Only your lowest point was in the high 1200s. If you look at your graph, it seems that you are pretty consistently playing at a 1400 level, and have been slowly improving.
It's a common occurrence to see a steady growth with intermittent periods of decline, before rising slightly higher after the fall, and not only in chess.
i fluctuate between 1480ish and 1750
I don't know how seriously you were with your theory but you are wrong.
I looked up Blazorges losses in the 2 most significant troughs in the picture:
http://abload.de/img/down3wj5l.jpgand it turns out he almost exclusively lost against well established accounts and only one or two new accounts.
OP just didn't play as well when his rating went downhill that is all.
I was replying to #10
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. I liked the articles about blundering. It helps to have some perspective on other's experience. As a very dyslexic person who nevertheless loves chess I've spent a lot of time studying the game without getting much better. Sometimes this gets discouraging and I wind up giving up for a time. I will just have to be patient, try to have fun and not pay much attention to ratings.
Thanks again folks!
You might have fun with my blitz rating graph. It varies a lot because a) For some weird reason I either see everything and get my rating high or then I see nothing and I lose to everybody. b) Depends on the time control, I just tried some slow blitz games (0+11) and got duly slaughtered each time but usually do much better in quick blitz (3+0 or 5+0)
Mine yes sometimes
I'm new to this site. About 200 games. Rating does seem to fluctuate UP TO 1500. I've been 1492 on 3-4 different occassions, then lose a few and I'm down to 1390.
Feels like being both 1300 and 1500 at the same time.
I go from roughly 1800-1950 all the time,.
