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I'm surprised how smooth the curve is, the author never has streaks where he loses a few hundred rating points. In fact I'm struggling to see he ever dips more

by eterm 5y ago

I'm surprised how smooth the curve is, the author never has streaks where he loses a few hundred rating points. In fact I'm struggling to see he ever dips more than 50. I've been on a similar journey over the past year, where I'm now around 1500 rapid on chess.com but in that time I've had streaks where I've been down 250 rating from my peak. I don't know if I tilt super hard or if the author is remarkably resilient to tilt. It might also be a difference in how the different sites do match-making or adjust ratings and k-values. I'd echo the benefit in learning some basic opening theory. It's not worth rote learning theory but it is worth having a consistent approach to games so you learn from the same patterns and can avoid opening traps. If you play the same opening moves then over time you build up a memory of moves that you like in those positions and which will get deeper as you get more experience.

Etheryte 5y ago
Not getting into a downward spiral from tilt is fairly straightforward for me, when you lose two or three games in a row simply don't play more that day. In general, I play at most a few games a day and it helps a lot. If you want to just get practice with a specific opening or play out your frustration there's always computer games, too. When I practice with the computer I usually set the difficulty considerably higher than my own level, it helps me find weaknesses in my own play that I would usually get away with at my own rating level. I also don't mind losing to the computer. For some reason there's no emotion in losing to a computer whereas there is in losing to another human player.
marcusbuffett 5y ago
I think part of this is the slow time control, it's hard to tilt for more than a few games on rapid, since games can last up to 20 minutes. The other part is I think I was chronically under-rated, because of my ratio of studying to playing games.

by eterm 5y ago

Etheryte 5y ago

Not getting into a downward spiral from tilt is fairly straightforward for me, when you lose two or three games in a row simply don't play more that day. In general, I play at most a few games a day and it helps a lot. If you want to just get practice with a specific opening or play out your frustration there's always computer games, too. When I practice with the computer I usually set the difficulty considerably higher than my own level, it helps me find weaknesses in my own play that I would usually get away with at my own rating level. I also don't mind losing to the computer. For some reason there's no emotion in losing to a computer whereas there is in losing to another human player.

marcusbuffett 5y ago

I think part of this is the slow time control, it's hard to tilt for more than a few games on rapid, since games can last up to 20 minutes. The other part is I think I was chronically under-rated, because of my ratio of studying to playing games.