hi Firefight94
you focus a little too much on your score.
I've got a sugguestion 4 you. Before starting a game, take your time and watch some games of the topplayers. It helps to warm up the brain, it helps to improve your own game.
Another suggestion is: make sure you can focus all your concentration on the game. If your wife is talking to you while your playing, it will result into a loss.
I think, these few suggestions will increase your rating up to total of about 1800 points.
Good luck!
I think you misunderstand how ratings work. If you win a game, are you suddenly a better player? Or are you the same skill as you were when you started the game?
My interpretation is you were always 15xx and your spike happened when by chance you ran into a streak fo opponents who were overrated / not trying. Then when you came back after a few months your rating re-adjusted to where it had been / should be.
Ratings are only accurate if you play many different players in a population and regularly. Peaks and valleys will always happen (although I admit 200-300 points is a lot, did you trash 1 guy 10 times in a row?) but as you play often and many different players it should stay fairly level.
My rating went from 1500 to 1750 in bullet and from 1450 to 1600 in blitz from hundreds of different players. I actually rarely play the same person twice. I completely understand how the rating system works, which is why I'm so confused.
I try to give my all in each game I play. I don't think this is a matter of concentration.
I remember being dead even at around 1500 in bullet, and then skyrocketing to 1750+ in 2-3 days right after playing bullet games in a slightly faster manner. Whenever I found myself in a tough situation in 1 minute games, I made sure to find an OK move quickly compared to taking 5+ seconds to maybe find an optimal move. I find myself unable to effectively do this now though.
Perhaps I have to be in a "chess mindset" in order to play at this level. Maybe the difference was a week of many games beforehand.
I don't take chess too seriously, but I do enjoy playing and know a few moves of the most common openings. I prefer to not study much, and improve only by playing more.
When I first started playing around 2 years ago, I started out at around 1250 blitz / 1250 bullet (here). The only reason why I started at 1250 and not <1000 is because I used to play a lot at the ages of 6-8.
After around 200 blitz games over the course of a few weeks, my rating increased to around 1350 blitz / 1300 bullet. I then proceeded to quit only to come back a year later.
When I came back, I was surprised to find out that I still played at a 1350 blitz level. I played maybe 50 games a week, and then took off 2 weeks. I kept losing and gaining interest in the game, but my rating further increased to around 1450 blitz / 1500 bullet over the course of around an additional 500 blitz games.
Then around 6 months ago, I started to play lots of blitz games all in the short time period of around a week. My bullet rating absolutely skyrocketed. It went from being 1480 to a peak of 1770 in a matter of days. My blitz rating had a similar, but more modest increase from 1450 to 1600.
My bullet and blitz scores leveled off quickly over the course of a few days and stayed at 1750 and 1590. I gave a lot of effort and focus to try to increase these ratings further, but had little success. I then became bored again and quit for a few months...
When I came back around a month ago however, both scores plummeted to 1520 and 1420 (respectively). I have since tried to work on increasing these ratings with little success. Right now, I'm playing about 3 games a day hoping to see my ability spike like it did the last time my interest peaked in chess. Is there any explanation for this, and could it be related to the qualities a bullet player needs? Was I most likely searching for something almost unconsciously everytime I considered a move? I'm pretty frustrated at the moment. I mean, it can't be normal to just fluctuate almost 250 rating points at my level.