I think my Chess has deteriorated a lot in the past couple of weeks... or everybody else has gotten better than me. If the latter is the case, then my rating is about 1200! I have lost to a 1300 player, a 1500 player, and I am not doing very well with 1700s and the like - yet I have a provisional USCF rating of 1949 (will go lower after those defeats!) - and I would like to think that I should be rated way higher than that.
The losses were hard to take - but I later realized that such losses are an opportunity for self-discovery. I thought about why I play Chess and what I expect from it. I looked back at the times that I played really well and what I did in order to play well. I have even looked at my whole life, what am I spending most of my time doing? Am I sleeping enough? Where does Chess rank at this time? Where do I want to get, Chesswise? etc.
At this time, one thing is for certain. I need to play a lot better Chess. I will go back and read my writings on how to improve at Chess and try to practice what I preach.
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Interesting post. How many rated games have you played? Just to get a provisional rating of 1949 is hard to do, but losing to 1200 and 1500 players will torch that for sure. Do you have a rating on FICS or ICC? I think those ratings tend to correlate fairly well to USCF ratings.
Thanks for the comment, Jeff. I just checked my tournament history at USCF, and I am showing the following (tournament/date/games/rating after tournament):
1/ 2.25.07/ 5/ 1824
2/ 7.17.04/ 3/ 1822
3/ 2.12.06/ 4/ 1884
4/ 12.16.06/ 3/ 1948
5/ 2.3.07/ 3/ 1982
6/ 3.3.07/ 4/ 1964
7/ 10.6.07/ 4/ 1913
8/ 11.3.07/ 4/ 1920
So I had a provisional rating until 3.3.2007 when I was rated 1964. I am not sure what the 1949 was, but that's what was showing at USCF's website when I made the post about self-discovery through loss. It appears my rating was 1964 before the tournament, and it tanked to 1913 after those nice losses! I am trying to get it up again. by the end of next year(2008).
Jeff, I forgot to answer the other question... I don't have a FICS or ICC rating. I will look into it later. Thanks.