losing streaks

Can someone help me understand why I can win many, many games against people rated between 1000 and 1250 and attain a rating in the 1200's, and stay there for a while, and then go on a steady and consistent losing streak and lose to many, many people rated considerably beneath my rating dropping my rating back down into the 1000's (and even in the 900's on one occasion).  The disparity and repetiveness of this behavior escapes my logic.    

It looks like you have had a couple of streaks which took you briefly above 1200 but for the most part you have fluctuated between 1100 and 1150.  The lowest rating you had 869 was only when you started playing blitz in January 2013.

Just a question: do you use to play many games in a row? You can be happy if you don't lose points after one of those "sessions".

Look at the more recent fluctuation on the graph, high to low is much more extreme than in the past.  And the graph is not accurate, I recently dipped below 1000 in January (deep into the 900's, less than the graph represents).  So my question remains.  How can someone with a solid 1100 to 1150 ranking with thousands of games under his belt still fluctuate so dramatically in rating and lose consistently to people ranked beneath him?  In fact, when I dipped into the 900's recently I struggled beating other 900 ranked players?  How does this make sense?

I appreciate your question because I'm currently experiencing the same frustration.  As notmtwain expressed, playing blitz may contribute to your lower rating.  I often play blitz as well and make more bonehead mistakes with the time restrictions. 

One method of improving your rating may be to evaluate your recent blitz games and note common mistakes.  Then use the chess.com resources for strategies to correct those mistakes. 

Good luck!

You have found your plataue for your knowledge of chess. If you want to get past this point, then you have to expand your knowledge. Playing alone is not enough to improve.