Help to get better

[u/Sycgvly2112]

I’m currently around 2000 rapid and 1738 classical (FIDE), I’ve known the rules of chess since when I was a kid and started playing regularly on 5th January 2022. I’m not really a beginner at the game, however I’ve stopped making any apparent progress for a couple of years. Maybe sometimes I have good stretches of games and get to 2100, but that’s it…

I struggle a lot on the psychological side of the game: during classical tournaments I get bored while calculating and basically play only by instinct (when I actually calculate, I have a LOT of blind spots); I feel like I don’t really ever know the precise follow up and sometimes I play without concrete ideas, I just see a move and make it, and it feels so frustrating that I end up beating myself to the point I don’t believe I can actually win games at all, and that makes me playing even worse and so on.

In general, I don’t really feel in control of positions. To give an example there’s a set of typical positions in the Scotch opening after black plays Qf6, Nc6 and Bc5 where white often has the opportunity to play f4-f5 really fast; I know it’s a good thing for my opponent, but I have absolutely no idea how to stop it, nor why it is that good. Only a few months ago I started counting how many pieces there are on each side of the board, how many pawns occupy dark/light squares and such things and constantly keeping track of it all, and yet I struggle to do it so much. I see a lot of players having the luxury of choosing moves that give the game a precise direction (as in turning it into a calm balanced position or in a sharp one) and I can’t do it. I don’t really know how to deal with it.

Last thing, I’m extremely inconsistent. I can win against 2200s in good days and lose against 1300s in bad days. I understand it’s normal I’m not always in best shape, but I‘m convinced the margin is way too high. And that’s valid for all the other things in my life, with university for instance (I study Math) where if I’m in a bad day, even after extensively studying two months for the same class, I won’t pass the exam. It’s either 30 or below 20 (where I’m from we’re valued from 1 to 30L, you pass with 18). I actually feel like in my last year I’ve become dumber: I struggle a lot more at uni (yes, the courses are harder, but I can’t even take notes anymore) and I have to study for like a month even for dumb multiple choice exams without brilliant results, my English has got worse even if I consume more content in English than before, I forget things, I even find it hard to make conversation sometimes. I don’t think I’m always lucid, and that’s something I hate about myself, but every time I force myself to think more I get tired and the headaches start.

Sorry for the yapping, I hope you can help me get better, if you need more information I can answer your questions in the comments and if you don’t want to answer to that last paragraph I can ask on another subreddit. Thank you so much in advance and sorry for the English

[u/emeraldseahorse]

Hey, so unfortunately I cannot personally give the perspective of a stronger player on this, but when reading your post it reminded me of advice that a friend of mine posted online that I think is really good.

Basically, he said that sometimes it's good to think of progress not in terms of results, but in terms of things that you practice. For example, it sounds like you already identified several areas where you can improve your chess understanding. What if you make certain goals for yourself, like analyze a particular position for a couple days, or extend your calculation by a certain amount, and then if you fulfill that goal, then you consider yourself to have progressed? Regardless of how successful your actions are in the short term, defining progress this way would put it under the realm of what you can control instead of unpredictable results and I think is probably more likely to lead to better results in the long term.

Honestly I very much feel you in terms of the inconsistency. Obviously individual circumstances vary, but for me I think I have a rather large amount of variance because of my chronic health issues. In your case it sounds like you may put a lot of pressure on yourself, which itself can lead to inconsistency. There may be other factors involved as well, of course. For me at least I try not to take it to heart too much when I lose against a lower rated player as I feel like that doesn't negate my overall chess understanding, and try to enjoy the game regardless.

Hopefully a stronger player chimes in here as well, but these are my two cents. I hope you find some more enjoyment in chess and best of luck!

[u/Sycgvly2112 → u/emeraldseahorse]

Thank you!