From: jhc@iris.uucp (James H. Coombs)
Subject: Re: Looking for improvement suggestions
Reply-To: jhc@iris.UUCP (James H. Coombs)
Organization: IRIS - Brown University
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 19:45:50 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.155312.14975@talon.ucs.orst.edu> linb@UCS.ORST.EDU (Benjamin Lin) writes:

>I used to be a 'C' player and now I'm a 'B' player.  Speaking from
>my own experience, class players generally aren't very good at all.

Is that "class B" players or all players below Expert?

>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.

I wonder about this.  If you are only 1600, then you are Class B, but
the 100 point difference predicts only 1 additional win out of 8 games
on the average.  That does not suggest a dramatic improvement and may
actually be due to luck in the short run.

>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?  I don't quite understand.
It seems almost as if you are passing off the tournament experience as
little more than learning some tricks.  I would think that you would
have learned from broad exposure to different ideas and styles as well
as positions.

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

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.

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.  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).

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

>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?  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.

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.  Something like that.  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.  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.

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.

--Jim
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess