Czuch: It's hard to know if the free fall is due to the runs of luck that Pythagoras was referring to or whether it's a change in your playing. Certainly stress will make me play badly (and it even seems to affect my luck somehow). Sometimes these things happen because you get a set of games which are exploring new territory so you go down because you're making mistakes, but you learn from them and are better in the future. Have a look at the graphs of other players and you'll see similar patterns. Alanback, for instance. His skill cannot be doubted but he has the ocassional bad patch followed by a climb back to glory..