How long is too long?

[chipschap]

Due to extensive business travel and work commitments, punctuated by a bout of illness, I have missed several weeks of regular chess practice including tactics here at CT.  Not so surprisingly I took a big rating hit when I came back!

It's said in musicianship that technique either advances or declines, but never stays constant.  I think this must be true for chess as well.

So ... how long is too long to be away without significant loss of technique?  I suspect my drop after a few weeks can be correlated to my overall lower skill level ... in other words, weaker players drop off faster than top players.  Or ... do they too lose a subtle edge after a few weeks of inaction?

[sourire]

I don't know how to answer that for top tier players as I'm not one.

I think a week or 10 days is a reasonable amount of time to take off from chess if one's feeling burned out.

I did that earlier this month and I feel much sharper. If I had taken off an entire month I think I would be worse at tactics though.

Maybe it just depends as people's minds work in different ways?