Why Salty Turtle?

Well over time -in other groups with lots of people- we formulated some specific terms for specific schools of thought.

Salt Mining was the school of thought representing doing easy tactics within 10 seconds in a spaced repetition way in order to truly master those patterns. It feels like working in the salt mines, since in the beginning you repeat the same problems over and over. True many chess trainers already hinted at this system, but never coined a name, so others did and I joined.

Turtle Play is a term I coined to represent the school of thought where you reduce risk against weaker players by stearing the game away from tactics -and a sudden unforseen blunder which might cost you the game- and stear the game towards a calm lenghty positional battle. The idea is that often after a positonal weak move, the stronger player can still recuperate. But say you are playing a 300 lower rated opponent where you lose in a piece in a tactical skirmish, then you cannot recuperate  Like a turtle, who is slow and can get in his armor to recuperate. True, Simon Webb already described this system, but he did not coin a name, and since he is dead, I did!

Since these 2 themes were heavily debated right before I was kicked out of other groups for being to passionate and to socially incorrect (?! like that matters, we want to improve right?) the name "Salty Turtle" sounded fun and unique to me.

Turtle play is a playing style that is also possible against equal opponents. In my case, because I am tactically not that good, I play turtle style even against equal or slightly stronger players. Because most likely all players in my rating range are tactically stronger than me.

However, in general, turtle play is best against weaker players. But against strong players you need a differnent style (the opposite). As far as I know, nobody coined a term of the style needed to beat stronger players.

I leave that to you, too. Suggestion: "Kamikaze play", "suicidal mode", "go heavok", "unsound gambitplay", "all-out-attack", "scare-him-mode".

An animal name I can not think of. Mazbe "dog play", cause dogs bark, but a normal sized dog is actually weaker than a human? (normal humans should win a fight against a normal dog). Somehow, I can imagine a lot more about what "turtle" means in chess than I can if the name is "dog".

Here an example of turteling my much weaker opponent:

"The aftermath even revealed that his rate of error was only 0.23 average centiloss per move, a value which is very good for a human. (I had like 0.16 - a value that is just about human and rather GM like. A chess engine has about 0.09)."

Where do you find these statistics? It seems a great tool.

at lichess.org

--> after the game you click on "Analysis Board".

--> Then (under the chess diagram) you find "Request a computer analysis"

--> and a stockfish engine starts to calculate everything.

You get statistics of the amount of

"inaccuracies"

"mistakes"

"blunders" 

"average centipawn loss per move"

My average centipawn loss can be very low, leading people to accuse me of cheating. However, true engines have usually an even lower average centipawn loss then me. I have often 12-25, but engines have typically 5-9 centipawn loss per move.

In wild positions with lots of tactics, the average centi pawn loss is rather high. In my favourite positions like the accepted rat defense: 1.d4 d6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 dxe5 4.Qxd8 --> I have almost always accuracies below 0.25.

In double fianchetto games (like the last 2 we had), the average centi pawn loss is likely very low. The reason is: there are hardly any deep tactics, and you often have 3-4 good moves with very little evaluation differences. If I move the 4th best move in such position, I lose often just 0.3 pawn units, which is then averaged with moves that had been the best move (recaptures are "only moves" and thus "best move" choices), and if I dont do any major mistake - the average centipawn loss gets below 0.2. 

In games like we had I hardly lose against good opponents, but lower rated opponents just do too many mistakes and then I win by move 50 or so. 

The good thing is that you can make up for a mistake and still rescue the game. The one game of ours, where I totally blocked all pawns at the end - I looked it up with an engine, and on average I did o.k., just a few inaccurate moves. Still, I could hold it a draw - this is what I mean: you harldy lose against weaker opponents (I can afford several inaccuracies), but draw a lot against strong players. For me: I am not good in tactics (and it is no surprise I lost the very game where you sacrificed the exchange and check mated me --> it was too tactically for my abilities), but in calm drawish games, I can press quite nice. I tried in our games, but you seem to not only tactically better than me, but you played the one rook endgame very nice, too. 

In both games we had, I thought I am going to win them, because these were the ideal "Munich" positions, the kind of position I believe I am unbeatable and very strong: calm position with lots of good moves available. Well, I havent much experience with good players like you, though.

This is probably the reason why Super-GMs look rather for a bit sharper openings if they want to overcome a "low" rated 2500 player, because if a super-GM would really play my slow and solid, but lame openings - probably the inaccuracies of the 2500 player wouldnt be enough to make them lose the game?