Guess the Elo on the chess forums

GUESS THE ELO

Welcome to Guess the Elo, the forum edition.

Obviously, this article has been inspired by Gotham Chess’ YouTube series Guess-the-Elo. In his videos Levy Rozman watches a selection of his subscriber's games and tries to guess their Elo rating. This is both entertaining as well as quite educational.

I’m challenging my readers to do the same, to guess the Elo of the players featured. But instead of judging them on a game they played, you'll have to guess based on one of their comments on the chess.com forums.

The Rules

• On the bottom of this article you find a link to a form where you can submit your answers.
• Points are awarded for how close you are to a member's actual Elo rating.
• Rating for each member is determined on the Elo of the format they’ve played most games in.
• Part of the quotes can be obscured or omitted to hide direct references to their rating, otherwise interpunction and spelling is left as is.
• Don’t cheat by searching for the answer, like duh.
• This is just for fun. Participants that take this too seriously can be disqualified at will.
• The contest will end on December 9th 11.59 PM EST, so you can submit your answers until then. However, I will extend the deadline for as long submissions keep coming in.

Example

Topic Title: Cheating At Title Tuesday

In this topic, created by a prominent member of the chess.com community, a discussion was started on the prevalence of cheating in Titled Tuesdays. Here is one of the comments in that thread, posted by the creator of the topic.

First of all those GAPS are quite correct, and if you can't really establish the presice strenth of a player with this but only approximate, you can understand RELATIVE strength between players with it quite well because same parameters used. Second, I have much more statistics not based on GAPS which indicate cheating. Third, I am experienced and strong enough chessplayer to understand on my own quite often, most if the time even anticheating investigation isn't needed, it is completely obvious to any GM who understands the game and experienced. And when getting mathematical approval on top of my understanding, in cases when it is obvious, I don't care who is saying what, excuse me for being straight. I KNOW in some cases it is the case, 99plus certainty, and more than one case

Can you guess the Elo of this member? 

Quote #1 How it started

Some time last year I was doing research on chess principles and I stumbled on a topic that greatly amused me. One of the reactions caught my attention and made me chuckle. I thought it was a funny enough comment to save, so I bookmarked it. From time to time I added to my list of interesting quotes and this eventually became the foundation for this edition of Guess the Elo. This first quote is the starting point of this quiz.

Topic Title: why knights before bishops?
One of the general opening rules is Knights before Bishops... We've all heard it... But I'm not too sure of its reasoning. Anyone care to enlighten me on this guideline?!

For me.... Value. A Bishop is to me like a mini Queen. And since my games most often are very open rather than closed, my Bishops are to be protected. I get them out, but not early. In play but protected. Knights I use to capture (via a sac), other player Bishops. The end game more important. The Bishop critical in the open end games. Why risk early such a high value piece?

Alright! What's the Elo of the chess.com member who wrote this? Time to take your best guesses. Your answers can be submitted using the form on the bottom of the article.

Topics On Ratings

On the forums there's almost no question asked more frequently than how to reach rating X or variations of the same question (e.g. I'm stuck on rating X). However, the way players approach this question varies greatly from player to player. As a result there's also a wide range in the quality and usefulness of the conversations that emerge each time.

When a player has a genuine desire to get better and to learn from others, asking for help on how to improve their chess will likely lead to relevant feedback. The conversations will, generally speaking, also be useful to everyone visiting the thread, not just to those engaging in the discussion. If only players would make the effort, life on the forum would be much better. Like this example of this carefully crafted message.

"I am stuck at 300 ELO plz help"

But many of the topics on gaining Elo are created by players that haven't even bothered to master the basics of chess. In this example I only looked at one game and this is what I saw:

What can you say to a player like this? That was rhetorical, btw. At these rating levels the recommendations are always the same. That same information that can also be found in a gazillion other places, like articles, lessons or YouTube videos. All that is required is spending 15 minutes on Google, without any input required from other community members.

Without these players, I would never have been inspired to write this article. Below are some more quotes to guess for you.

Quote #2 Once in like 20 games

Topic Title: How do I know so many openings yet i can't go past (CENSORED) elo ????
This was the 1st comment, posted by the member that created the topic.

I know a lot of good theory openings but I can;t seem two get above (CENSORED) btw i am often a slow player and blunder once in like 20 games

What's the Elo of the chess.com member who wrote this? Again, link to form here. 

