Rough patch

Lately I've been blundering like hell. I've dropped from 1470's to 1360's in the space of a week, often loosing won games (up by a full minor piece or more) with loosing streaks of 6/7 games in a row. Can anyone help me turn it around? I'm feeling like my confidence is starting to suffer!

Practicing a ton of basic tactics helps.  Watch a few videos ... play over a few master games in solitaire (guess the move) fashion. Don't run away from chess ... just flex your chess brain in a more "gentler" manner.

One good take-away from a slump is that the kind of terrible mistakes you make in your games during this time are often the "blindspot" areas you will have throughout your chess journeys ... especially under time pressure.

I usually save + review these "hall of shame" mistakes and learn more about the areas I'm really weak at. It could be silly stuff like missing pawn forks or trapping my queen.  What I've discovered is that these "blindspots" can re-occur even in slow games when you are in your best form ... so it's good to "study the unfathomable levels of one's stupidity" when you are slumping so that you can compensate (watch out for them)  for them when you are back on track. :)

We all go through these moments ... think of it as your brain over-training/working out "too much" at the "chess gym" and needing some time to recuperate.

I've recently heard that when you're on a bad streak, it's often times not something more complex you need to do... but rather, something more basic and fundamental.

So instead of trying to move foward to progress... take a step back and examine some things you may be overlooking.

1470 looks to have been your high water mark. Maybe you're just having a run against better players that's brought you back down to your normal level.

Sleep can work wonders, but try to avoid it during a game

Thanks everyone for the really useful suggestions. I think maybe stepping back from playing so many long games in a row (6 x 15|10 games is often 3 hours for me) back to back is a good call. I'll still try to play at least one 15|10 a day to keep me ticking over, but just refocus on spending more time going back over tactics etc. I use chessimo as my main tactics source, so will stick with that for a week or so in place of games.

It's funny you mention sleep doing wonders. I have found that I'm very tired recently (I've just moved house) and I guess that could be a contributing factor. When I've woken up after a goods night sleep and played after my morning coffee I've been much more capable.

Shivsky: great idea and very true. Could be quite a laugh actually to look over all my blunderings :0)

Once again, thanks for the encouragement/advice all.