Repost from my reddit to get more interactions - plateauing in my USCF chess

If a player is diligently studying and training and playing long rated OTB games and is in a plateau, then it's just a matter of time before that player starts to progress upward in his rating. I.e., a plateau doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong. Other than to suggest that you may be working on areas that don't really need to be worked on, and that you may get a bigger bang for your study time buck by putting more time in another area.

@SeniorPatzer yeah that's what I'm going to do. I'm taking a couple weeks break from chess since I haven't done that in 3-4 years. Then when I get back to it I'll be setting a time limit on puzzles instead of 10 puzzles a day so that I'm not rushing on each puzzle as much. Hopefully that teaches me to take my time more to get more puzzles correct. No puzzle rush as well since trying to find a tactic in blitz mode is not the best practice. And I ordered that AlphaZero book just to see if I can learn anything from it. Also hoping to sprinkle in some endgame studies / challenging middlegame positions to work on my schematic thinking / coming up with plans.

If you are stuck in the 1700s, it sounds like you are having conceptual issues. I would need to see those games to truly assess what it is you're doing.

Puzzles, tactics, and endgames are not going to really help if you don't have a way to steer your game into to those avenues well ahead of the time the theme actually appears on the board. Sometimes, the tactic is just a weapon within a variation to obtain some lesser goal by force. Like they say in Hollywood, many of the best scenes in a movie end up on the cutting room floor. Same with these tactics and endgames. Maybe you just "threatened" the tactic as a way to force him to trade his good bishop for your bad one.

Age is an issue too. Most adult players reach their "normal" level after about 8 years of serious study and play. If your past that time period, it is likely that you may not vary more than 100 points or so from that level. The rule is not absolute and a lot of it has to do with your foundation.

Another important factor is to realize that FULLY 50% of chess tournament performance is from non chess factors. Fatigue. Bad habits. Eating. Hydrating during games. Psychological issues, such as freezing up when under attack. You may be able to improve your results by 100-200 points in a short time by addressing and facing the non chess factors that are affecting your tournament results.

@EuweSuch this is my rating graph for USCF http://www.uschess.org/datapage/ratings_graph.php?memid=16064110. So luckily I'm far away from that 8 year limit for now.

Here are my games from the USAT tourney a couple weekends ago lichess.org/study/Nxb7RQCM

Yeah, I think working on my plans is a good start as well. Honestly I just sat back in this more recent game and let the lower rated opponent fall apart lichess.org/study/GbarDUl2

I def get those other tourney factors. Which is why maybe playing only once every 5 weeks isn't the best. I just hope that I have more longer league team matches in between tourneys. I definitely go through a ton of water during my longer time control matches, I don't get how people barely have to drink any water during play. I think all of this is leading to the fact that I may need a chess coach to help me with some things.

There's a lot of good strong players at DGCC. That might be a good idea.

From the limited sample, we do see some sloppiness, and some plan failures in the first 15 moves.

There is good, too, tactical awareness, positional awareness.

During the sloppy moments, I would want to ask non-chess questions. Fatigue? Laziness? (I'm often guilty). Impulseness? Hungry or thirsty? Nicotine withdrawal? Etc.

@EuweSuch I think for a long time I was making moves where I made them too quickly. So just making sure that I use my time more wisely. I think some laziness as well. I'll look at a sequence and think "Oh he wins a pawn at the end" but if I had looked further I would have seen that it's a poisoned pawn, or I would have had a big attack if he took it (look at the Kurt Stein game with his move ... e6 where I could have just gone Bxc4 there. exd exd Bb7, if he takes once or twice on d5 I have Qe4+)