Rating dilemmas

When I first joined this site back in August I thought I was a pretty good chess player. After a few weeks I realized I was terrible.

At this point now I feel I have a pretty good grasp of the basics. I am approaching 1600 but I don't feel I am of 1600 caliber. I feel like my true rating is 1400-1450.

My concern is if I win more games I will hit 1600 and thus be in a higher band when playing banded challenges where I am quite sure I won't do as well. I welcome the challenge but I have a really hard time as it is beating 1500 players and losing a bunch of games is depressing.

I was just wondering if anyone else has had similar feelings and what your actions were?

I look forward to sarcastic and serious responses.

No sarcasting answer, but it's just the way things go. 😞

I have the same problem. :'(

Originally posted by TalonBoss
When I first joined this site back in August I thought I was a pretty good chess player. After a few weeks I realized I was terrible.

At this point now I feel I have a pretty good grasp of the basics. I am approaching 1600 but I don't feel I am of 1600 caliber. I feel like my true rating is 1400-1450.

My concern is if I win more games I will hit 1 ...[text shortened]... lar feelings and what your actions were?

I look forward to sarcastic and serious responses.

playing stronger opponents will make you stronger. just take your time with every move, be very careful (but aggressive), check & double check for blunders, and you'll be okay.

I had just peaked above 1600 when I joined my first 1600-1699 tournament. I thought I was going to lose all my games, but I won my group and qualified for the second round. it just takes a lot more effort, but is completely doable.

I guess the problem is that you spend your all your time you devote to chess in playing, instead of training. you have 101 games in progress!? you have played 2288 correspondence chess games! I think ideally that number of cc games should take a lifetime (meaning they're analyzed deeply, during and after the game, like correspondence games should be.)

my advice would be to keep the games low and calm, and have around 5 games going on while you spend the rest of your time training tactics, endgame and strategy.

(by the way, while giving advice, I feel I must state I'm probably not above 1600. so don't take my word too seriously 🙂 )