I see this too and it makes me wonder; it being ME that has a bad run and some days I can't beat anyone it seems. Today I lost 3 in a row, when I usually eat 1300 players for breakfast. Like Kasparov said, 'few things can be more psycho'ly more brutal than chess.'
Short term burnout maybe? Need to take breaks?
Just saying you can play or study TOO much and thus you get brain overload...and your play suffers. My theory any way. I could be wrong.
Biorhythms.
It's like creativity sometimes, if you do somethink else you get the most brilliant ideas but continuing with your work can sometimes be a bit tedious and dont give you anything new. I have the same feeling about chess
So I advise to take a few breaks now and then, especially after intense chess study! I always believe the unconsciousness needs some time to incorporate this new knowledge in your game!
The burnout idea is definitely real. If I've been playing too much chess lately and just gotten overwhelmed with games, then I start to check out mentally. It's hard to focus, can't calculate for anything, etc. And that happens very easily. There's a very delicate balance between me getting just enough chess and too much.
Once burnout sets in, I have to step back and take a break. That might mean a couple of days or a couple of weeks. But it's guaranteed that when I return I will be much fresher mentally and will play much better.
The brain is a physical vessel. This means several things:
1. It is susceptible to various hormonal and chemical balances as is the rest of the body- changes in exercise or nutritional routine are changing the way your brain is operating.
2. The brain only has so much "bandwidth". There are a limited number of electrical and chemical reactions that can occur in a given period to create our thoughts. If you have problems from off the board creeping into your mind as stress, it saps your ability to calculate.
3. More abstract, success doesn't force you to change how you look at your positions and tactical patterns. You find bad habits or reinforce existing bad habits, until you're playing against someone who shows the flaws that were developing in your game. As you look for corrections, you're expending bandwidth and possibly using the wrong moves to correct.
Those are three root causes to which I attribute my various slumps.
Focus.
I know that when I am well dialed into the game: alert to my opponent's plans, creative and flexible in my own, tactically aware, ... I play at a level 200-400 Elo higher than when I recklessly launch direct attacks with no flexibility and oblivious to my opponent's plans.
What an excellent question? I hope to read many, many more ideas about this. I know most of us suffer from the same problem. There are other outlets that I am active in. Playing the piano.. or golf etc ... The only of these that I have ever done perfectly was playing the piano. I had the great good fortune to have one of the top 10 teachers in the world. He and his wife were very old when I met them .. and now I also am an elder. He told me his teacher had learned to play from the great master Franz Lizst ... who had learned to play from a fellow named Czerny .. who had been taught by Beethoven. Through those two centuries.. these great geniuses had learned the secrets to apply to perform perfectly ... their methods simply "worked". We can study the work of great predecessors like Tal or Fischer .. or .. or .. or .. I understand the Russians have some developed program to train their candidate to become masters.. But the questions is: Do their methods really work for everybody? Or just for people that already have the innate talent to begin with. My piano master's methods work for anybody that wants to learn how to play. I am working on using similar principles to become a single digit handicap golfer.. 1 more stroke to go. And for now, I am enjoying this site to improve my chess play. I know that I have discovered the source of most of my losses through doing 1800 of the chess tactic problems. But, being slow ,, I didn't begin to recognize my failing until about 300 problems ago. Very slow learner. But at least I have built up an internal database of my weaknesses. So I am very grateful for this site. And, I hope, that many of you will have many more ideas and pointers on how to "master" this game.
Biorhythms. This is not hocus pocus just because you cannot see it.
You can say the same thing about anything which is competitive. The same reason a pitcher might have a no-hitter on monday and than get 12 runs scored on him on weds. I think it largely has to do with concentration and "being in the zone". We all have games where we have nice victories over higher rated players but also loses against players we "should" cream.
As strength goes up we tend to get more stable as we develop methods to our madness.
Simply reminding myself to be patient in my play helps me tremendously even when "busted".
But some days we just aren't feeling it. Life isn't all about chess and sometimes we have other things on our minds resulting in uninspired play on autopilot. That's not good.
But more so with acquired skills like chess the brain is like training a muscle. It needs rest to grow. It needs time to learn and give the newly seen patterns a place.
Once you feel you go nuts, lose your board vision and drop pieces it's time to do something else. A few days later you might come back playing stronger than ever.
But more so with acquired skills like chess the brain is like training a muscle. It needs rest to grow. It needs time to learn and give the newly seen patterns a place.
Once you feel you go nuts, lose your board vision and drop pieces it's time to do something else. A few days later you might come back playing stronger than ever.
I think this is correct. There have been multiple times where I've gone on a chess study binge but didn't immediately see an improvement in my game. It wasn't until I got burned out and took a break from the game for a while and then came back later that I was playing better than ever.
Concentration/focus or lack thereof.
Because we are human. We are subject to outside influences, internal struggles, our own frailties, physical, mental, emotional issues.
You want some form of consistency? Run a chess engine overnight.
Eat well, sleep well, be motivated, be focused.
Often you can do few, or even none, of these things and you will feel the same as if you did, but your performance doesn't lie.
Can someone give me a explanation of why this occurs?