What makes a Class A - Expert Player?

Hi everyone,

What do you guys think makes up a Class A to Expert level player? In other words, what skills does this person possess, which makes him that good?

Thanks

He needs to be 6'2" tall, 53 years old, Irish good looks, great bassist, resonant voice, strange sense of humor, diamond member at chess.com, USCF ID#10130158......

I'll let players who have actually reached those levels answer (or maybe check back when I finally do in a few years or decades or never).

But there's a *huge* difference between the average Class A player and the average Expert.

Yes, in addition to answering the question posed, if someone could clarify what that huge difference is that would be great.

Alright, I'll stop with the humor.  Guess it didn't go over so well.

I haven't noticed a big difference in my game going from 1949 to 2003 this year.  I did play a nice positional sac in one game and I'm not much of a positional player, but that's about it.  So, to give you an idea about my game (and maybe others will post here)

1. Openings--I use active openings, but I also adjust to the opponent.  Mylines as black--against e4 (below 1900) the French.  Many B and below players hate facing it.  1900 and above--the Sicilian.  Which variation depends on how I'm feeling at game time, but mostly the Najorf/Scheveningen hybrids.  Against non-e4--the King's Indian.  I love the attacks in this line, and I feel comfortable playing it against anyone rated @2400.  But, for all of my lines, if I see someone playing a weak line (let's say, in the Nimzo), I'll pounce on the opportunity to grab a quick point.  That's my approach to the openings.

 2. Middlegames--the more complicated, the better.  I like threats all over the board--it's even more fun when I'm the one making them.  I don't look at books like My System anymore, I like studying games where the level of defense is approximate to what I see in tournaments.  From this, I have gone back to studying the games from the mid to late 19th century--you'd be surprised at how many masters and near masters still fall into the same bad positions from then.  And, while I still study modern GM games, I don't fixate on them--I have never played a GM (with one possible exception) and I don't spend a lot of time on GM recommendations.  I want to learn how to beat the players I face.

3.Endings--you can never study these enough.  It's really frustrating to grab an advantage in the opening, expand it through the middle game, just to throw it away in the ending.  For an attacker like me, this requires discipline.  But it's well worth it to see your rating keep going up.

The biggest change in my game might just be one of attitude.  I used to go to tournaments to win them; now, I just want to have fun and play some good games (win or lose).  That alone might be the difference.  While the other guy is sweating blood, I'm relaxed, smiling, joking, having fun.  And, well, hey--it worked for me.

I wouldn't call those 200 points huge. I'd rather call the 200 points between an average expert and an average master huge.

Yeah, I guess playing different openings for different rating levels is a good idea

Huge and huger are kinda vague.

Has anyone expressed the leap from Expert to Master in a mathematical way, i.e., the number of tactical motiffs and mating patterns one must know to play at a master strength?

I've heard that the curve is exponential, so here's my best guess, since I don't know exactly how to do exponential math. 

A 1200 rated player needs to know 100 tactical patterns.

A 1400 needs 100 x 2 = 200 patterns. That doesn't sound terrible. 

A 1600 needs 200 x 4  = 800 patterns. I'd crack at 801 patterns.

A 1800  needs 800 x 8  = 6,400 patterns. Ouch!

A 2000 needs 6,400 x 16 = 102,400 patterns. This person has almost no time for family and friends.

A 2200 needs 102,400 x 32 = 3,276,800 patterns.  Over 3 million tactical patterns! All titled players are crazy!

---

An example from GM Lev Alburt's Chess Training Pocket Book -

"Here's a promise: To be a strong player, you do not need to know hundreds of King and Pawn endgame positions - but only 12 key positions. Of course they have to be the right positions - and they're in this book! To be a master you do not need to know thousands of King and Pawn endings. You need to know 50 key positions."

There aren't that many tactical patterns. A number I think Dan Heisman quotes a lot is about 2000 tactical patterns.

Once you start to get into Class A, that's where tactics stop deciding every game and you start needing more positional play and opening preparation. Or so I've heard

 lol I looked him up on USCF he's up to 2000.

Yo!  No need to it even more complicated.  I'm tempted to quit looking at that stuff.

But GM Alburt has a good point.  Fully understanding a few key positions can mean a huge leap forward, not just in the positions themselves, but in understanding chess overall.  The simplest way of judging an opening to see if you like it is by using pawn skeletons--get to, say, move 8 and then remove all the pieces.  The pawns will tell you where your pieces should be placed to be at maximum pressure/efficiency/attack/cooperation.  Matching your fantasy placement to your actual position could be called your personal opening theory. Work with this a little. This should help a lot, not only in the opening but in the transition and play of the middlegame.  You don't have to know a lot, but you should know it well.

Dashkee, your answers in this thread have been awesome.

I wish more people at your level would devote themself to chess writing and teaching. I don't really want to know what grandmasters and IMs think about the game. I'm not ever going to reach their level. But I wouldn't mind aspiring to the high amateur levels.

To KyleJRM

Thanks, but I've only just reached my level, and technically I'm not there yet--that won't be until the 1st.  As we used to say in the Navy, I'm only a frocked expert--I get to wear the stripes, but I don't get the pay yet.

