Why am I finding it harder to beat weaker players ?

Good morning,

I have been playing blitz games for the past hour or so and I'm really stuck right now. On my first account I was beating 1000, 1100, and even 1200-rated blitz players ( and this was just a few weeks ago ). I earned myself a rating of 1251. But now my rating is plunging heavily with a pattern ; the lower my opponent's rating, the more likely I am to lose against them. I'm winning the majority of my games vs. 1000-1100s, but I'm on a losing streak vs. mid-900s and it sometimes seems impossible to get even one win against them. As a result, my rating decreases faster and faster the more I play. I noticed this pattern on my first account too, but I managed to dig myself out of that hole.

Does anyone else experience this pattern ? I saw another thread about a player who found lower rated blitz players harder to beat but I couldn't find any good advice. And does anyone here know if there's a reason behind it ? I'm talking about blitz alone, because in all the other time controls I can outplay a 900 easily,. It's just kind of bugging me and I'm curious to know why it is.

Thanks.

Maybe you're looking down on 900s. If you expect to "demolish" them you won't play as carefully as you normally would, so when they make threats you're more likely to miss or ignore them.

That would also explain why you do better against 1000-1100, because you're taking the games more seriously.

There can also be bias. Since you expect to win vs 900, every loss will weigh on you more, to the point that even if you're score, let's say 60%, maybe you feel like that's terrible.

Also you can be overestimating yourself. Maybe on a different account you had a few lucky games. Maybe you beat a single 1200 and a single 1100 and then you expect yourself to do that all the time even though that's unreasonable.

Thank you. I try not to focus on the rating until the end of the game, but it really seems like they make fewer mistakes. Most 900s play pretty solid by my standards, but when I play a 1000 or 1100 they will often blunder only 10 or 15 moves in.

Ah, well this account is still pretty new. I see you played a lot of games. Sometimes we just get tired and start playing worse during a long series. I think if you played on the same account every day you'd bounce up and down around your correct rating. That's how it works for most people.

Take a lesson once a week, do lots of puzzles and look at each position like a puzzle. Take time to think, don’t just bluntly charge in.

#1
'The hardest game to win is a won game' - Lasker
We play better against stronger players, give it our best effort, think long enough...
We play worse against weaker players, expect an easy win, get careless...

sometimes its a bad days, sometimes its just they save it, and sometimes its just hard

I looked at your match history and I think if you tested your hypothesis against the probabilities of winning your matches then the statistics wouldn't support it very well. There are plenty of cases of you beating lower ranked players.

#9
"There are plenty of cases of you beating lower ranked players."
++ Of course he beats lower ranked players too.
The hypothesis is, that we play better against stronger players and worse against weaker players, i.e. that we gain rating from stronger players and lose rating from weaker players.
That is easy to verify.

I think low ranked players are hungrier to win.

Think of it as a boxing match between a champion and contender. Champion is more skilled but the contender wants to be champ and would do anything to be champion, while the champion is relaxed and chill

> Does anyone else experience this pattern ?

Literally all honest players do experience that "pattern" and we're not allowed to talk about it more in this forum.

Don't worry, it reverses when you get a little higher

I regularly see something strange like this in my game reviews too.

My accuracy often is very similar to my opponent, high or low. I attribute this to the lower level players making mistakes and while I have/had a plan I have to recover/adjust my plan to their mistake, often leading to me making a mistake.

Higher level players make fewer mistakes and I can play according to my plan, leading to fewer mistakes.

That might be right ; upon reflection, most of my chess knowledge is based on memory and repetition rather than raw strategy, which must make it harder to adapt to a different style of play.

 Because they play *stronger*. Elo ladder on this site at low 1000 elo is completely bonkers. 

 Many 1000 elo players here can play at 50, 40 centipawn loss and even lower. So if you disregard the rating, having to beat a player who plays at 40 centipawn loss accuracy in a game, is not an easy task, unless you are higher rated. 

 I'll give you one example, these are 3 games I just played here at chess.com, analysed in Lichess  - because I wanted to see my opponent's centipawn loss (not the gimmick & biased "accuracy" this site offers). My opponents are in the low 1000 elo side: 

https://lichess.org/2KRsQyu2#84

https://lichess.org/VBF7ONSD#0

https://lichess.org/scwRv7lv

As you can see opponents played at 50-60 centipawn loss, which is not an accuracy rating of a "beginner" level chess. 

 And I've seen much lower (more accurate) play, even in 1+1 bullet, so it's mind-boggling someone at this level can even play like this. 

 I do play Daily on another site where Im at the 1700-1800 level and the levels of accuracy many 1000 elo play on this site are even greater than those of people at that level who probably often play with a database of games at hand. 

 People should not have to routinely play at 20/30 centipawn loss to be able to climb out of the 1000-1100 elo range. 

Grandmaster Ben Finegold occasionally occasionally played in tournaments at his chess club when there was an odd number of players. This meant he often played opponents rated over 1000 points lower than his. He said he won every game, but very few of them were easy! You have to work to put away lower-rated players! You can't just wave your rating at them and expect them to collapse

I have seen many people who say things like this. It is all in your head, you are seeing pattterns that aren't there. Usually this is a matter of small sample size, but in your case it is probably just normal rating fluctuation. Sometimes you play better and get on a winning streak, sometimes you play worse and get into a losing streak. In one game a 900 player can play better than a 1100 player. By chance you will be playing against couple of opponents in a row who are in the zone or against couple of opponents in a row that are completely out of the zone.  When it comes to you being able to easily beat 900 rapid players but not 900 blitz players, that's normal, rapid ratings are inflated compared to blitz ratings. Here is a graph with a lot of data where you can see how blitz ratings map to rapid ratings on this website https://www.chessratingcomparison.com/Graphs

I see you are back out of the slamp and you are again rated 1100. These are simply normal rating fluctuations. Don't think too much about them. At one point, if somebody asked for my blitz rating on this website I would have told you 1450-1600 because that's how my blitz rating oscilated. Yours may be oscilating from 950 to 1150, that's more or less normal. My blitz rating now is oscilating usually between 1700 and 1800, but right now I am at my peak at 1830 blitz.

As Finegold said one time, players rated this low blunders pieces every game... at least if they play someone rated 2000 or higher. When they play each other it's possible to have high accuracy (or low centi pawn loss) because sometimes neither player puts the other under any pressure. For example low rated players often like to trade at every opportunity.

You haven't yet beaten a 1200 blitz rated player, your highest win was against an 1187
https://www.chess.com/game/live/55138539525 

The answer to your question is simply rating fluctuations as everyone else has said. Play enough games and you'll soon find a more narrow range of elo in which you'll sit

Occam’s razor suggests that the simplest explanation is probably the right one. It’s likely you’re just experiencing tilt. Example: I have lost 200 points in blitz in a day before.

But more: how did you get to 1200 blitz? You probably focused hard, and tried your best in all sorts of positions. You took everyone seriously, and it paid off. But what about now?

”Why can’t I beat these guys anymore?” You need to always be at the top of your game.

Another thing is that your peak rating is never your real strength.