Quote 3 & 4 Thinking Ahead

Topic Title: i feel so dumb
This was the 1st comment, posted by the member that created the topic.

(CENSORED) i took most lessons, and come pretty far in a game, but i never win. i just dont. im patient, i try to look at the whole board, think at least 5 moves ahead, and yet i lose. even when im so close to winning, i always lose. my rating in rapid is (CENSORED). i just dont understand what im doing wrong

Part of OP’s statement was contradicted in one of the reactions, specifically the claims: "i try to look at the whole board, think at least 5 moves ahead".

This is a joke, right? Looking at your games, you are looking exactly 0 moves ahead. This is a nice example game. Just look at moves 4, 5, 6 and especially 8. Those are just completely random moves. No matter if the opponent takes a piece or attacks your queen, you just make a random move.

Question 3 and 4; What’s the Elo of the player that created this topic and what’s the Elo of the player responding to it?

Quote #5 Lock my Elo

Topic Title: How do I revert unwanted rating changes?
This was the 1st comment, posted by the member that created the topic. I like their unique perspective.

After losing many times, is there a way I can reject the rating decrease? Or at least lock my ELO range to a particular range, to keep it from falling below a certain point? I've been stuck at under 500 ELO and I suspect the players have a MUCH better strategy than I am. Is there a way I can refuse the rating decrease?

Quote #6 Never go Full R

Topic Title: Should I quit?
As context the player who created this topic only added: “Look at my recent game results”. It’s not about OP, but about one of the reactions to the topic. This one:

How is it even possible to get to 200 elo Deleted by mod KS

Unfortunately, part of this quote is censored by the chess.com staff. What’s left is just one half of a statement. Because of that it’s practically impossible to guess the Elo of the one who wrote it. I can’t share the full quote without breaking the chess.com terms of service, but I’ll try to provide enough information to complete the puzzle.

So question #6 is basically: at what Elo rating does one dare to make such a statement about 200 Elo players?

More Quotes

The next three quotes are without a theme, in fact they're completely unrelated. What they have in common is that I found them interesting at some point in time. But all for different reasons, making them just a random selection of quotes.

Quote #7 I love endgames

Topic Title: What are the chess principles that you rely on most?
This was a topic that I created.

Just for context, someone added this one to the conversation: “Another fundamental I really try to adhere to comes from Yasser Seirawan: Between trying to force some brilliant tactical play or just trading off into an easy boring endgame win, I'll take the easy endgame every time”. 

The quote that it’s about is the response to that comment:

Yes! I love endgames and Seirawan is such a good personality   Just be careful about trying to simplify into an endgame too much. Years ago, I used to simplify into winning endgames too much because I would take it to the extreme of giving up part of my slight advantage just to reach an endgame I thought I could win. This was harmful for my long-term improvement because most of the time, I WOULD win those endgames. This was harmful because then I didn't notice the problem. The problem with trading into those endgames is that sometimes you can keep more pressure on the opponent by not trading, so it should be a judgement call whether to trade into an endgame, or to keep some attacking pressure on the board.

Quote #8 Equilibrium

Topic Title: I Feel Like Such A Garbage Player
This was a typical topic by a player struggling to improve. One of the suggestions was: "Oh, and in general, don't get aggressive during the first 10-15 moves".

OP responded: What if they strike first though? For instance in the Scandinavian, I find if I don't take the first pawn, usually the other party does".  Another player than both of them gave this response:

Quote #9 Opening Advice

Topic Title: The Bxf7 checkmate: why you should play Ng5(and the Fried Liver)

So let's start with a simple line: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bc4 Nc6 4. Ng5 a6????? Do you see why a6 has lots of question marks behind it? There is mate in one: Bxf7#. And here is the fried liver. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4! Nc6? 4. Ng5! a6? 5. Nxf7! successfully forking queen and rook. So essentially you have a variety of traps in the opening.

Here is a topic where a player is giving opening advice to other players.  Obviously, it's not very sound advice.  But it's even worse once you take a closer look at these lines. It's fascinating how one can have the confidence to share wisdom like this.

Quote #10 Great Discussions

There was no better quote to end this quiz than this one. This comment does such a better job at expressing my feelings on the chess.com forum experience than all my efforts to write my own article on this topic combined.

Form For Your Guesses