Stagnation

I guess this is something we all experience: Stagnation. After 6-8 weeks or so of chess, I'm now stagnated at about 1,600. Does anyone have any "tricks" as to overcome a stagnation. And please don't say: practice more! That's too general. What I'm asking for is some specific ideas. Thanks.

Get rip roaring drunk and rattle loose some brain cells.

Any better?

Hi,

Review the games that you have lost and try to see why; then read material and use puzzles to improve. Compare your openings to the main line; Did you loose as white or black? Which opening did you use? Did you play aggressively or defensively? Is there a more aggressive or defensive line to those openings?

When I felt stagnant, I tried to improve my chess vission and read books which helped me get a broarder outlook. I suggest 'How to Reacess your Chess' by Jeremy Silman.

Keep us posted. :)

Good Luck

Thanks, willow23. Trying to find a "losing pattern" in my games sounds like a good idea. I'm currently reading Silman's "AM". Seeing how my openings differ from the book is also a good idea. I'm putting in 50-60 hours weekly, and still I feel I'm not really improving these days. 

6-8 of weeks? I thought it was 6-8 years. Oh, well.

6-8 years, yusuf_prasojo? I wish. No, I've only been immersed in chess for 6-8 weeks. 

Everyone start with around 1200 provisional rating and then moving gradually towards their actual strength. If the actual strength is 1600, they will gradually move towards 1600 (or above if average opponents' rating is low enough) then stagnant (or decreasing). It then takes a lot of training/studying/practice to improve upon actual strength. Then there will be other serious phases where for years you do not improve, even if you have tried hard.

That makes sense. So my quick movement to 1,600 was because this was a actual level, before I started. Good point. However, years without improvement? I find that hard to believe, unless one practice in an unfortunate manner.

That's true. Improvement in general is exponential. The highest, or your potential is a function of your intelligence.

At lower level, you can read one book and suddenly your rating improves. At higher level you need to read 100 books to see the same improvement. In other words, 1600 and 1700 is about the same level but 2500 and 2600 are in different classes.

You cannot see rating improvement just by learning a few things. You have to learn a lot of new things. And indeed, wrong way of practice does happen.

LisaV, I think our rating reflect our strength pretty well. I suck at Tactics, and I'm working with the Tactics Trainer quite a bit. It's slowly getting better, but my positionel understanding is seemingly way better than my tactics (I'm rated 300 points less in the Tactics Trainer then in Turn-Based games). I don't see why my low number of played games matter. There seems to be a trend already. And that is: I lose to players rated above 1,600 and win over players rated below. Oh, and my endgame skills are not so good either.

Why are you losing your games ? The answer to this question will open your way to the next level...

LisaV, I know those ratings are independent of each other, but it might tell something: that one of my weak points are tactics. Most people score higher in the TT, than they do in Turn-Based games (or so I'm told). For me, it's the other way around. 

hicetnunc, Why am I losing? Yeah, I guess this is the question I need to ask. Time to go over my games to find a "losing pattern".

hicetnunc, I see you are teaching chess. I generally like your tone in the forums, so let me ask you this: would you go over my Turn-Based games and see if you can find a "losing pattern"? I have 11 lost games so far, so I guess this should take you less than half an hour. Naturally, I would pay you for this. I think this would be good, since your experience should make it a lot easier for you to spot the reasons why I tend to lose.