form of chess burnout, but over an entire year? 

I ask anyone willing to offer quality feedback, but especially for the 2000+ rapid players of chess.com - how unusual are the intensities of these rating drops and what can I do to combat this in the future? I've been slowly growing my chess YouTube channel, but this isn't that time consuming to my chess, so I don't think that is connected to my rating drops. Any insights?

KesetoKaiba, I'd offer my insight and that is simply the vast majority of playstyles, when you play online, you play someone totally random and their playstyle may simply throw you off, I'd often wonder why I'd lose and lose and lose in Street Fighter, the answer is this very reason here I believe.  It's basically you against the world, so that could be part of it.  I know I know, it wasn't the technically answer you was looking for lol, you was probably looking for something more Chess related but well I think that may be part of it.  

Also we both know how complex Chess can be, so there are a myriad of different Openings, which will result in different middle games, so you combine that with different brains/minds, which will result in different playstyles, combined with different openings/middle games, just complicates everything.  I mean every now and again you're going to bump into something that for whatever reason you can't or don't know how to handle/deal with, again, my days playing SFV competitively taught me this and really in terms of Chess, it's the same thing when you think about it. 

Alright I reread the post and I don't think there is anything you can do to avoid any massive drops, other then to try and learn from your losses which I know you know already.  Again, keep in mind the random nature of playing random people online, you're going to get these massive spikes and some times you'll go on a winning streak.  I had the same issue, it's frustrating for sure, I used to go days without losing a single game, then I go on a bit of a losing streak and think I'm not that great a player etc, but we both know I'm a champion of grand-patzers!

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Idk , though I challenge you Seto Kaiba to 10 games of rapid, have fun with my dark magician and exodia

Or I'll summon a egyptia God on you if you pus the envelope

I don't know about 2000+ level chess since I've never been there but I don't see any reason why the variance there would be much different than any other level.

The graph looks fairly normal to me. If there was a massive drop down to 1600 and back then that would be out of the ordinary. Losing 100 points and having to grind them back again is pretty normal.

There is the one section in May 2022 where you did particularly badly so it would be a good idea to look over those games and see whether you were making more mistakes than usual at that time. Either it was bad luck (e.g. getting paired with underrated players or reaching specific positions that you are weaker at) or bad play or some combination of the two.

Anyway, you are still in the top 0.3% of players on chess.com so hats off to you.

oh

hm 0.3, is that so? players of 1900+ belong to 0.3%?

It's definitely a psychological thing, or perhaps even time management? There's so many factors that can result in a loss of rating at this level, it's probably best to improve your sleeping conditions + balance your exercise/outside time so that you can maintain a good psyche heading into your games.

Regardless, best of luck with reaching 2000 once more! I will say that these drastic drops in rating happen even after you are comfortably above the 2k mark so don't worry too much haha.

Apologies if I couldn't offer too much insight

Your profile shows you've only played 1 game of Rapid @slaveofjesuschrist but it looks like your main time control is bullet. I hardly ever play bullet and I don't think I'm good at it, but blitz I'm okay even though I rarely play it. 

Tell you what, we could try playing 10 unrated games of 5 min blitz and perhaps you can get a feel for what you think I struggle with and what I'm okay with. Obviously blitz isn't going to be super instructional, but some blitz might at least give an idea of where my chess weaknesses are at...

What are you doing up so early lol jk, ahhh let me know how those games go  

Ok, well, I'll give an answer I haven't given before i.e. assuming you already do obvious things like having a routine, getting good sleep, diet, warmup puzzles or games...

I used to have this habit every day after work -- I'd relax by playing 1 hour of this stupid single player video game probably no one has ever heard of. I'd gotten good enough that I was playing on the hardest settings and challenging myself to set new peak performances, and as time went on I noticed something strange. Some days I did well and some days I did very poorly, and it didn't even seem to be linked to my mood or energy level or focus or anything I was conscious of... and this was very interesting to me, because I wanted to figure out how to be consistent because I was always pushing for a new peak performance.

My answer is in two parts. First is a fundamental truth:  you don't have complete control over how well you play, and I'm talking about a whole day. Sometimes a whole day is just bad, which means sometimes multiple days in a row are just bad. This becomes painfully obvious when you consider any high level competition whether it's the world chess championship, or the Olympics, or anything else. There are endless stories of superior competitors losing on the day of the big event because they weren't at their best. If it were possible to force yourself to be at your best, then sports psychologists and elite competitors and all the related people would have figured it out by now. And believe me, they already account for everything (diet, sleep, meditation, routine, you name it). Ups and downs are simply unavoidable if you play often.

The second part to the answer is you do actually have some control, but you have to pay even more attention than I was when I was during my video game thing. It's not only about mood and energy and focus, you have to start paying attention to what you are doing when you play well vs poorly. How many lines are you calculating? How deeply? When do you stop, and why do you stop calculating? How often are you trusting your intuition, and how often is it correct? When it is correct, why is it correct, as in what kind of positions etc etc...

... to some extent you can force yourself to play in a good way if you spend a lot of time closely observing yourself (so to speak) during good and bad sessions because then you can emulate the details of what makes good play happen...

... but mostly this self observation is useful because you'll discover your control is not absolute. Sometimes you simply play poorly, and so ultimately, if you want to avoid rating dips, your best strategy is to identify your poor condition quickly, and choose to not play at all... and like I said, this isn't "oh I'll come back to it an hour later" because it can be an all day thing. It can be a multiple day thing.

I have surpassed 2100+ and recently dropped to -2000. According to my view you must avoid compulsive play, because that wont reach you to a realistic elo. Just three games a day, some tactics and some pages of your favourite chess book. Otherwise you wont be learning.

Also, you could be getting bored of your middlegame positions. Maybe you need to try out new stuff. Im happy learning the Alekhine and the Larsen attack rigth now and my ratings are growing again quickly.

Another toxic comment from you, please leave me alone, I thought I blocked you? 

I mean... as much as I dislike you... I admit that's a reasonable request...

Ok fine, I'll avoid interacting with you and delete my comment.

Well you can delete it like you deleted the last toxic comment you put up about me on the other post but you can't delete my post and I've already quoted what you said, so everyone here knows what you said and just how toxic you can be towards someone you "dislike" for no good reason.   

Don't bother little buddy it's real simple, just leave me alone that's it that's all I ask because I've already blocked you here but clearly this site doesn't do a very good job of blocking someone when you can still see or in your case, harass, someone that you've blocked, if you dislike me then leave me alone, don't stalk and harass me on every post that you see me on because you're mad about what you think I do or don't do in a board game. 

Are you an adult? Please act like it, surely you can show some maturity and some decorum friend, instead of acting like a spoiled school yard brat who's "mad" because he doesn't like another kid in the yard for no good reason, or are we still in the third grade lol .....#toxicwasteland 

Yes, I'm still asking you to leave me alone, there is nothing for us to do, you and I were done before we ever began, when you came at me rude and toxic for no good reason at all!  Thanks, please stop harassing me!  Pretend like I don't exist and that's all I got to say to you and yes you're right I'm trying to be polite as possible! 

K

I have found a similar thing happening to me. I will hit a peak say 50-100 points above a previous one, then slowly fall back down, then climb up, then sharply fall down… and it seemed like the only way I actually continued climbing regardless of skill was to play 1-2 games a day and nothing more, hence I hit 2250 rapid.