But, hey, I was a 1300 for years--a lot longer than I'd care to admit.  So don't say never, there's always that chance that it may just click.  I always felt that I had some talent, but, boy, did I major nosedives in tournaments.  Even now, I just think I'm more relaxed and that's why I'm getting successful in them now.  I worry more about the quality of the game than the point itself.  It's fun.  Good luck.

I think a lot of it is consistency over the board. You have to be methodical in your thought process. You must create threats but also see your opponent's threat. Sounds easy enough, right? :P I would, as always, suggest tactics and more tactics.

What makes an A player an expert? My first inclination is that a better, more complete understanding of the openings is necessary. As I think about it more, its the ability to form and process a viable plan based upon the opening that you chose. Knowledge of endgames is important. However, I also realize that there is an intangable will to win or maybe more accurately, not to lose, that belongs to long time experts. A stubborness may be a better discription. I now have the opinion its all of the above and a great deal of dumb luck, which I have plenty of.

Sorry if I'm just repeating things, I didn't read the whole thread... but here goes.

I recently made the jump from long time Class A player to Expert, near master.

I still have the opportunity to play the occasional class A player, and although there are a LOT of "flaws" I see in their play now... the biggest one would be this:

Class "A" players are easily distracted! 

You might disagree on the grounds that you see class A players making insane unsound sacrifices all the time (some of them anyways) ... but let me explain.

In every recent game vs. players from 1800-2000 I've played, I notice a lot of "cheapo's" that ruin their position.  I see excess prophylaxis (weakening/time wasting "h3's") and a huge one: they take WAAAAY too long setting up cheap tricks to make an appropriate central pawn break.  

Part of it is opening preparation.  Nevertheless, I rarely get to use much of my preparation vs. weaker players seeing as they usually have their own pet lines which lead to equality and a playable position (give or take).  

I think the big thing is the middlegame.  As I look through some of these games, I see 1800 players playing "sloppy" chess.  As they pile up on some random piece or pawn that isn't integral to the position, I'm preparing the appropriate central break or advance... in a couple of these games, the pawn or piece they wanted so badly.. ends up being sacrificed just a handful of moves before their resignation.  

Granted, a couple of the games involve long, drawn out endgame grinds where a small advantage I was able to generate going into the endgame (class A's trade pieces a little quick sometimes too) turns into a time scramble win... 

Anyways, this is just me rambling.  And I'm only looking at a very small handful of games.  I rarely play Class "A" players anymore.

Hope this helps a bit.

-matt (2110 CFC)

Estragon's answer is good.  ih8sens is talking about a few specific people instead of class A players in general.

I'd say Masters are just a little less crappy than experts, who are just a little less crappy than A class players, etc.  If you ever go through people's games and annotations, you'd see they miss a lot.  It's just (like Estragon points out) the better you are, the less things you miss.  Of course masters don't always pay attention to important parts of the position, they get confused and miss tactics, they make fundamental mistakes etc.  It's just that the players below them are that much worse.

I dont think anyone has ever really reasearched the differences.

If we had 2 groups (grp 1=100 class A's, grp2=100 experts), and say 50 test positions (some tactical, some highly positional, some endgames,etc) it would be interesting to note the differences.

were the experts just all-round a bit better at everything (speed of calculation, accuracy of evalution/calc, depth of calc, visualization, time management, chess intuition, chess knowledge, etc) or, when compared to class A's, just significantly better at a particular spefic aspect(s)?

maybe the experts could think faster, but not any deeper. Thus, assuming the expert did not think on the opp's time, a class A with 30 min on the clock should be more than a match for a expert with 15min.  Do we think that this is true? 

probably not. we could go through the whole list of chess traits (see above) and suggest what the expert may do better. But without scientific study, its just conjecture.

for what its worth, my opinion is simply that there is no one single thing experts clearly do better. its simply a case of being a little better at everything.

Also, do forget that two experts could have both reached that level of chess but each have a completly different understanding of chess!

Imagine we cloned Kasparov. Clone K has all of Kasparov's chess knowledge but we change one of his concepts: Clone K belives Rooks are inferior to Knights.

thus when playing a game, Clone K will frequently "sac" (Clone K considers himself up the exchange!) a rook for a knight. Now, clearly Clone K will have a lower rating than Kaspy himself (since we know that our rule is a crap one). But maybe Clone K would still reach a rating of expert level (since in positions where there is no chance for a Rook-for-Knight trade, he plays like Kasparov [i.e. 2800]). 

Now, it should be obvoius that Clone K's 'Expert understanding' of chess is different from mine.

In real life, the individual differences are obvoiusally more subtle, I play 1.e4 almost exclusivly, and it is quite easy to imagine that there might be some other expert out there that plays 1.d4 almost exclusively. the result might be that I understand open postions, the value of bishops, and tactics better than he does, but he really grasps positional chess (e.g. the nature of closed positions, the value of knights, and stratgedy) better than I do.  I have never studied openings, maybe someone else has become an expert via a vast array of opening knowledge...you get the idea. 

to conclude this long post, I simply think that individual differences are a huge factor:

1) if no two experts are alike in understanding

2) and no two class A's are alike in understanding.

then the conclusion must be that there is no one single thing which all experts 'have over' class A's.  The road from class A to expert might well be the process of finding out what works for you as a individual.