I've been playing a lot over the past few days and something very peculiar has been happening. I've been playing quite a bit of slow chess (rapid) and my rating has been going up and reaching all time highs. Today my rapid win rate was something like 5/5 (100%) and I put on about 20 Elo. Over the past few days I've gone up by about 60 Elo and had a fantastic win rate. But over the same time span I've hemorrhaged about 80 Elo in blitz at the same time! I can play a pretty precise game in rapid and then blunder horribly in blitz a few minutes later, then play a great rapid game again right after.
Clearly it isn't tilt, and I'm not out of form either. It's something else, but I have no idea what it is.
I have a suspicion that it's my tactical alertness playing a role, since I've been choosing very sharp openings especially with black (KID, Pirc) which perhaps don't work well in blitz for lower-rated players like me, especially when your opponent deviates from theory on move 5. Maybe my calculation abilities are just slower recently and my inner tactics alarm isn't sharp? I don't really know.
Just wondering if anyone else is having this problem with their chess: simultaneously playing fantastic chess and gaining large amounts of rating in one time control while blundering a lot and hemorrhaging rating in another time control. Usually when someone is on tilt or out of form they just don't play well period, across *any* time control. So that's what has me confused.
Clearly it isn't tilt, and I'm not out of form either. It's something else, but I have no idea what it is.
I have a suspicion that it's my tactical alertness playing a role, since I've been choosing very sharp openings especially with black (KID, Pirc) which perhaps don't work well in blitz for lower-rated players like me, especially when your opponent deviates from theory on move 5. Maybe my calculation abilities are just slower recently and my inner tactics alarm isn't sharp? I don't really know.
Just wondering if anyone else is having this problem with their chess: simultaneously playing fantastic chess and gaining large amounts of rating in one time control while blundering a lot and hemorrhaging rating in another time control. Usually when someone is on tilt or out of form they just don't play well period, across *any* time control. So that's what has me confused.