I guess I should record the bad things too, so the 'diary' wouldn't give too optimistic picture of my progress.
A couple of weeks ago I hit a bad day in my blitz project. I was just about to cross over 1300, when I got stuck into a huge losing streak. And like an addict I thought "just a couple of games more, and I bet my luck turns around again." No need to say, but it didn't. I just kept losing more, and after three days I was down to almost 1000 in ICC 5-minute. I tried taking a couple of days off, but it was no use. I just couldn't do anything right anymore.
The reason was the same as always, having trouble sleeping. When you sleep 3 hours a night, it's best to step away from the board. To make a long story short, it's taken me two weeks to get into any kind of shape. Still a couple of proper nights-of-rest shy from being fully awake, but hopefully I'll get more sleep this week.
So, I've been playing just for fun, completely ignoring the horrible results. Even CTS went from 1650 down to 1580, and would've gone lower had I not stopped doing it. I was losing about 15-16 out of 20 games every day, so that's what kind of a slump we're talking about.
To get some benefit from the 'down time', I've been spending it getting used to the Dutch Leningrad variation and it's white mirror image, the Polar Bear. Both openings give very lively and tactical games, at least with my suicidal attacking tendencies. And as I've never played the Dutch before, all the positions looked just confusing and random at first, but it's all slowly making more sense now.
I've also started gathering data on my time managment, as I realized losing on time is still my worst problem in blitz. The idea is to track the amount of games I finish down on time, and hopefully reach at least a 50-50 level, the bare minimum to keep statistically up with my opponents. So every time I finish a game considerably up on time, I'll give myself a big pat on the back, even if I lost the game. So far I've even won a couple of games on time, which is a good start. But I'm still just way too slow usually.
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6 comments:
ahhh, "the slump," something i am all too familiar with. you are doing good, going to hit a goal, then you lose the next 150 games in a row...at least that is how it happens to me. and the whole "just one more game" thing usually sends you deeper into the pity party. but fear not, they are all lessons. see where you went wrong, copy the good moves the other guy played, and take note next time you are on a winning streak.
why is it, that no matter how many times you find out the losing streak never stops by continuing, you still alway try? it's like a gambler who never quits while he's ahead.
oh well, shouldn't take the losses too seriously. at least in blitz it's easy to get the points back if you just play better. I think I'm gonna go lose a couple more...
hey, I actually won a bunch of games, and clawed my way back to 1200+ for the first time in two weeks!
rock on! keep clawing your way back....i figure it this way; if you drop 100, get back 150, drop 100, get back 150, etc, you will slowly and eventually make it to 2000....
yes, ive watched in outline the entire event. im an oddball, but i look up my friends history at ICC and noticed you a, had fallen, and b, were coming back strong. i dont miss much, and i am a very inquiring person widely across many areas and persons.
congratulations! im sure youll get there.
a few thoughts. at first, i thought my resistence to hitting 1300 then 1400 at faster time controls was an anomaly. but after repeated attempts up to and including too many games VERY EXACTLY AS YOU DESCRIBE, THINKING i will 'just play a few games and "get it back"', i instead came to realize that whatever the reason that AT THAT TIME, my rating was my true rating for that time frame.
all my real rating threshold conquests--and there have been six or seven in my life--were preceded by long effort. if it werent, then this would not be your real rating threshold from your current level, and would just be an intermediate to short term milestone.
and as you also know from your brilliant raise from 1500 to 1600 and beyond at CTS, in large and conspicuous format, getting to 1600 was a lot different that being at 1600!
and 'last but not least', once you get to 1300, id like to see a few 1400 and 1500 scalps hanging there, and more loses, or a greater loss ratio. you always say that you are just trying to learn to first practice not dropping pieces, and seeing all those forks and skewers and such.
but "A REAL 1300" is someone who beats 1400's 1/3 of the time, and 1500's 10% of the time. do you understand that? if you get there upon a bunch of 1100 and 1200 and some 1300's, then this is not quite a solid rating. sorry, but it is true.
when carlsen moved from the higher echolon of high level grandmasters to super GM's, his wins were few and far between, but necessary for his becoming what he almost is, part of the elete top 20 in the world who beat top 100 GM's as a matter of course.
bottvinnik wrote about this, how he became first a master, then a master who beat other masters; then a grandmaster, and after that a grandmaster who routinely beat other grandmasters. same here with you. you are not routinely beating other 1300's at 5-minute blitz, so take a look at that one.
good luck sir, and always enjoy all that you write and share with us.
warmly, dk
yea, that's me. exactly like botvinnik. :D
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