"Insights" questions (regarding "hanging pieces")

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rwv37

I've been actively using this site for not quite a year now (I signed up like a decade or so ago, but... am forgetful, I guess). Very early on, I noticed something that seemed weird on the "Insights" page, and it has remained weird ever since:

At least under a naive interpretation of what the stats in these sections mean, I am WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than my opponents when it comes to not hanging pieces. Like I said, it's been this way pretty much since day one, but for example, here are my current "Pieces you left hanging" and "Pieces your opponent left hanging" stats (for Daily, which is what I play the most, and almost exclusively in recent months), all in "Piece: Opponent / Me (Ratio)" format:

Pawn: 867 / 117 (7 to 1)
Knight: 167 / 42 (4 to 1)
Bishop: 135 / 22 (6 to 1)
Rook: 131 / 29 (5 to 1)
Queen: 67 / 15 (4 to 1)

Is that... right? I find it difficult to believe that I'm that much better at this particular thing than my average opponent. I can only think of a few possible reasons:

(1) I really am that much better than them at this "hanging" thing, and moreover that "hanging" disparity is pretty much expected based on the rating disparity.

My current rating is 1346 and my average opponent's is 1107 (I don't know why - I'm not intentionally searching out weaker players). So I guess this one is possible, but... really? Those the kinds of ratios that would be expected between an 1100 and a 1350? They're a lot higher than I would imagine, and also I'm pretty certain that the rating disparity has grown considerably recently (like, the past month or so), while the "hanging" disparity has always been there.

(2) I really am that much better than them at this, but it doesn't matter (with respect to actual game results) even nearly as much as I imagine.

(3) The displayed stats are, somehow, wrong.

(4) Finally, this is the one that I've long suspected must be the main real reason: The displayed stats are at least in some sense correct, but my "naive interpretation" of their meanings is not correct. "Pieces you left hanging" and "Pieces your opponent left hanging" are not directly comparable for some reason. For example, perhaps "Pieces your opponent left hanging" include those they left hanging in some games against players other than "you".

Does anyone know what's going on here?

justbefair

You said you mostly play daily. Perhaps you take a few minutes per move while your opponents play the first thing that pops into their heads. When I played daily, I found that most players replied immediately, almost like they were using daily only because their live connections were bad.

rwv37

@justbefair, thanks, but I don't think that's the explanation:

I first noticed this very early on, at which time I almost exclusively played rapid, not daily. Here are my rapid stats:

Pawn: 895 / 113 (8 to 1)
Knight: 116 / 42 (3 to 1)
Bishop: 107 / 24 (4 to 1)
Rook: 115 / 33 (3 to 1)
Queen: 61 / 24 (3 to 1)

Something similar (though not as drastic) seems to be the case in blitz, in which I have lost a lot more games than I have won (unlike rapid and daily, both of which I've won more than I've lost in). It may be an artifact of small sample size, though, as I've only played a few dozen blitz games (as opposed to hundreds of rapid and hundreds of daily). Here are my current blitz stats:

Pawn: 50 / 14 (4 to 1)
Knight: 4 / 3 (1 to 1)
Bishop: 12 / 1 (12 to 1)
Rook: 5 / 2 (3 to 1)
Queen: 3 / 3 (1 to 1)

For the sake of completeness: I haven't played any bullet games at all.

Given all that, it still seems more likely to me that either the stats are wrong or else I'm misinterpreting what they mean.