I haven’t played any online chess for about a year. I started playing Daily games maybe a month ago, and this past week I started again playing Rapid games (mostly 10 and 20 minute games). I’m shocked to find that I’m much better than I was a year ago. I’ve been winning games and my rating has shot up. Can I really have improved like this, or has chess.com changed something about their ratings system in the last year while I wasn’t playing?
I HAVE been doing tactics puzzles most days for this whole time (maybe five puzzles/day), and reading through occasional chess books from my local library (but only very casually). No OTB games though, with Covid.
Has anyone else noticed an improvement like this after a semi-prolonged break from playing? I’m really looking forward to getting back to real life OTB tournaments to see how I score. 😀
The site uses the Glicko rating system, which has a variable called the rating deviation value (RD). The higher that RD value, the more your rating changes. Since you hadn't played in a while, your RD value had increased, so your rating will fluctuate more.
But sometimes, taking a break can help with play quality, so it's possible your minimal training and your break actually helped you improve some.
I haven’t played any online chess for about a year. I started playing Daily games maybe a month ago, and this past week I started again playing Rapid games (mostly 10 and 20 minute games). I’m shocked to find that I’m much better than I was a year ago. I’ve been winning games and my rating has shot up. Can I really have improved like this, or has chess.com changed something about their ratings system in the last year while I wasn’t playing?
I HAVE been doing tactics puzzles most days for this whole time (maybe five puzzles/day), and reading through occasional chess books from my local library (but only very casually). No OTB games though, with Covid.
Has anyone else noticed an improvement like this after a semi-prolonged break from playing? I’m really looking forward to getting back to real life OTB tournaments to see how I score. 😀