1500 to 1750 jump makes no sense

Within the past three months, I jumped from a 1500 to 1750 rating that's still rising, but this makes no sense. Of course its cool that I had the rating jump, but I actually don't feel like I've gotten better, I'm playing way less now than before, I haven't actively tried to improve lately, and my opponents feel like the same skill level I was playing against before.

Have I really improved, is it just luck, or is the gap between 1500/1700 just smaller than I thought?

I would argue that the gap is smaller than many people think.
Let me ask you, have you done some training (or a lot of play) some months ago? Because I experienced that the actual improvement of training only comes a few months later.
Apart from that, it might be just by "luck" though such a big jump is relatively unlikely (though not impossible or anything).

Yah, back when I was a 1400, trying to get to a 1500 rating, I played a ton, and watched a lot of John Bartholomew (<--- hes awesome, u should sub). Getting to 1500 from 1400 was unbelievably hard, esp. compared to this jump. It probably is some weird learning curve :D

As I said, that's completely normal. The brain for some reason takes months to fully utilize what you have learned. So your sudden improvement probably can be accounted to that "try-harding" you did back when you were at 1400.

#1 I feel the same like U but I played, LEARNING - Training and openings , rating 2000 and 1800. I feel that I am only at 1500 playing with Stockfish level 4. I do not play online chess with online players. bye.

I had the exact same experience... somethings happened to the ratings. When I began I was like really struggling to get to a stable 1400 and i was just barely above 1500 once in a while after a particular good streak. Took a break from blitz and played many puzzles (where rating is crazy over inflated, I am almost 2300 with no cheating!) and correspondence where my rating is much, much higher than blitz. After a few blitz games I have shot to 1644 and don't feel one bit better. Love the rating though -- I can't bring myself to play rated because it looks so good lol :-).

@KraftyDinner:

Such jumps are normal. Its one of the nice things if you are a beginner. :-)

I managed similar jump(s) when I finally was able to avoid one move blunders and to keep attention to simple tactics from move to move.

You have probably just done a better job avoiding blatant blunders without doing something totally different in your games besides that. But thats enough to make a great jump in rating!

If I play against low rated players they always give me some pieces for free sooner or later...

Best wishes
Nada

You just make less mistakes, thats why the rating jump to 1700 , however, key points of your games havent improved...

@KraftyDinner #1

Online chess rating is a number which depends on all kind of things, for example :

* your opponents and their skills and openings
* your knowledge about openings, middlegame, endings
* your tactical skills, and whether tactics appear in your games
* your mood (feeling tired or good etc.)
* your ability to use your mouse well (I don't use premove, so it can happen that I lose or draw won positions in blitz timetrouble).
* your premove blunders or successes, in case you use premove

etc. etc.

If 1000 more blitz players would register today and play, then it is possible that your blitz rating gets affected as well.

I understand you: 2-3 months ago I was struggling getting a stable 1500+ rating while trying to solve as many puzzles as possible. After one month of hard training I stopped. Now after one month of inactivity I managed to get a stable 1800+ rating basically doing nothing. Keep practising bro!