From: sloan@cis.uab.edu (Kenneth Sloan)
Subject: Re: Looking for improvement suggestions
Organization: CIS, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 22:38:15 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.194550.888@cs.brown.edu> jhc@iris.UUCP (James H. Coombs) writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.155312.14975@talon.ucs.orst.edu> linb@UCS.ORST.EDU (Benjamin Lin) writes:
>...
>>Even though my rating has gone up, I don't think I've gotten any better.
>>If anything, I'm worse now than I used to be when I was rated 1500.
>
>...
>>The only reason that my rating went up was that I played in tournaments.
>>Once you get used to playing in tournaments, you should be able to 
>>give a good game against any class 'B' player, even if your rating is
>>below 1000.  Just play carefully and slowly.
>
>So hasn't this experience made you better? 

Not necessarily - it depends on what you mean be "better".  Clearly, he
has become better at playing in tournaments - this is not what everyone
equates with being better at chess.  In my experience, it takes about 3
tournaments, within 6 months or less, to iron out the "tournament
jitters".  Just little things associated with tournament play.  Like
everything else, it takes awhile for these things to be internalized.  A
layoff of 6 months is likely to set you back to the beginning...you'll
need another 3 tournaments to ramp back up again.  I would put this
"tournament tough" edge at about 100 USCF rating points.

> I don't quite understand.
>It seems almost as if you are passing off the tournament experience as
>little more than learning some tricks.

Precisely!   They are "tricks" to him - to you they may be essential
parts of the "chess experience".  De gustibus non disputandum.

>  I would think that you would
>have learned from broad exposure to different ideas and styles as well
>as positions.

Not necessarily - although this happens *in addition* to the "learning
some tricks".  

>
>I also doubt the ability of a 1000 player to challenge a 1600 player.

Upsets happen all the time - but they are (by definition) improbable.  

>But you said "good game," and that could mean many different things.
>If the ratings are accurate, the 1000 player should win less than 1
>game in 32.  In short, I think you may be underestimating the 1600 and
>overestimating the 1000 (although I did nearly beat a 1600 when I was
>rated 800.)

the 1000 player's idea of a "good game" may well be the 1600
player's idea of a "simple crush".  If the 1000 player realized what a
simple crush the game was...he wouldn't be a 1000 player!
And of course, it's possible to have a "good game, until I ...".  The
problem is that the 1000 player is more likely (by definition) to
blunder first, and most disastously.

>
>I suppose part of the problem may be that many 1000 players are
>probably underrated.  Beginners frequently improve very quickly, but
>the rating goes up slowly.  I am rated 1036 but my recent tournament
>performance is closer to 1300.  If I continue to win 2/4, I will have
>to play about 10 more tournaments to reach 1300.  That will take about
>a year, but I will continue to improve during that year.  So, I foresee
>a serious lag in my rating.

Of course, there's just the smallest possibility that this same lag is
in *everyone's* rating.  You can't equate detailed knowledge of your own
strength with the posted rating (and nothing else) of your opponent.
Virtually everyone rated under 2000 is "improving" (if they are
reasonably active - let's say 25 rated games per year).  Players
participating in their fourth tournament in one month are usually
improving faster than those who are playing their first tournament in
two years.  So in this sense you are correct - beginners improve faster.

But...it makes little sense to put too fine a point on ratings.  They
are estimates.  On the whole, they are accurate estimates (almost by
definition).

>
>If I recall correctly, the standard deviation is 40 points after 48
>games (for a player whose strength does not change during those
>games!).  I saw this in CCRQ, I think, and it was written about
>computers.  

Computers are not people (yet).

>Well, at a tournament a month, it would take me a year to
>play 48 games, but there is no way to keep me from learning from the
>experience.  I suppose that there is some plateau, probably different
>for each person, at which they stabilize for a year, but that may be at
>around 1800-2000 (just going by the distribution of ratings).

As you say - it depends on the person.  Some plateau at 1300 - others at
2600.  If you stay active, I estimate that you should gain on the order
of 100-200 rating points per year, until you level off.  Younger players
often have temporary plateaus every once in a while.  If you go for a
year (and are active during that year) and your rating remains stable
(or drops!), then you have probably hit your limit.  More concentrated
study, more active play, lots of other things...can help you improve
further, but the going definitely gets tougher after you've had your
first "flat" year.

