The value of vote chess
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i think it totally depends on the quality of the team playing. we have seen some really silly moves in vote chess. and it tends to go downhill fast as better players leave lost games and allow weaker players to fight on in vain :)
Yes I have seen that in vote chess. The second a dumb move is made then the better players run to the hills. It is very difficult to play a group of people versus one good person, but I'm sure its been done. If the group communicates well and has good players then I wouldn't see why they wouldn't have the advantage.
Lexlee wrote: Yes I have seen that in vote chess. The second a dumb move is made then the better players run to the hills. It is very difficult to play a group of people versus one good person, but I'm sure its been done. If the group communicates well and has good players then I wouldn't see why they wouldn't have the advantage.
I think it's more complicated than that. The good players need more than chess skill and communication; they need to be able to explain to the other players why a move that is not the obvious choice is actually a better one. That means they have to be either excellent and highly persuasive communicators and teachers or, alternately, recognized by the masses as highly skilled. I wonder how many people check a poster's Glicko rating in vote chess games before deciding whether to follow the poster's advice.
Most people can't check the glicko rating, since it is a premium feature.
There are lots of debates and explantion of moves in the vote chess games. I find them both informative and entertaining. It is true that the best move is not always picked though.
Checkers4me> Most people can't check the glicko rating, since it is a premium feature.
I just viewed your profile while not logged in and see the following. So everyone has access to a player's basic performance in chess.com correspondence games. What they might not have access to are advanced stats like RD.
Current: 1454 Highest: 1508 Avg Opponent: 1346 Total:267
I think the most important thing is simply to not take vote chess as seriously as your own games. It's no fun for us weaker players to even bother participating if it's just a matter of "read the posts and vote for whatever the top few guys agree on, even if you don't understand why it's better than the move you would have played". What do you learn from that?
Of course, I always read the arguments and take them into account before voting. But, if nobody is able to convert me to their point of view (either because the argument is not great, or more likely because the strategy involved is a bit beyond my current level) then I just vote for the best move I can come up with. Sometimes people's posts help me see why a move I was considering is bad, even when they don't win me over to their preferred choice. Having said all that, I usually do vote for one of the top discussed choices, just not always.
Basically, I just think that a vote chess game should be decided by the overall strength of the teams, rather than their ability to blindly follow the leaders. It's important to try to learn from others' suggestions, but in the end you have to make your own decision. And if you're an actual good player who's frustrated by your teammates, then don't sweat the results so much. Treat vote chess as a fun little experiment, and focus on beating people one-on-one.
Does anyone have a sense of how effective a game is likely to be played through democratic chess? I know it's fun to pit a grandmaster or some such against a large group of people, but I suspect that the group side will turn out to play an average, bookish game rather than one influenced by the combined skill of many people. After all, great players don't distinguish themselves by making the moves most people would make, and this is exactly what a voting bloc will do.