Anyone else have a puzzle rating WAY higher than their game ratings?

@DerDerDerDerDer said in #18:

I'm confused...first, as a sub 700 player how can you expect me to do better against higher-ranked opponents? Second, what does the first sentence mean?

Many players have their puzzle rating way below their chess game rating because they do the puzzles very quickly, rushing through, trying to use just their automatic responses. Other players have their puzzle rating quite above their chess game rating, because they take as much time as they need to solve each puzzle. But I think the maximum that is considered normal is for the puzzle rating to be 500 points above. In your case though it is 1000 points above. That leads me to think that you have something to change in your chess game learning.

We don't learn chess from people at our level. We learn it from people ABOVE our level. The better you are, the harder it is to find people better then you. This is why top players in the world need to be coached by other top players in the world. And gradually as things new are discovered, chess evolves, like in other sports too, but that takes decades.

So my suggestion is for you to play tournaments to face stronger opponents. They will beat you and that's good. Don't play for a rating gain. Play for the skill gain. Also, study classical games, from books, from lichess studies, or from videos. I am guessing you might not be studying chess. In my first years of learning, a few books.

@EvilChess thank you for the thoughtful response!

I'm a full-time musician and music teacher (Strings and Brass) with emphasis on theory and functional harmony. Everyone learns in a different fashion and some students don't grasp what is they don't know or need to know. This is relevant as I feel analogous to students experiencing these roadblocks as far as chess goes.

In the practice checkmates there are several I simply cannot do...one has if I recall "best possible checkmate in 19 moves" and I simply do not understand the engine moves at all and end up blowing it by stalemating or hitting the 50 move limit. I can't even conceive how to learn how to do this.

I'm pretty sure my opening knowledge is garbage as well. Also, I often make grievous blunders.

How much time do I need to devote to a tournament? Are the games back to back in one stretch of time? Does it take hours?

(...and I should answer your question - I do watch a lot of YouTube content creators and tournaments. I look at the analyses of my games. That is probably the extent of my study. I own no chess books.)

In the practice checkmates there are several I simply cannot do...one has if I recall "best possible checkmate in 19 moves" and I simply do not understand the engine moves at all and end up blowing it by stalemating or hitting the 50 move limit. I can't even conceive how to learn how to do this.

Not sure which practice, this is but could be some thing like a king and rook v king, where you have to learn the correct technique. Try the studies by, NoseKnowsAll e.g. "Beginner Endgames You Must Know".

My blitz rating hoovers in the 1100 to 1200 region, but my puzzle rating is between 2200 and 2400.

I can spend 2 to 5 minutes just solving a puzzle trying to visualize the outcome, you do not have that luxury in quick games.

When playing games I get nervous, not sure why, as I don't know the opponent and nothing is at stake except my own pride, this definitely affects my playing strength. as does the clock running down.

I have no ambitions of becoming a great player, I just enjoy the game and love how occasionally I can coordinate the pieces and come up with a nice checkmate or winning combination, admittedly because my opponent blundered first!

When I started playing here I set a couple of goals
1 - stop hanging pieces.
2 - don't lose the game in the first 10 moves, learn some basic opening stuff
3 - do lots of puzzles
4 - do not shout or throw things at the screen

I also found that I lose most playing long sessions, say 20 games at once. When I lose one game, I get frustrated, which leads to more mistakes till I get to the point where I start resigning in games where I am even winning.

I can get my rating to climb if I,

• play 3 to 5 games at one sitting
• take time between each game, sometimes going over the last game
• only play when I'm ready and relaxed
• aim to play slower and pay attention to what my opponent does

I notice that you resign too early, like me.

Rapid game against Moha2014, stockfish had you leading by about 9 and you resigned because you were disgusted at hanging your rook on g5. You still had 3 minutes on the clock.

A blitz game against FARISMORALES_5COC, where you resigned at move 13, you were up a pawn, better developed. Looks like you were unhappy with the attack on your B on h3. Stockfish reckoned you were winning with 5.6

Take deep breaths and stay calm. Make chess fun and learn to laugh at your mistakes.

@DerDerDerDerDer said in #23:

How much time do I need to devote to a tournament? Are the games back to back in one stretch of time? Does it take hours?

A bullet tournament will take less than half hours, while a rapid can take 2 hours or more, but you can join and leave it at anytime. You can even Pause your participation. Play some and you'll understand.

You can't know all openings. What you need is to study and train some that you like, so that you get the "feeling". Thematic tournaments may help with that (those games start at specific a opening).

Don't rely on Stockfish to analyze your games. It doesn't calculate like humans and it doesn't tell you the WHY of each move. If you were using Leela Chess Zero then it would pick more human-like moves, but still not telling you WHY. So it's better to analyze yourself what went wrong. After doing that, then you can quickly check with the engine for other possibilities that you didn't see.

The mate-in-19 is not for humans. I guess not even a GM can calculate that. But they have the necessary skills to pick the right one move-by-move. At your level, just focus in mate-in-1 and mate-in-2. The PRACTICE item in Lichess Learn menu can be very useful for basic skills. Those skills must get "ingrained" in your mind. It's like learning to ride a bicycle. You need to think, practice, fall, learn from your mistakes, sleep to consolidate the learning, then repeat the cycle next day.

@MaxTheLad I looked at exactly that rapid game in the last half hour. A good friend once told me I have a habit of making all equations equal "Negative Chris." I think you're precisely correct in that I become disgusted with myself. Seeing I had 1 inaccuracy and no mistakes or blunders makes me feel dumb for not realizing that.

I also identify with your long streaks of losing and relate it to something someone once told me here; similar to gambling addiction, one may feel compelled to "play" themselves out of a hole and end up sinking further because they're, as it is often put, "On tilt."

Thanks for your insight!

Congractulations @MaxTheLad and @DerDerDerDerDer for figuring out the psychological issues.

Learning is greatly intensified by dopamine. Without any dopamine, you won't learn anything. Unless you are learning through fear (by amigdala activation), then it is bad learning. So you must feel at least entertained during the game. Use loud music or beer to reach that goal if needed.

Yet, bear in mind that my suggestion is not addressing the root cause, because the root of those frustrations is related to:

1. your current biological state
2. how you were brought up in childhood

I could write forever on those, but just wanted to point it out, that the tendency for that undesired thinking pattern can't be changed by pure will power.

@Cedur216 said in #19:

well, at any low elo, resigning in the opening just two pawns down is definitely way too early.

In that way i should resign every game as i play danish gambit XD

@DerDerDerDerDer rating are relative i.e the absolute value means nothing. Yes problme ratings are usually hundreds of point above you other ratings. And there in point pondering on it. Absolute value is sort of function of what was initial value of problem when we started to "play" against them. Probably majority of problems were easy ans they rating dropped pushin ratings points to humans.

Never assume that two rating is two player pools mean same thing. Accidentally they might be close but as general rule they are not