Getting out of a slump?

Hi everyone,

I've been studying/playing chess competitively for about 2.5 years now, and for the last year or so, I was stuck at about the 1850-1900 range. However, I've recently had some really good tounraments, going 12/15 in my last three tounraments and beating up on some floored masters to get my rating up from 1900 to 2069 in less than two months!

It feels good to be an expert now, and I do think I understand chess on an expert level. But I don't "feel" like an expert, if that makes sense. When I look at some of the experts at my club that I am now rated higher then, I think "no way am I a better player than them!"

I still lose to players rated 1700-1800 on chess.com standard, and my 1500-rated student can play decent games against me. The fact that my rating soared so quickly due to a tounrament where I was paired against 2 floored masters doesn't make me very confident in my rating, either.

I know that internet chess isn't a good indicator of playing strength, but during these past two weeks of playing internet chess (long games, and even blitz games), I feel like I'm playing like a 1700 all of a sudden. I know I can play at an expert level, but my technique is bad, and no matter how hard I try to tell myself to "always look for the reply" "calculate concretely in winning positions" etc, I'm failing to put class A/B players away in standard time control online games.

Any advice to getting out of a slump? What do you stronger players do? Play less? Play more? 

Any advice is welcome! I'm sure I'll play better in my next tounrament than I have been playing online these past couple weeks, but I just feel like I shouldn't be losing to class B players if I want to call myself an expert, even online.

I wonder if you're not simply a victim of your own "brain-washing". I mean : you got the expert rating, and all of the sudden you think "I don't deserve it", which sounds like an excellent way to unconsciously convince yourself to drop points...

Maybe you don't know as much as some old established expert players, but you've shown the skills, and nothing should prevent you from showing them again...

Long time ago, I had a friend who jumped from ~2000 to ~2250 after a series of good tournament results. But all of the sudden, he started thinking like you : "no way I'm a 2200 player". Unsuprisingly, he lost his confidence, restrained his play and duly lost over 100 rating points during the next season.

My advice would be : just play like you played when you had your rating jump, and if you need to iron some aspects of your play, do it, but don't "downplay yourself" like this.

It's difficult enough to deal with one opponent OTB : no need to add another...

PS : 1700 standard in live chess is close to 2000 OTB in my book (look at the titled players standard ratings) for various reasons... Online chess is not a good barometer : go play in OTB tournaments or in your physical club to get your confidence back.

That is true. I do think the standard ratings in live chess are deflated from OTB ratings. I have dropped from 1850 to about 1770 on chess.com standard though as well, but part of that could just be that I'm not taking the online games as serious as OTB games.

Well, I have my next tounrament next weekend, so I'll just have to do my best!

The thing about ratings on Chess.com is they are about 200 points below your USCF rating. I feel that the ratings here better reflect FIDE ratings. I am almost equal with my USCF rating on here, so I feel like my play is better than my USCF reflects. I have to agree with Hice... even if he is French (cheap jab Hice, I love the French ; defense that is. just a joke) Feeling as if you are not as good as your rating is foolish. I have to say that lately the older I get the less and less I care about ratings. Yes I have goals but I try to remind myself that this is just fun and I don't really care if someone can beat me at a game, because the computer can smoke them! The only thing we can do zez, is to do our best. And if you did your best and what you think is right then you can never be wrong. Yeah you can lose, but at the end of the day have you lost anything? A single game?! If you have more wins than losses than you are doing great! Dont get yourself down and keep doing your best. And if you always seek self improvement than you can't go wrong, even if you don't improve you have done what you could. Chess is like life, you have to take it in stride and not let it get you down. The moment you let life get you down then the sheetstorm starts pouring instead of spinkling! Keep your head up, keep learning from mistakes, studying masters and you will find your stride. Good luck and best wishes friend!