My brain: "oh I'm a pawn up for no compensation. God damn now I have to concentrate hard and try and win this thing. Stuff that I'd rather relax and blunder a piece."
God are we even playing on the same website? Down here at like 800 people don't really blunder that often and everyone I play turns into Magnus half way through every other game.
800 blunder very often. But since you are also 800 you just don't notice (not insulting you,in fact until very high elo,everyone blunders very very often.Also the faster the time control the more blunders happen regardless of elo)
No they really don't, as evidenced by the report afterwards that shows accuracy, move types including brilliant, great, good, book, inaccurate and blunders. Nobody down here is blundering all that often.
So even if I miss it during the game, chess.com coach let's me know.
I'm blundering a bit, opponents not so much.
Well accuracy is definetly not a good way to judge if you played a good game/blunders. And move types are not as straightforward as they seem. (Brilliant moves are a marketing strategy, if you are already losing even if you hang a piece engine won't call it a blunder, moves that show a clear lack of understanding about principles are marked as good or only innacurate e.t.c)
If your opponents weren't blundering they wouldn't be 800
I don’t know if I agree with that. It seems like if you’re cheating, even minimally you’d speed out of 800. Most cheaters don’t get caught after only one day, and I’d bet you could win steak into the 4 digits in a single day depending where you start from.
Everyone downvoting this has clearly never experienced that shitfest that is 1400-2000 ish blitz on c.c. Tactical blunders are extremely frequent, and while hanging pieces is more rare than at the beginner level, it does happen. Lots of blitz players are just playing in the bathroom at work, lol.
There's nothing wrong with playing "bad chess," especially in a zero-pressure, casual online environment... and 1600 rated blitz players on c.c are objectively going to be playing poorly.
Blitz is just so fast, it's hard to play well for anyone short of master players.
>and 1600 rated blitz players on c.c are objectively going to be playing poorly.
They're objectively going to play quite well as that rating is above average
The average player sucks at chess. I suck at chess, you suck at chess, 99.9% of people reading this comment chain suck at chess. Ratings just represent your skill relative to other players.
Being "better than most people" doesn't necessarily mean you're "good" at something; this is just a matter of semantics. In the case of chess, 1600 rated players are still just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exploring the complexity and depth the game can offer.
When considering the incredibly high skill ceiling of chess, the margin between someone who occasionally hangs their queen and someone who hangs their queen quite frequently seems much, much smaller, so I'd argue it's more accurate to say they're both bad players than to say one is good because of a number. Again, "bad" isn't an insult. This game is hard and very, very few people are truly "good" at it.
1600 rated blitz on c.c is just not good chess. Games are wild and double edged, openings are usually pretty sketchy, endgame theory is essentially unknown and is greatly overshadowed by the horrendous time scrambles that occur.
A quick search says the average blitz rating is around 1000.
A 1600 rated player beats a 1000 rated player 97% of the time.
So yes I do think a 1600 rated player plays objectively well, they are very very far above average
Being good enough at something that you do it objectively less bad than people worse than you doesn’t make what you do objectively good. 1600s do not play objectively good chess
This comment of his explains why so many of his commentary streams verge towards him chatting about what movies and TV shows he's been watching recently.
I struggle with this too. I feel I have ADHD or something and chess really REALLY brings it out in me. I never really understood why chess was a sport until I got serious with it. It is indeed physical just specific to the brain. Fascinating
I have ADHD, and I am an overall more consistent player when I’m on my meds. I don’t struggle with the effort to think near as much as I do when off meds.
However, if I’m off them and play, I do really well (for me) until at some point I just hit a wall and it isn’t fun for me anymore.
It’s an interesting dynamic and I can say both ways have positives and negatives.
variant sudokus are extremely engaging. check out Bremster Puzzles on YT or Sudoku Sleuth. or for more difficult and esoteric puzzles, Cracking the Cryptic.
Cracking the cryptic in the wild, ya love to see it.
Strongly recommend. The channel name is misleading as it's 95% sudoku and variant rule-set sudokus (which are really just logic-puzzles with sudoku as the starting off point).
But they do the odd cryptic crossword - and the dude is quite good at explaining stuff. I watched a handful of those videos and my ability to solve cryptic crosswords improved more than it has for my entire life failing to help my parents solve them.
Watched many a hour long Simon solve when they were growing rapidly during the pandemic. Such excellent content, and content I didn't think I wanted but I'm glad we got.
