Chess rating system
Oh yes it does! How well you play includes how well you manage your time. Time is as much part of Chess as it is in other games. In football you could score the greatest goal in history, but if the referee blows time before it goes in it doesn't count. Similarly in Chess if you don't get your moves in within the time, you lose, and correctly so.
I could be wrong, but I assume she's talking about blitz games. There are lots of people who are great blitz players but terrible in long games, and vice versa.
viswanathan wrote: ...turtle, the general points system followed is as follows: pawn - 1pt. knight/bishop - 3pts. rook - 5pts. queen - 10pts. of course points are not everything...
Correct me if I'm wrong, some books say the relative strength of the bishop is higher by a fraction of a point (1/4) -- 3 1/4 or whatever fraction, and queen is 9 points, and the king is 3 points.
Turtle, with respect to the rating system, all that matters is whether you win, lose, or draw. You could have ten pieces left or zero pieces left at the end of the game and it doesn't matter at all.
"some books say the relative strength of the bishop is higher by a fraction of a point (1/4) -- 3 1/4 or whatever fraction, and queen is 9 points, and the king is 3 points."
Traditional - Q:9, R:5, B:3, N:3, P:1
Kaufman - Q:9.75, R:5, B:3.25, N:3.25, P: 1, Bishop Pair:0.50
Scoring systems can help you decide which trades are favorable and who's ahead, but be careful as they don't take into account positional considerations such as pawn structures, what square your knight is on, how safe your king is, etc.
Everyone knows a higher rating makes you a better person, increases your wealth, makes people nod in agreement when you speak, and whitens your teeth.
The hideous secret is that there IS NO RATING SYSTEM. They use a super-secret method to hand out ratings based on baseball statistics and tax forms.
In computing technology we just call it a random number generator.
Seriously, The rating is mainly useful for assessing your personal growth by just comparing it to your previous rating of a few months ago. Comparing ratings is like measuring your weight. It is a number that will change based on different variables. You weigh more after eating than before and you play better if you are rested than if you are fatigued.
It is best to just use your rating a few time a year. Most of use will have those 100 point drops and 100 point gains. so really your rating is just an estimate of the median of the range of your rating in chess.
Correct me if I'm wrong, some books say the relative strength of the bishop is higher by a fraction of a point (1/4) -- 3 1/4 or whatever fraction, and queen is 9 points, and the king is 3 points.
Obviously it's a point of view but IMHO the King ought to be set at infinity. Or, at least a point higher than the sum of points of all your pieces on board at any time.