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Last week saw another lesson with Chobo, and me on top of my game, crushing nerds left right and centre. I joined this lesson by telling my supercoach just how well i was doing, including the % of time i was against opponents a league above me (which was a heap), that i was #1 in my plat division by a good margin and generally really happy with where I was in the game.

I should have known this was a bad idea.

Fastforward 4 days, and despite the lesson, I am playing gold opponents, possibly the biggest downswing of my sc2 life. included in this time is a win rate of 2 wins to 12 losses, including an 8 loss streak which has me questioning the choice of my race, my skills and most importantly, my dedication to this game.

I know everyone has losing streaks, but it was the suddenness with which this one took hold. I went from confident to frustrated to despondent in the space of about 10 games. Despondent is a great word, should be used more. What was getting me (and still annoys me) is that when i played people in diamond, i was getting 10-13 points when I won. But every single plat I was playing i was losing 16-20 points - for losing to someone in my own division. I know the points dont matter. And i know your division shouldnt matter. But you look at the points you had before you started playing and when you ended, and I actually realised I would have been better off if i had the weekend off starcraft. probably would have remained closer to the promotion I want.

This is what i refer to as the long road down - that completely soul crushing streak that occurs after a good and strong upswing. It seems to happen to most starcraft players i have spoken to, they will get close to masters, then suddenly just start getting destroyed, and then be destroyed by diamonds, then low diamonds. How different players deal with this downswing depends on the particular person - some will tank to bronze, siome swap race, some quit for an period, some play for ages and try to "work through it", some will start 4 gating every game.

I am slowly recovering from this downswing. I am still playing against diamonds, but with more plats. I had a SEACL game last night (salsaVISION is a boss by the way, a pharmacist from brisbane, really cool and funny guy), which i was lucky enough to win. This was the first step, that first point of recovering your confidence. Self belief, for me anyway, comes in small chunks. and winning this game last night was the first of the chunks

and now about coaching...
But alas, i have not spoken about the coaching - and that is because the coaching from Chobo had nothign to do with me having the downswing. If anything, the previous two lessons lead to me having that massive upswing, as I was taking games of players I would never have been able to without him.

But for those getting coaching - be prepared for the long road down. You will have a downswing, and because you have climbed higher due to coaching, it will be a longer road than you have faced before. And as it is longer, and you feel you have improved, it will crush a lot of your belief. Stay strong

Chobo and i focused on TvP this week, and really refined and fixed some of my builds that i thought were standard openings (that it turns out i was doign wrong, which explained my limited success with them). I also learned a few builds I have to yet iron out the kinks of, and really give practice to. Strangely, i have been hitting less and less protoss on the ladder lately. Just a coincidence, i am sure to get a lot of protoss in the next week or so.

But anyway, that means 3 of my 4 lessons are done with Chobo. I am closer than i was when we started to being diamond, but how much closer is the question. The goal still remains to hit it by the end of the season, or beginning of season 7. Correct me if i am wrong, but that doesnt really give me much time.

Shoutouts
Few shoutouts:-
1) Chobo is a boss, get coaching from him. If you are throwing up whether to or not, do it.
2) In a moment of weakness, i tanked my KR account and started playing protoss. I think i got BM'd in chinese. Google translate had it roughly telling me where to go and some other random words. But i had 4 gated another protoss - so shoutout to being bm'd in chinese. bronze league KR is srs bzns
3) I am trialing with the clan Forever (FvR) who has been appearing around the place more and more. Great group of guys, so far so good - i need to do a heap more stuff to get in, but still, the whole experience has been pretty good so far. so shoutout to those boys

cheers

volition