You win some, you lose some, right? That's right, and so I shouldn't really brood too much over it. Only, it isn't that simple.
Thanks to the amazing improvement in cellular technology, I get to regularly play a few 30 min games every day against my favorite program tuned down to 15% of its strength, and a few against humans each Saturday on my favorite site (while I'm relaxing over some red wine).
When I analyze them later, I observe great inconsistency in my games from one week to another.
One week I'm clearly playing quite well, saying objectively as I win most games against the program at 15% (which should easily put me at around 1200). During these games, my field of vision seems to be pretty wide and clear, my pieces quickly and easily go where they want to, I do not worry about illusions of attack created by my opponent, but am rather thinking more on the lines of: If I do this (a couple of moves), I would have more space and my pieces would be more active, my opponent has no immediate mate, if he attacks, I could simply move out or away when his pieces lose coordination, and then I will get him solely owing to my focused activity on these few squares. Then it is all about time, space and activity after King safety. At my level, that sort of clarity during a game is a definite confidence booster, and it is specially so when the result agrees.
Saturday. Chess.com 30/G has me hovering about at around 1000 (give or take a hundred). The few games I play are satisfying and enjoyable. I win some, I lose some. Bad losses come about after the wine get me. But it is all fun, and so not a big deal.
Sunday. Rest. Movies. Youtube. More rest.
The next week. I decide to continue playing the program at the same strength. The plan is, if I continue to win consistently, I would then move up by 5% strength. Only, that never happens. I lose most games the entire week. All those considerations of space, time and activity are still present as beautiful thoughts, but they just don't seem to materialize on the board. Every good looking move seems to carry with it a potential weakness, which that tactical monster in my cell phone hardly fails to accommodate. It strikes back with tremendous vengeance to cover up for its losses the previous week. Strangely, it seems as though my brain goes into into hibernation while my fingers swipe the pieces across the touch screen. It seems as though for some unknown reason I've suddenly become stupid.
This is not just the normal win some, lose some situation. This sort of inconsistency from one week to another is just not normal, is it?
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Many thanks.
Prady.
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