Anyone else scared to play in fear of dropping their rating? How do we overcome this?

When I am on a winning streak, I am fearless. I would have so much momentum and confidence and play game after game. I reached 354 at one point. However, after a terrible day yesterday and bad losing streak, i lost 123 rating points, and obtained a negative win to loss ratio.

Today my confidence in my abilities is still low from the losing streak, and instead of playing chess I started to read and study more so that I don't lose. I already dropped from 354 to 231 and I am afraid if i play more i would drop to below 200.

There is just too much pressure for me at the moment

its quite easy. let me share an experience of mine from like, last year. I was a 300+ rated player, just like you, but i was losing. hard. to the point where i did reach 100, the LOWEST rating one can have. i was frustrated, yeah, but i took a deep breath and made some simple conclusions.

-if i can time my moves, i can save time

-if i play carefully, i wont lose my pieces

-if i play someone rated higher than me, i'll bring the fight to that person

its not just playing in general, theres mental strength involved and you need to be strong enough to have the confidence that you can win and youll keep winning.

but overall im sure you can go higher ngl

Thanks! 

I do agree mental strength is important. It is just overwhelming as a beginner, there are so much information to consume and analyze and learn. 

How many games do you suggest a beginner with 300 rating play daily? Would playing too many consecutive games lead to fatigue and worsened mental focus?

I have played 3 games today and am doing much more well then yesterday. I feel if i play too long, i am bound to slip up.

Maybe i should have a limit to how many games

i'd say know when to stop. if your eyes are slowly getting tired, or if you simply have had enough of chess, take a rest. otherwise, keep going and try your best

Yeah

Hi! I'm near to reach 600 I feel the same way. I think you should take it with calm, the main goal of playing is the experience you obtain, not the elo. I know is very frustrating to be stacked but don't overwhelm, just play relaxed. My tips are to focus only in your game, not to be doing other things at the same time; take your time to analise every move you see and don't move until you're sure, there's usually a better movement than the one you've already seen. I'm sure you'll reach 300 again and improve even more! Good luck and sorry for my bad eng! 😅

Thanks for the tips. Yeah when im relaxed and calm i do my best. If i feel too tense and under pressure to make moves quick i make mistakes. 

One of the biggest struggles is that i take a long time to analyze my moves, and rapid makes it hard due to time limit.

Maybe i should try 15 minute games or a different longer time control like others have suggsted earlier

Yeah! I feel the same way, I am studying every day, because I want to become a better player (trying to reach 2100 online rating), I am studying tactics and openings, but I am not playing as much as I will because of fear of losing. But I am working to understand that, if I want to improve, I need to play to put my study ideas in practice, even if i lost some games, thats how we get better!

People fear.  Logical arguments can be advanced to show how illogical such fear is and some people will listen to those arguments while others will still be afraid.

There are also examples where a player's fear is logical:

A player and the norms for an IM or GM title but has not yet attained the rating minimum, the player has been doing well in a tournament and, with a few rounds remaining, will be gaining enough points to finally reach the rating minimum.  In such a case it is quite logical for the player to withdraw from the tournament (hopefully it was a Swiss instead of a Round Robin) to safeguard the rating long enough for it to become official and gain the title.  This would be a temporary fear (another example would be to get a rating high enough to qualify for a tournament the player wants to play in)

A player is also making money as a chess teacher and has a rating above a significant point (2000, 2200, etc.).  For such a player it may make financial sense to stop playing rated games so that they can use their rating when advertising their credentials.  This would be a permanent fear.

I realized that I am currently as good as I am ever going to get, because I don’t have time (or interest,) in all of the memorization that is required to play north of 1000.  Some people are just naturally good at pattern recognition, and they do well at chess.  I am not so good, of course, and so I don’t play rated games, anymore (well, I don’t play much chess at all, actually).

You really don`t. If someone has that kind of fear, you probably can`t change that.

I have that fear all the time, but if you dont play your gonna get worse anyways so you really might as well play, cover your rating and play turn on chesscoms "focus mode" if you dont know how go into settings/google it, sometimes you just play through the fear but really you shouldnt worry about it because one day youll be much stronger and go why was i ever scared of losing that rating for example your 2-3 hundred when your 600 youll be like why did i care at 300 and when your 1000 youll be like 600 pshh who cares and on and on

Dude 15 10 is a highly popular time control, you should play that

Play 20+0?

would that not work out for you? also you can do custom 15+0 and will probably get matches there are definetely solution to this also most people in 15 10 will not stale like that

No problem i hope you can get a lot of matches

Ratings are to show what your skill level is at, play and enjoy the game, if you lose just take note of why you lost, and continue forward.