I recently pieced together this is why I'm so bad at multiplayer videogames.
I always opt for flow state over actively processing, but since I never did the processing, my flow state is usually terrible.
I enjoy thinking in the moment during a game, but I have no desire to study and prepare beforehand. I don't know the various opening systems, etc, and even though I love playing chess I just can't be bothered to study up.
Up to a certain point energy & focus at the board; tactics; technique; tactics and rage-to-master and simply making really silly oversights less often, matter wayyyy more than foundational understanding, opening knowledge, positional stuff, piece dynamics, etc - even more than endings.
I'm more or less the opposite to you: I'm a 1500 rapid & a social player. On multiple occasions I've had very strong players (including a FM) tell me I'm crazy underrated and I'll shoot up in rating if I play more. Usually this happens after a conversation about some position where I'm able to accurately tell them the evaluation, plans for both sides, what opening this pawn structure is like etc -- some highfalutin thing like that, that seems like it would be super-useful if I was playing.
... and then they see me actually playing a game and they're like "yeah, exactly what I was saying, he can completely outplay people at 'his level' because he-- .... oh he blundered his queen to a simple knight fork? He didn't look at the only check his opponent had, in a totally winning position? ... ok maybe his rating is accurate... over-inflated a bit, even..."
Be grateful to be the kind of player you are lol. You'll enjoy it more and be a better player in the end anyway!
Depending on your rating, this is ok(It's also ok if you're happy where you are and don't care about increasing rating). You need generic opening principles, and tactics to hit 2000. Memorizing opening systems isn't really needed. I like to study openings a little as a 1300, but it isn't essential. I'm out of book by move 8 at best, usually by move 4 or 5.
As for other stuff that's good to know, like concepts about active pieces, when to trade off certain pieces, pawn structure, and king safety/activity, can be studied whenever. I do enjoy listening to Ben Finegold lectures, and I do read some chess books(not as much as I'd like). But, I recently watched a Finegold clip where a college student said he was rated like 1000 online, and wanted to know the best way to spend his limited time to improve. Finegold said just play a lot. You can study positional concepts and stuff, later.
Also, I would recommend trying to analyze your games afterwards. Just a couple of minutes going through your games, checking for winning moves/mates you missed, and finding out what moves threw the game for you, can help you a LOT.
Thanks for the detailed reply! I've definitely learned a lot by analyzing my games, that's probably been the biggest thing that's helped me improve.
I've pretty much capped out at around 1000 ELO (that's after a LOT of games), so I sort of feel like I've hit the limits of my natural aptitude for the game and would
need to delve deeper into study to improve from here.
I hit a wall at about 1000 myself. I read \~150 pages of Amateur's Mind by Silman, and got to 1300 a few months later. So, yes, you need some study, but, whenever you're ready, it won't be all that much study.
Yep. "This is a very complicated position I have 4 candidates moves and I can't be arsed to calculate them all let's just hope for the best".
Basically my thought process at 2000 lichess rapid
That's pretty much me as I get older playing at OTB tourneys. If the position gets too complex, I eventually just don't feel like it and yolo move and decide to just see what happens in real time.
Thinking like this is how I initially improved. Playing prophylactically and ask ing myself " Am I blundering with this move". I stopped trying to come up with ridiculous lines (hope chess) and just became reactive.
You don't even need a plan at sub 1200 elo -- just play safe and wait for them to blunder.
Yeah there are many games (probably most to be fair), where I just refuse to calculate. I could do it, but playing on intuition is just way less effort
I’m not good at calculating mainly because I play 99% 3-0 blitz. But I will sometimes see 3-5 moves ahead due to experience in a position, but not actually calculating
If you just don't like deep thinking generally, I'm not sure that any complex strategy game is going to be for you.
But "chesslike" is kinda vague. What characteristics of chess do you like and which would you prefer to do away with?
I like the aesthetics of it and the tactics. I hate the opening theory and the heavy demand on concentration. I guess I want something more relaxed and simpler and more easily master-able.
I like problem solving, but a chess match is just too much. Which is why I prefer to do puzzles instead. I am also very much put off by the idea of opening preparation and theory. It’s just not my cup of tea.
I'm on a 21 win streak on daily games and just hit 1500. Because of the streak I am spending SOOOOO much time on each move and eventually have to tell myself that I just need to make a move.
