1500 to 1200, did everyone just get better?

I literally don't understand, did everyone start cheating or have a sudden jump in skill? I used to consistently maintain a 1400-1500 rating and now I am getting stomped by 1200s, something has changed and it is not me. I am playing the same chess I always played.

I have noticed something weird also, but I don't know if it's real or just perception. I can be in the low 1600s and win a bunch of games, but then I inevitably go on a losing streak, my rating drops, and then I am matched up against players in the low 1500s or even high 1400s, and they play BETTER than the opponents who were low 1600s. So my fall accelerates. Eventually I get my act together, win a bunch of games, and then I am matched up again with high 1500s and low 1600s and my games are EASIER to win.

What I observed in chess.com is You have insane winstreak or insane loss streak, rarely in between

Like seriously it is unstable once I got 1500 blizts having insane winstreak I got +300 elo and even insane lost streak -100

The brain gets tired and if you feel that you are very good you feel satisfied and you try less. It is the search for the reward of feeling like a good player that makes you try harder after having gone through one or more bad losing streaks. That is why the phenomenon of bad losing streaks and good streaks occurs; The way to get out of that cycle is to improve your level in some way until you reach your new elo limit and that is where the cycle will repeat itself again.

This is an interesting theory and I think it has validity. But even before you get to this explanation, there is another explanation. Playing online chess at chess.com at home sometimes or often leads to unhealthy chess environments where I simply don't pay attention. Bad for my mental discipline, bad for my chess.

It's what happens when a lot of new people join I barely was able to avoid an elo drop to 1800 but it stopped me from progressing to 2200 gl with that also all of my friends cheat until about 1200-1400 them stop or cheat until around 2000 it could explain part of the problem(but not the only one )

Also if you want to get better learn tactics openings are useless if you want an opening spam London or French defence(anything solid)

The hardest levels in blitz in my opinion are 1800 and 1600 those I struggled a lot with i recommend switching to rapid or bullet if you are struggling.

Could it be ... some have found a loop hole in the AI algorithms that Chess.com is using to detect "What we can't talk about?" who knows..... People are going to do what we are not supposed to talk about... just a fact of life.

That stated ... I just had a game that has given me pause for cause. At the current level I'm playing... anything can happen... that's why I'm going to chalk it up to bad technique on my part. The pause for cause though... In a Rapid... I'm out playing my opponent, for 2/3rds of the game and my opponent is playing slow and sucking up 2/3 of the his clock. He get's down to 4 min on the clock and starts owning the board & expends very little of his remaining time. On reviewing the game.. around move 38. that's when it started... My opponent's play starts getting better and better, degrading any advantage I had.. till I finally cracked (with a lots of time left on my clock... head slap! ) I first analyze all my games with a board, no computer... just pencil and paper.. noting where I think I went wrong, ideas I missed etc. Then I put it up on a computer... and analyze with it (this is when the computer blasts apart my good ideas and drives home how bad I played) ... I did notice where the game got difficult was according to my computer where my opponent made some exceptionally strong moves ( right where my opponent stop sucking up time on his clock... was it a coincidence? did we reach a position where he had a a really good grasp of the position and knew what to do? Did I play really bad around here and he played really good...  Every squirrel gets a nut once in a while It wasn't like he played the engines' 1st choice say 4 moves in a row... more like a series of 5-8 moves waffling in and out of in the top 3-5... All that said.. at this time. I'm chalking it up to getting out-played in a winning position, while transitioning into an endgame.

The good take away was it made me analyze the game deeper than I normally do. (always a plus)

pcalugaru, you are honorable for not saying this, but it does sound like one possibility is that your opponent started getting help around move 38. Maybe. You never know. (Well, if he did, chess.com will know.)

I would like to start by saying: No, the entire chess world did not just spontaneously improve by 300 rating points overnight. Don't make excuses about the whole world improving and don't chalk it up to cheating either.

If your rating is consistently decreasing, you are playing worse. You can't simply "play the same chess" you always play, and then drop hundreds of rating points.

Analyze your games and figure out where you are going wrong, then work on fixing it. Otherwise, you will keep getting worse.

I'm not claiming that cheating never happens (I've faced my fair share of cheaters, as well as those who accuse me of cheating after I played a good game), I am saying that cheating is not the cause of consistently dropping ELO.

As to your second point, I face the same issue, though I blame my style of play rather than an engine. I usually play at almost the same level as my opponent; I either underperform against lower-rated players or overperform against higher-rated players.

You are free to believe that you are not the problem, but good luck improving at chess.

There are different discussions happening here. If a player rises or falls dramatically in rating on chess.com, that is not because everybody else is suddenly cheating, and I don't think anybody suggested that. We are trying to understand the weird phenomenon that sometimes players at a lower rating window play better than those in a higher

David, here is my explanation to this situation: As background, I am 2050 USCF and have beaten IM's several times (tournament play and chess.com). However, I have also recently lost to my friends who are less experienced at chess (rated 600 and 1600). I was truly trying to win these games as well, so it seems odd that performance can vary to this extent.

I have done no real research on this topic, but I think it has a lot to do with the mentality of the players. When any player faces someone higher rated, they have nothing to lose and the game is theirs to win. On the other hand, the higher rated player has everything to lose, and the game is theirs to lose.

This might influence the confidence of the players, which will inevitably change their playstyle (aggressive, overly cautious, etc.). Also, I think that this has a lot to do with the game of chess as a whole.

If a higher rated player is unable to put significant pressure on the lower rated player, they will not force out any mistakes. Without pressure, it is far more difficult to make a mistake, and the game will progress equally. By this point the game could go either way, and in a large minority of cases, the lower-rated player wins through simply outplaying the higher-rated player.

This is just my two cents on the topic, because I have also wondered this many times. I have recent games I could use as example, if anybody wants more conclusive data.

According to your public profile, you never reached a 1500 rating. For a long time you hovered between 1350 and 1450, with only brief moments above that, peaking at 1479.

Recently you have not been able to maintain the same rating range of 1350-1450, last months you dropped to a rating range of somewhere between 1300-1350. At you lowest point your rating even went below 1300 for multiple games, with 1282 as your lowest rating.

A rating drop of 1400-ish down to around 1350-ish is nothing to worry about. That's normal variance.

When you present your issue as a dramatic rating drop of 300 points, falling from 1500 to 1200, you are inviting everyone to speculate on the possible causes. Some will say it's a mental thing, some will imply it's because of cheating. Probably exactly what you were looking for. Enjoy.

I think you guys should try making it so your opponents can't be any higher than 25 points higher than you, and 25 points lower than you. This way you play others who are closer to your level, and will make your rating more stable.

And sorry to say this, but if your rating drops, 95% of the time it's because you're not playing as well.

Not a bad suggestion, but I prefer (-25, +infinity) because of how well I play against those who are higher rated than me. Sometimes it is hard to find a game though...

I think a lot of players have actually improved their ello, because of the popularity of chess streamers, you tube, and the game growing in popularity as a whole. I have noticed players who seem to play at several 100 more ello then their rank and when I watch their games I see wild inaccuracies from game to game you can kinda tell who is using help for around 3 to 6 moves until their position is very solid and its not always new accounts, but, those with 1,000s of games are doing it too, especially when you look deeper into win/loss %. Its sad we got people who can't play fair. This will only get worse I suspect.