My personal thread- Getting my old skill back ?!

Hello everyone in the chess community !

Some of you might remember me here, I used to be Roeczak and Firestone19 (that was my phone account)

So here is what my story is, I used to be at around 1900-2000 (FIDE) skill level (my OTB rating was and still is around 1850 beacuse i didnt play a lot of tournaments, but the average perf rating was about 2000)

About a year ago i took a break from chess because i had to study for my exams to get to university.

Now that my exams have ended I will start playing again and hope to be back to live tournaments by the end of summer. However I do see a significant drop in my playing skill (around 100-150 points) which i have to cover before i actually get into OTB again. I hope I can be at my old level or even had improved a little by january when is the teams' championships here in Greece

How do you think i can try to get my old skill back quickly? Any other feedback will be appreciated as well.

Cheers
AKJett

Seems the forum got a lot more unresponsive while I've been absent...

Yeah a chess related topic won't draw much attention here lol. I'd say play a bunch of games and do plenty of tactics. Anytime I've taken a long break, the thing I notice the most drop off in is tactical awareness.

That is what i am trying to do. Also i will read again some of the chess books i have to get a good strategical game again. 

I actually broke 1900 again in blitz here which probably means I'm on the right track. I will try to play more long games (15+ min).

Edit: I used to hover at around 2000 in blitz

I've recently returned to chess after several years off.  In general, I've found that my understanding hasn't diminished, but my execution has.  That is, I still know all the positional motifs: avoid weak pawns, passed pawns must be pushed, meet a flank attack in the centre, etc.  Tactical awareness, though, took a big hit, and I fell for some pretty elementary tactics.

Within two weeks of playing practice games and solving puzzles, I was roughly back to my old strength, though a little slower.  After another month or so, I was completely back, and in fact, I kept my studying up and eight months later my online rating had reached its highest ever.  That was my timeframe, at least, so you can use that as a rough guide.

Regardless of how long it takes, whether you do it faster or slower than me, the only way to get back to playing chess is to, well, play chess.  Good luck.

chess is only a supporting act here now since the trolls took over the site, it was a tough battle but they had stinkbombs.

I took a break 40 years ago and came back in 2014.  I have been  brutally passed by the youngest kid in my club (who is 49 years old now). Catching up isn't easy, but I am closing in. I am doing different things to catch up. I think playing longer time controls is most efficient, but I mostly play5-5 and threedays. I let the computer analyze most of the games. I do a lot of tactics with great success when I feel good and disastrous performance when tired or nonchalant.

Most efficient improvement (for me) comes with the otb-longchessgames.

Before going into the Nordstrand Høstturnering in long chess I will deny myself blitz the last 14 days and never play shorter games than 15-10 in those 14 days. That is because I need to calm down the speed before the tournament starts. If not I move to fast and blunder.

Games, Tactics trainers, study a book on strategy (Silman, Seirawan, etc.).

Ok since i had time i played a 15/10 game today, i think i played pretty well, although my opponent resigned a bit prematurely

Indeed, as some people mentioned, and as I myself noticed (returned to chess recently after almost 10 years of merely episodic play), your general chess understanding doesn't suffer from the time of absence, but your execution, the sharpness of your mind does. As such: solve tactics, play games, rehearse openings, and more so than anything else - study your games, look for mistakes, use engine to help you with that, but don't rely on engine extensively. You will be back in shape in no time!