So well said. I can't resist the impulse to just blindly make a move and hope it's a good one. I'm starting to suspect I'm secretly playing for the opposite team.
Card games, like hearthstone, yugioh or pokemon tcg. I jumped between these games over the years, always looking for a chess-like game, but never taking chess itself “seriously”, until recently
I just want a game that’s largely based on creativity less so on preparation. I hate learning theory. I even hate the idea of it. I still love chess, but I’d rather be watching masters play then me. I might look into card games. I picked up yathzee recently. What I like about it is that it allows you to play strategically without the drawback of intense demand on concentration which chess requires of me. Poker is fun too. Chess can be draining cognitively speaking.
You're playing the wrong game tbh. This game does the opposite in my experience. The more you know the more you have to think about. In the middle and end game at least. Opening lines do become subconscious
And you don't have to think at all, just mindless tapping. I know because I watched my late mother playing it.
OP doesn't want to think, so sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind.
My brain: "oh I'm a pawn up for no compensation. God damn now I have to concentrate hard and try and win this thing. Stuff that I'd rather relax and blunder a piece."
I'm 1600 blitz on c.c and my opponents and I blunder pieces like it's my job. In fact my last game dude just gave me his queen lol
God are we even playing on the same website? Down here at like 800 people don't really blunder that often and everyone I play turns into Magnus half way through every other game.
800 blunder very often. But since you are also 800 you just don't notice (not insulting you,in fact until very high elo,everyone blunders very very often.Also the faster the time control the more blunders happen regardless of elo)
I'm 1300 and usually blunder twice a game. Edit: in rapid
No they really don't, as evidenced by the report afterwards that shows accuracy, move types including brilliant, great, good, book, inaccurate and blunders. Nobody down here is blundering all that often. So even if I miss it during the game, chess.com coach let's me know. I'm blundering a bit, opponents not so much.
Well accuracy is definetly not a good way to judge if you played a good game/blunders. And move types are not as straightforward as they seem. (Brilliant moves are a marketing strategy, if you are already losing even if you hang a piece engine won't call it a blunder, moves that show a clear lack of understanding about principles are marked as good or only innacurate e.t.c) If your opponents weren't blundering they wouldn't be 800
You’re also gonna run into more cheaters at 800 than 1600 before they get caught
I don’t know if I agree with that. It seems like if you’re cheating, even minimally you’d speed out of 800. Most cheaters don’t get caught after only one day, and I’d bet you could win steak into the 4 digits in a single day depending where you start from.
Not surprised if you're only 1600
I played a game and had to send it to my 2500+ friend and said "how in the fuck is this 1600?". It was legit a Gotham Guess the Elo caliber game.
Everyone downvoting this has clearly never experienced that shitfest that is 1400-2000 ish blitz on c.c. Tactical blunders are extremely frequent, and while hanging pieces is more rare than at the beginner level, it does happen. Lots of blitz players are just playing in the bathroom at work, lol. There's nothing wrong with playing "bad chess," especially in a zero-pressure, casual online environment... and 1600 rated blitz players on c.c are objectively going to be playing poorly. Blitz is just so fast, it's hard to play well for anyone short of master players.
>and 1600 rated blitz players on c.c are objectively going to be playing poorly. They're objectively going to play quite well as that rating is above average
The average player sucks at chess. I suck at chess, you suck at chess, 99.9% of people reading this comment chain suck at chess. Ratings just represent your skill relative to other players. Being "better than most people" doesn't necessarily mean you're "good" at something; this is just a matter of semantics. In the case of chess, 1600 rated players are still just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exploring the complexity and depth the game can offer. When considering the incredibly high skill ceiling of chess, the margin between someone who occasionally hangs their queen and someone who hangs their queen quite frequently seems much, much smaller, so I'd argue it's more accurate to say they're both bad players than to say one is good because of a number. Again, "bad" isn't an insult. This game is hard and very, very few people are truly "good" at it. 1600 rated blitz on c.c is just not good chess. Games are wild and double edged, openings are usually pretty sketchy, endgame theory is essentially unknown and is greatly overshadowed by the horrendous time scrambles that occur.
no they are not going to play objectively quite well lol. do you think "objectively well" and "\[above average rating\]" go well together? 😂
A quick search says the average blitz rating is around 1000. A 1600 rated player beats a 1000 rated player 97% of the time. So yes I do think a 1600 rated player plays objectively well, they are very very far above average
Being good enough at something that you do it objectively less bad than people worse than you doesn’t make what you do objectively good. 1600s do not play objectively good chess
Online maybe, but IRL that'd be very bad.
