I just played my first live tourny in roughly ten years. It did not go too well considering what rating level I was playing (u1200). I went 3-2 and I am completely frustrated with myself. My rating from ten years ago when I was a lad of 13 was 929 and considering how well I have been progressing lately and my rating on here I figured I was going to do well. Maybe I was too arrogant but I crumbled. I made horrid blunders that I would never do on here. I can't even tell you why..... I wish someone would. I had one good game in the blitz section where I drew a 1960 player ( only a mere 1000 points above me). I should have won but had to force the draw due to time issues. Anyway, if I am capable of drawing a 2000 player why would I lose to a 1000 player? ARRRRRRRRGH I need help!!!!!
Well I disagree, I played very well that game but thanks for your speculation.... better question then, how do I determine my strength? I know I blew it in that tourny but that certainly isn't an accurate representation. or maybe it is.
OTB chess is not the same as correspondence chess. 1. It is harder to see the whole board. 2. You probably get less time to make your moves. 3. There is a lot of psychology involved.
Answer:
In the tourney, there is no analysis board.
I guess your rating is a good measure as far as you played many games.
Of course if you only played a few games luck counts for much.
After playing many games, your rating at least theorically speaking should be accurate.
Of course the point is that if you suddenly make progresses, then your rating will grow slowly untill it reaches your new level. But the point is that you probably make progresses slowly so this is ok.
To conclude, I'll say that to have your rating match your level, the best solution is to play many games I guess.
The rating is a mathematical valuation applied to a game that is considered by many to be an art.
Some days you'll paint the Mona Lisa.
Some days you'll break all your crayons.
Sounds like you did both in one day!
i know the feeling, my first USCF tournament ever i had spent the previous six months studying books and playing a lot, and in my first game i beat a 1700 with the black pieces! i was so proud my father was a master 20 years ago and i told him about the game and then went to play my second...it was against an 1100 so i figured i would be fine...i misplayed my opening, bungled the middlegame, got frustrated and lost. then an eight year old with a 1600 rating beat me. he was drinking a juice box.
Thanks for the responses. I think there was definitely a huge psychological factor, that is the only real conclusion I can come to. I simply didn't see the board the same.
p.s. I have never used the analysis board on here during a match, don't even know how actually.
oh you can practice in Tactics trainer in this site or pracice with people with 1190 now and next you can practice with 1347 and next with 1500 i think that you can play very exelent in the future
Remember that humans are not machines. We do not always play our best all the time. Maybe you got distracted at a crucial time when a certain move was needed to keep a game competitive but instead you chose a line that was plausible but not as strong.
You can also have someone who is really really strong in knowledge regarding a particular opening cause they have taken a great deal of time to study the various facets of that line and all the subtle moves that can result. If that player only played games where that line was used and all other lines were ruled illegal for some silly reason, their rating would be extremely high.
And we all can point out examples of players who we have beaten that we normally have no business beating. My example was a chess tournament where I had brought my laptop that had Chessbase and Fritz on the computer. I was using it to help a friend with his analysis of his games in between the rounds.
I was in the skittles room analyzing the game for my friend who was playing in the next to last round and one of the players who had gotten a bye in the round asked if I wanted to play him since he knew it was going to be at least 2 hours before the next one would start and there was not much else he was going to be doing.
I guess since he saw me using Fritz he must have assumed that I was one of the players in the tournament (the tournament was for players 1800+). I told him that I was just analyzing a game for a friend and that I was not a good player. I told him that my rating at the time was 950 and he was 1950 and that he would trounce me so I did not want to get creamed since I did not find that to be fun.
He however insisted on playing cause he did not want to just sit around analyzing his games and wanted to play someone. I finally gave in and played him but told him not to expect a challenge since I was a hobby player and could not be expected to do well.
I think you know where this is headed but I played him like my life depended on it and got into a position where I had connected passed pawns that were going to promote to a queen and he was forced to use his major pieces to use them as a blockade. I kept applying more and more pressure against his blockade which I was using as a form of mental torture on him until it was no longer possible for him to maintain the blockade and he resigned.
Sore loser that he was, he accused me of lying to him about being 950 because he said no 950 should be able to beat him or tie his pieces up in knots. He said that I did that so that he would take it easy on me and that was dirty to lie like that.
I told him next time to remember to play the board, not the rating!
What cracks me up about people who wear their rating around like a badge of rank is that they believe the number to be a sign of their intelligence and superiority. Then when they're beaten by a much weaker opponent, they confirm that they have absolutely no knowledge of one of the most common human abilities - the flash of brilliance.
Everyone gets one now and then. The 1980 US hockey team, James Buster Douglas, James Braddock, Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn, a bunch of unruly colonists in the late 1700s... it's a long list.
One more thing that I wanted to mention that might have a bearing on why you did not do as well as you thought you should have. Blitz games tend to be about wild attacks and tactics that work cause there is not enough time to think of a defense.
When the time element is removed and players are allowed to take their time, they might find the flaw in the plan that you are trying to do. It might take 20-30 minutes for them to find the flaw in your plan but it does exist. It might be much harder to find such a flaw when the game is of a very short duration (5-10 minutes).
You could also be playing people who are severely under-rated cause they stop playing for a long time and start getting lessons from a chess coach. The old rating that they might have had from the time that they played without a coach is used to judge if they should be be allowed in that bracket but it does not take into account if they have been receiving lessons that make their old rating useless.
This happens quite a bit with scholastic tournaments where one of the players has parents who pay for lessons for a chess coach for their kid. The kid spends time on areas of their game that need the most improvement and assuming that they dedicate themselves to the lessons given by their coach, they will improve in their understanding of chess but it will take time for their rating to catch up with their real level of play.
You should have told the tournament official that the juice box was a distraction and he should have been forced to play without the juice box :P
Perhaps a more apt thread tile is "I am a schizo player, please help us!" LOL
Ratings are an imperfect measure of one's ability to play in ONE game, not over time. I think in professional chess one sees this phenomenon in tournament play where certain players never seem to win tourneys because they can't close the deal on lower rated players (by losing or drawing to them).
I think the key is establishing consistency in one' approach to each game -- learning strategical concepts, honing on tactics, etc.
It is developing a playing style that isn't so affected by the level of opposition that one should strive for. That's what I am doing getting back into the game after a long absence -- studying, practicing, and trying to improve my defence mostly. When I was in high school, I had a similar experience as yours when I played regularly. I had to develop my positional sense and really work on my ability to plan to be able to handle both high-rated and low-rated players OTB as best I could.
Russ
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