Our rating doesn't really reflect whether or not we are getting better. What might be interesting is looking at past games we have played and try to tell if our skill or thinking has improved. We might can do this by seeing our past moves in earlier games and then deciding whether or not we would have made the same move today. Of course, this assumes our moves today are not worse then before 🙂
What do you all think?
Analysing games would assist improvement but not convinced it would measure.
To measure I think you would need to forget old game completely (surprisingly hard ) and then be able to assess each such move which I suppose a computer would do but probably not to the degree to accurately measure performance.
Also you would not be replicating the pressure/buzz of the real match.
Whilst not infallible if you play enough games a better rating probably is the best guide to improvement.
A better rating could be gained over playing weaker opponents constantly. Perhaps, they would make more mistakes that I could always capitalize on. So, improving a rating is not accurate either.
However, if I look at a game and then decide certain moves were not good and also that I don't play those type moves anymore, then that is proof is that I have improved, isn't it?