How to get out of bad chess playing rut?

Hey chess.com,

I usually float around 1800-1850 Blitz, but as of late my rating has dropped and I'm about 1650-1700. I know this happens to a lot of people, so I'm wondering if theres any cure for it. I've come up with a few ideas that i wanted to fire off; let me know what you guys think:

A) Take a break and come back to chess in a week or so.

B) Play through it.

C) Study more, play less.

D) Analyze bad games and see what comes of it.

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

My best answer:

Forget about it.

I like A most. Maybe you could play somebody who is way worse than you to get your self esteem back up.

THE ANSWER IS B! PLAY THROUGH IT!

as long as youre having fun just keep playing. blitz ratings can fluxuate at least 200-300 pts when playing regularly and thats just a part of the game. Just try not to get too frustrated and you'll be OK.

I always play through it to get my rating back. Maybe I'm too concerned with my rating, maybe not. I have lost a couple of stupid (more than 200) points in standard games lately and I am getting them all slowly back again. Maybe I should have stopped playing when I realized I was not focused enough. I think a week is too much but a break of at least one hour could be worthy. By the way Hobo, little canadian, God bless you.

When I was younger and got in a rut I opened Reinfeld's two books on Checkmates and Combinations and solved them for about 7-9 weeks straight hundreds of them.

I beat the day lights out of my opponents so it must have worked I definitely felt sharper when I came back to play again.

Had to scotch tape the book because it would fall apart because of the loose pages.

B!

If you are frustrated, or have any emotion that could hamper your chess skills, do NOT keep continue playing games which you care about. For example, if you care about your blitz rating, do not keep playing ranked blitz if you are on a losing spree due bad emotions.

I usually take a break or start playing bullet games (which are the games in which I troll, and truly do not care about as I want to analyze the positions for at least a few seconds).

Just B.     My ratings fluctuate a lot and I alternate blitz with bullet, to get over it, but just carry on !

Since almost everyone is saying B and I have already explained I feel "B" is better here now I feel like saying B because I want to look cool.

I would say ultimately if yo

u want to stay on parody our previous rating range A or B , or a combo of both . Bu if you want to improve all of thee above . ( how many of of instant gratification junkies (Blitzheads) can do that for long though :)

I'm going through a bad patch. Looking through past games I seem to lose it when my opponents knight comes forward. I find knights to be an awful nuisance.  Am working on it.

I think a combination is probably the answer. I'm having a little bit of an online slump lately. I just won an OTB tournament, and I think I'm a little "burned" out from serious chess, so my online standard games are lacking. Sor this weekend, I'm going to take a little break from chess and then go back at it on Monday. I also have analyzed my recent losses and they seem to come from little blunders I make during these long games, perhaps supporting the "burnout" hypothesis. In any case, it won't be a long break, just enough to recharge my batteries and get the balance back in life and chess.