is getting to 1200 even considered an accomplishment?

CooloutAC wrote: llama47 wrote: CooloutAC wrote:

What it all boils down to with you is an inferiority complex and you wanting to demean the OP and those praising him for reaching 1200 so you can feel suprior. 

Eh, it's easy to make ungenerous psychological analyses like this...

For example the only reason you shout about how much speedrunning undermines ratings and sportsmanship is sour grapes i.e. it's psychologically more comfortable to tear down the entire enterprise of online chess than it is to accept you're not a good player.

Ironic,  because the tearing down is being done by the speedrunners and the site themselves for allowing it.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Made an alt account to not risk having my main account banned.
I looked into your account/ games, and can offer you some insight or advice if you so choose to take it
There was once a time where I sandbagged, not proud looking back on it; I'm now a skilled player and have a proper amount of respect for the game and community.

I did this back when I was around 800 rating, and was sandbagging 400's... I think I played around 40-50 games, and the only losses I had were intentional, as an 800 I was effortlessly smashing every single 400-500 rated player I crossed paths with complete ease.

This idea you have built in your head that you are a 1000 rated player just getting mismatched is complete insanity, you have 1700 games played, your 500 rating is accurate, sandbagging would affect very few games overall and wouldn't affect your climb enough to be notable. Plus very very few speed runners start at 400 rating, It is much more common for them to start at 1000 or 1200, but even then they make up far less than 1% of the community. Like I said, I was a 800 destroying 400's and never once got sandbagged by anyone above 800 rating in like 50 games. Also, most people have about 50-150 rating higher on Lichess than on Chess.com, Lichess has always rated slightly higher, but not 400-500 rating higher, especially after playing 1700 games.

You are sitting here complaining about sandbaggers ruining the game, but you are literally one of the people doing it October 28th you were 500 rating, October 29th, your rating dropped to 100... Your rating then effortlessly jumped back to 500 without almost ever losing a game, but over the past two months been unable to break into 600.... This is just more confirmation that you are rated accurately, you went from 100-500 in like a day, but now struggle against the 600's.

There's nothing wrong with being a 500, if you are having fun that's all that matters, focusing on rating will never feel rewarding unless you become 2700+, the goalpost just keeps changing each time and you will be left unhappy, focus on personal growth and most importantly just enjoy the game. But it seems you want to improve your rating so I'll leave you with this:
You need to admit to yourself that there are some serious fundamental issues with your gameplay holding you back and forget all about whether or not your opponent is being unsportsmanlike, or what you think your rating should be etc. Also from what I can tell, you play more so to win, and care a lot less about improvement; 70% of your losses are resignations, you also are analyzing more of your won games than your lost games, but you will learn the most from the losses, plus the whole sandbagging incident... I promise you you don't want to do that, smashing 100 rated players will actually lower your overall playing strength... Focus on your losses, not your wins, and never resign to a 500, a lot of them will stalemate unknowingly.

That's all mindset stuff and can easily bring you up +200 rating, fight your games out! As for gameplay... Your biggest issue is board vision, both leaving pieces en prise, and spotting winning tactics. You can start studying openings and theory at your rating, but they wont be nearly as effective or helpful as PUZZLES... Puzzles puzzles puzzles. I promise you if you put everything else aside, and just smash puzzles, you will hit 1000 rating no problem. If you are wanting to learn theory this early on, start with the simplest concepts first. Many will tell you low ratings shouldn't study theory, some are just gatekeepers, most know that Puzzles are more important early on, but IMO you can start learning theory whenever you like. The first theory I ever learnt was "King Opposition" (very important), next I learnt how to win King and 1 Pawn vs King ("King and Pawn endgame") (Teaches you more King opposition, and introduces you to "zugzwang" theory, next I learnt how to checkmate someone with only 1 rook, and it just all progressed from there, but I always put most of my time and effort into the puzzles.

Second issue I'm noticing with you is very common with beginners, just because you are winning, does not mean you need to find some ultra aggressive/devastating move to end the game. Learn to be more comfortable in positions you know you are currently winning, close pawn chains and shut down the board while looking for easy/safe trades, usually we call this "Simplifying the position." I'm seeing in a lot of your games, you play very well, win a minor piece, then lose it by miscalculating something too aggressive. When you winning, up a full piece in a 500 game, just keep your ideas simple, just take your time and try not to overcomplicate the board. It's very common, a lot of lower elo players win a knight or bishop and then think to themselves "Ok now how do I win" (not realizing they have already won), what they should be thinking is "Ok, as long as I don't get checkmated or give a piece back to him, I've completely won this game".  Sure, you might lose the odd game here or there because you played too slow/solid and didn't capitalize your advantage, but you will lose a lot less playing slow than you are losing playing too aggressively.

So yeah, I'd recommend a heavier focus on puzzles, and dabble every so slightly into the simplest theory, maybe a learn some checkmate patterns etc. A lot of this game is just recognizing familiarities and patterns.. I promise you, you will hit 1000 rating easily in no time, just keep that discipline you have early game and apply it mid-late game, regardless if you are winning or losing. 

In Sept when you joined Chess.com, you were consistently hovering around 250 rating for your first month of playing, you steadily climbed to 500, and have been gaining rating consistently now closing on 600. If you now today played against yourself from September, you would beat yourself 9/10 games easily. You are learning and improving more than you probably realize you are so just keep at it!

Goodluck and have fun!!!

This is so pathetic it physically pains my eyes to read this. People are taking hours off their lives to help you, and this is how you respond. You fully deserve to stay in the bottom 10% of all chess players (lower even than some players that literally just learnt the rules and are playing chess for the first time ever, I'll have you know) until you change your attitude.