Why We Think We've Improved—But Still Lose

A few days ago, I finally hit 2450 blitz on Lichess—a number I'd been chasing for months. I was playing every day, solving puzzles, watching YouTube videos about traps and openings. When I finally got there, it felt like I was becoming a real chess player.
But just two days later, after three straight losses, I was back down to 2328. I felt defeated—not just by the losses, but by the thought that maybe the rating spike was just a fluke... not a sign of true improvement.
That’s when I asked myself: how can we rise so fast and fall right back down like nothing happened? If I had really improved, why did I lose so easily? What if that feeling of getting better was just... an illusion?

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A Familiar Pattern

This kind of rise-and-fall isn’t new. It’s not even rare. Every serious chess player—especially online—has had streaks where everything clicks. You see tactics faster. You punish mistakes more confidently. Your opponents blunder, and you capitalize. It feels like a breakthrough.
But then, just as quickly, everything slips away. You blunder instead. You overlook threats. You suddenly can't convert winning positions—or even reach them.
So which version of you is the real one? The rising star or the collapsing patzer?

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Data Doesn’t Lie (But It Also Doesn’t Comfort)

Ratings in online chess are designed to reflect your skill as an average over time. When you have a hot streak and jump 100 points, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve improved that much—it might just mean you were performing at your peak.
But peaks are, by definition, not stable.
Many players mistake peak performance for a new baseline. They hit a new high and assume they’ve “leveled up.” But in reality, improvement—real, lasting improvement—is gradual, uneven, and only visible across many games.
And worse: even once you've gotten stronger, your results may not immediately show it. Chess has variance. Sometimes, you’ll play well and still lose. Other times, you’ll win games you didn’t deserve.

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We’re Bad at Feeling Our True Level

Psychologically, we’re wired to recognize patterns, even when they aren’t there. A few wins in a row? “I’ve cracked the code.” A few losses? “I’m slumping.”
But most often, we’re just experiencing the normal noise of a stochastic process. Chess is a skill game, but not a deterministic one. Even at the GM level, you can’t see improvement on the scale of a few games.
Our minds don’t like this uncertainty. So we create stories to make sense of what is, at times, just statistical noise.

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What to Do Instead

Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Don’t trust your rating after 3 games. Or 5. Or 10. It’s the long-term average that matters.
• Track performance, not results. Were you finding good moves? Did you spot tactics—even if you later blundered? That’s a better sign of growth than just whether you won.
• Expect setbacks. Regression is not failure. Falling back from 2450 to 2328 doesn’t erase what you learned along the way. It just means you’re still stabilizing.

And most importantly:

• Improvement doesn’t feel like a straight line. It feels like confusion, frustration, and repetition—until one day, what was hard becomes normal.

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If you’re going through this cycle right now, you’re not alone. We all ride the same rollercoaster. Just don’t let one drop convince you you’ve gone backward. You might be further ahead than you think.