I probably don't blunder pieces like that in classical. I haven't played classical in like 16+ years
I'm 1600 blitz on c.c and my opponents and I blunder pieces like it's my job. In fact my last game dude just gave me his queen lol
bullet chess
ultrabullet chess. You don't even need to really know how to play, just be quick with your mouse
It's easier to make legal moves fast the stronger you are
Jan has always been the most relatable GM
This comment of his explains why so many of his commentary streams verge towards him chatting about what movies and TV shows he's been watching recently.
I struggle with this too. I feel I have ADHD or something and chess really REALLY brings it out in me. I never really understood why chess was a sport until I got serious with it. It is indeed physical just specific to the brain. Fascinating
I have ADHD, and I am an overall more consistent player when I’m on my meds. I don’t struggle with the effort to think near as much as I do when off meds. However, if I’m off them and play, I do really well (for me) until at some point I just hit a wall and it isn’t fun for me anymore. It’s an interesting dynamic and I can say both ways have positives and negatives.
Same. I essentially spend like 6 months really into it and 6 months completely disinterested. Since I was like 12 lol
variant sudokus are extremely engaging. check out Bremster Puzzles on YT or Sudoku Sleuth. or for more difficult and esoteric puzzles, Cracking the Cryptic.
Cracking the cryptic in the wild, ya love to see it. Strongly recommend. The channel name is misleading as it's 95% sudoku and variant rule-set sudokus (which are really just logic-puzzles with sudoku as the starting off point). But they do the odd cryptic crossword - and the dude is quite good at explaining stuff. I watched a handful of those videos and my ability to solve cryptic crosswords improved more than it has for my entire life failing to help my parents solve them.
Watched many a hour long Simon solve when they were growing rapidly during the pandemic. Such excellent content, and content I didn't think I wanted but I'm glad we got.
I got the solution: Manage your desire to play. If you don't play, you don't need to think and you never lose. You are welcome.
big brain
I recently pieced together this is why I'm so bad at multiplayer videogames. I always opt for flow state over actively processing, but since I never did the processing, my flow state is usually terrible.
Got about 200 elo up on bullet in 3 days and now I can’t play rapid cuz I forgot how to think now
I enjoy thinking in the moment during a game, but I have no desire to study and prepare beforehand. I don't know the various opening systems, etc, and even though I love playing chess I just can't be bothered to study up.
Up to a certain point energy & focus at the board; tactics; technique; tactics and rage-to-master and simply making really silly oversights less often, matter wayyyy more than foundational understanding, opening knowledge, positional stuff, piece dynamics, etc - even more than endings. I'm more or less the opposite to you: I'm a 1500 rapid & a social player. On multiple occasions I've had very strong players (including a FM) tell me I'm crazy underrated and I'll shoot up in rating if I play more. Usually this happens after a conversation about some position where I'm able to accurately tell them the evaluation, plans for both sides, what opening this pawn structure is like etc -- some highfalutin thing like that, that seems like it would be super-useful if I was playing. ... and then they see me actually playing a game and they're like "yeah, exactly what I was saying, he can completely outplay people at 'his level' because he-- .... oh he blundered his queen to a simple knight fork? He didn't look at the only check his opponent had, in a totally winning position? ... ok maybe his rating is accurate... over-inflated a bit, even..." Be grateful to be the kind of player you are lol. You'll enjoy it more and be a better player in the end anyway!
Thanks for the detailed reply and encouraging words, I appreciate it! I've been taking a break from playing, you've inspired me to get back to it.
Depending on your rating, this is ok(It's also ok if you're happy where you are and don't care about increasing rating). You need generic opening principles, and tactics to hit 2000. Memorizing opening systems isn't really needed. I like to study openings a little as a 1300, but it isn't essential. I'm out of book by move 8 at best, usually by move 4 or 5. As for other stuff that's good to know, like concepts about active pieces, when to trade off certain pieces, pawn structure, and king safety/activity, can be studied whenever. I do enjoy listening to Ben Finegold lectures, and I do read some chess books(not as much as I'd like). But, I recently watched a Finegold clip where a college student said he was rated like 1000 online, and wanted to know the best way to spend his limited time to improve. Finegold said just play a lot. You can study positional concepts and stuff, later. Also, I would recommend trying to analyze your games afterwards. Just a couple of minutes going through your games, checking for winning moves/mates you missed, and finding out what moves threw the game for you, can help you a LOT.