>
>This suggests that ratings are not very accurate at the lower levels,
>especially for people who are making an effort to learn and improve.

Well...for those who actually *are* improving.   Paraphrasing Yoda:
"improve, or improve not - there is no 'try'".

>And, as you say, nothing will improve the rating as much as playing in
>tournaments.  Theoretically, a person could master the game without
>playing additional rated games and still carry a 1000 rating.

Those people register early for the World Open...

>
>>About openings, don't bother to memorize any.  Just develop pieces
>>as quickly as possible.  If you play book openings, you will just
>>reach a position that your more experieced opponents knows much better.
>
>Yes, but won't you then learn something about that position? 

Usually not.

>... You may
>lose, but you then gain the experience needed to compete with opponents
>at higher levels and to beat the neophytes that are coming up.
>

Obligatory ad hominem attack: 1036 players should not throw around the
word "neophyte"!

>In sum, I am becoming convinced of what I think we have heard many
>times: ratings don't mean much at all.  Perhaps we should say that
>ratings below 2000 can be wildly inaccurate. 

Why should we say that?  Instead, it appears to me that you have stated
a clear hypothesis.  Let's propose the critical experiment, and see how
well your hypothesis stands up.  Over the next year, save your
crosstables (get them from USCF, if necessary) and compute the predicted
and final scores for all players rated below 2000.  Report your results.

I predict that the data will not allow you to reject the hypothesis that
the ratings correctly predict the results - especially if you ignore
"provisional" ratings. 

>... A
>humorous anecdote.  I was gaining the advantage over a 1300 this
>weekend.  He got up and mosied over to the player listings, confirmed
>my 1000 rating, came back with renewed confidence, and immediately lost
>a second pawn.  In fact, I suspect that the premature attack, which
>lost him the game, may have been motivated by the difference in our
>ratings. 

A familiar story.  The best advice that I give all beginning tournament
players is: look up your opponent's rating - *after* the game.  There's
virtually no advantage in playing the rating instead of the board.  For
all sorts of reasons.

> Of course, I won the game not out of any superior skill but
>because I noticed more of his blunders than he noticed of mine.

I'm curious: why do you not consider this "superior skill"?  At a very
deep level, this is an essential and integral part of chess.  Everyone
blunders; the questions are: how badly, and how often?  Recognizing your
opponents blunders (just as much as recognizing his threats) is an
essential chess skill.  if you do it better than your opponent, then you
have superior skill (in my book).  

Annotate your games immediately.  Save them.  When you are rated 2000
(or perhaps a bit earlier...)  go back and look at these annotated
games.  You will be astounded.  You may literally not believe that you
could possibly have believed the things you put in your annotations.

I used to believe that 2500-level chess was awesome.  That was before I
started watching 800-level chess!  One of the great secrets to the
appeal of chess is that it can be played, thought about, and enjoyed on
so many different levels.  800-level players simply (and literally)
don't know what 2500-level chess is all about, and of course,
vice-versa.  There are exceptions - but they are exceedingly rare.

>
>One final thought on the quality of play.  I suspect that low-rated
>players play very high quality chess occasionally and very low quality
>most of the time.  The moments of inspiration remain rare as we
>improve, but the infernal moves gradually become equally rare.

Well studied 800-players often play "perfect" chess for as long as 15
moves (by memorizing opening lines) - but I would hesitate to call it
"high quality chess".  Playing the right moves is just the beginning...
The really amusing games are those where *both* players rattle off
"best" moves, and reach a position that neither one understands.
Computers used to do that a lot - the opening manual would carefully
construct a wonderful posision, and then the middle-game evaluation
function would rearrange the pieces fo no particularly good reason other
than that is just didn't understand why the pieces were already well
placed.  Computer chess taught me this syndrome - I've since seen it in
lots of human players!

But - it's true: middle level chess often boils down to "who made the
most (or, more often...the *last*) blunder(s)".  "unforced errors" are
costly in tennis - equally so in chess.
-- 
Kenneth Sloan                   Computer and Information Sciences
sloan@cis.uab.edu               University of Alabama at Birmingham
(205) 934-2213                  115A Campbell Hall, UAB Station 
(205) 934-5473 FAX              Birmingham, AL 35294-1170