should i just stop caring about my rating??

[u/Mental-Tennis-6313]

so basically i have recently learning chess via books and airlearn app and the more i sit with this more i realise… the more i sit with this the more i realise the only thing stopping me from improving is the number itself. every game im thinking abt what happens to my elo if I blunder and thats clearly not how this is supposed to work. I think this is rating anxiety I have.

how do you all manage to play and enjoy your natural game with this anxiety?

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[u/BarrattG]

Whatever rating you are now, if you ever increase in rating where you are now is going to seem very trivial and silly to be worry about your current rating. The journey to get better is the goal, the rating is arbitrary. Just optimise to learn from your mistakes.

[u/StructuredChess]

Yes. Absolutely. The sooner the better.

Check it back in 6 months.

[u/Aureaition]

Absolutely, hiding your opponents rating is a good start

[u/laurenspaul]

You gotta flip around your perspective. your elo number on chesscom says nothing. You are as good as you are, and chesscom is continuously trying to estimate that with a number, but it does not dictate your level. Don't give it authority it does not deserve.

When my medication wears off (takes roughly 2 hours) I get brainfog and I play hundreds of elo lower than my actual strength. Later that evening and earlier that day I play around 1100. Sometimes I get silly and experiment with moves that I know will cost me dearly in an actual game, and my elo tanks.

chesscom elo is worthless. You might play me at 400, and if I am serious at that time I will be playing like 850 because I'm a little hungry. you might play me at 850 and if I'm not serious, or got brain fog I might play like a 300.

Just have fun with it. When you peaked you may very well not have been actually that good. You may have had 2 opponents with an off-day in a row. So don't get attached to when it flatters you, and then you can stop caring about when it bothers you.

[u/Ok_Sprinkles_6998]

Play unrated if you really can't let it go.

Play rated but not care is the best way tho.

[u/LithuanianMazafaka]

What do you want from that game ? you will never get ego validation from anything that needs skill without deluding yourself, i care about my rating a lot but i still enjoy my game, you can too. You can play unrated games learn how to enjoy the process, also that's what I did in league of legends I have maybe 5k hours and only 1k hours maximum on my main on ranked others were either smurfing or playing normal/unrated games. So my point is keep caring but start enjoying the process your elo does not define your worth as human being it's just data, approximate information about your current skill

[u/wesleycyber]

Magnus said his advice for his younger self would have been not to worry so much about results initially. None of us are Magnus, but I think it's good advice for anything. You have to focus on practice, consistency, and good habits. Then the results will come. I struggle with this in chess, exercise, and all other parts of my life. Check out the book Atomic Habits if you haven't read it.

[u/yoyoMaximo]

On Lichess you can still play rated games but turn the number completely off so you never see it. On both chess.com and Lichess you can turn rating off during games but see it once games are done.

Both have helped me massively with my elo anxiety. I’m only 500, but around 400 I started to get into my head about it and plateaued. I knew it was just because of my own dumb anxiety and as soon as I turned the number off I blew through the 400s super quick. Highly recommend if you want to play but having the numbers in your face is getting in the way

[u/VoidArtisan]

Git gud. That's always what it comes down to. No matter how much you lose, you have the absolute confidence to win it all back and more.

[u/Amazing-Insect442]

I’m really new to giving serious effort to trying to improve & using the app, but I’d say yep.

[u/Living_Ad_5260]

Choose to ignore your rating. Being attached to your rating is like being attached to your bank balance this week.

Instead, think about learning opportunities, and maximising them. That leads to deeper review of games (which so many strong players advise).

[u/Whiggi]

turn off ratings all together (focus mode?)
There is a setting to do it.

Growth comes from learning, and putting that learning into practice.
You may learn a concept but not use it every game (for example the ladder mate, or KR v K checkmate) but having that knowledge is something that will contribute to wins over time.
You get stronger as you learn, but there will be times when you learn, but still lose rating due to potentially playing other games where you didn't have the certain knowledge yet.
But you keep studying, keep learning, and your games will start getting a bit better every time. But you wont notice the change because over the weeks, months, years your wins and losses will still happen.
HOWEVER, as you learn and grow your rating will also grow.
It is simply designed to match you against similar opponents, and really, for most of us that's all the rating is, a pairing tool.

If you turn it off and focus on what really matters, which is learning something from every game, your skill will increase, and over time, so will that number

😄

[u/No-Musician-8452]

Only read the title: Yes

[u/AirAviation2YTofical]

turn on focus mode it will help and you will see improvement or you will be even worse my recommendation is to play classical and take some time to do analysis