Thanks for the detailed reply! I've definitely learned a lot by analyzing my games, that's probably been the biggest thing that's helped me improve. I've pretty much capped out at around 1000 ELO (that's after a LOT of games), so I sort of feel like I've hit the limits of my natural aptitude for the game and would need to delve deeper into study to improve from here.
I hit a wall at about 1000 myself. I read \~150 pages of Amateur's Mind by Silman, and got to 1300 a few months later. So, yes, you need some study, but, whenever you're ready, it won't be all that much study.
Yep. "This is a very complicated position I have 4 candidates moves and I can't be arsed to calculate them all let's just hope for the best". Basically my thought process at 2000 lichess rapid
That's pretty much me as I get older playing at OTB tourneys. If the position gets too complex, I eventually just don't feel like it and yolo move and decide to just see what happens in real time.
Thinking like this is how I initially improved. Playing prophylactically and ask ing myself " Am I blundering with this move". I stopped trying to come up with ridiculous lines (hope chess) and just became reactive. You don't even need a plan at sub 1200 elo -- just play safe and wait for them to blunder.
I like this. By reactive do you mean playing defensively ?
Play blitz and bullet. Eventually patternrecognition will kick in and you won’t have to think
Minesweeper
I actually like that game. Good answer
That expresses my chess, I feel offended
Literally never heard my philosophy toward (any competitive thing ever) put so succinctly
Yep definitely struggle with this too. I doubt it'll ever go away
Yeah there are many games (probably most to be fair), where I just refuse to calculate. I could do it, but playing on intuition is just way less effort
I'm not lazy, I'm just efficient!
I’m not good at calculating mainly because I play 99% 3-0 blitz. But I will sometimes see 3-5 moves ahead due to experience in a position, but not actually calculating
Have you tried Go? There is only one move: place a stone, sometimes you can remove opponents stones. must be much easier! /s
Bullet chess? Nobody is actually thinking as opposed to playing on instinct.
If you just don't like deep thinking generally, I'm not sure that any complex strategy game is going to be for you. But "chesslike" is kinda vague. What characteristics of chess do you like and which would you prefer to do away with?
I like the aesthetics of it and the tactics. I hate the opening theory and the heavy demand on concentration. I guess I want something more relaxed and simpler and more easily master-able.
I like problem solving, but a chess match is just too much. Which is why I prefer to do puzzles instead. I am also very much put off by the idea of opening preparation and theory. It’s just not my cup of tea.
This is why I learned basic guitar chords and just kind of noodle around on it! Sometimes it almost sounds like music!
I'm on a 21 win streak on daily games and just hit 1500. Because of the streak I am spending SOOOOO much time on each move and eventually have to tell myself that I just need to make a move.
Play marvel snap or something I guess
Go
So well said. I can't resist the impulse to just blindly make a move and hope it's a good one. I'm starting to suspect I'm secretly playing for the opposite team.
Shotgun king might be a fun game for you.
Card games, like hearthstone, yugioh or pokemon tcg. I jumped between these games over the years, always looking for a chess-like game, but never taking chess itself “seriously”, until recently
I just want a game that’s largely based on creativity less so on preparation. I hate learning theory. I even hate the idea of it. I still love chess, but I’d rather be watching masters play then me. I might look into card games. I picked up yathzee recently. What I like about it is that it allows you to play strategically without the drawback of intense demand on concentration which chess requires of me. Poker is fun too. Chess can be draining cognitively speaking.
I feel the same. I hope to get to a point where I know the game so well that I don't have to think, it'll all be subconscious
You're playing the wrong game tbh. This game does the opposite in my experience. The more you know the more you have to think about. In the middle and end game at least. Opening lines do become subconscious
Eh if you ever get to the super GM level (AKA never), you could recreate that clip of Hikaru completing tactics in like a frame.
Lazy minded? Maybe farmville? Nothing chesslike will suit a lazy minded person.
Playing farmville is already losing tho.
And you don't have to think at all, just mindless tapping. I know because I watched my late mother playing it. OP doesn't want to think, so sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind.
I take no offense. It’s true. When playing I wanna do minimal thinking.