Vote Chess is a good way to learn if you a a very strong player on a very strong team. Then you learn by exchanging ideas with other very strong players.
Is vote chess a good way to learn?
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I think that it is an excellent way to not only learn about a certain opening/defence but to also help educate other players as to the "proper" ways to play certain systems. I belong to two Caro-Kann groups (I also belonged to a third one that is inactive for the moment). My only complaint is that sometimes the voters tend to follow the lead of the highest rated player (be it a chess.com and/or USCF OTB rating) without noticing that some players have very respectable USCF correspondence and/or ICCF ratings and they can add valuable opinions to help formulate a good choice in the vote decision. That is my situation. This is why I periodically update my profile to show my "real" value as a better than average correspondence player. player. Unfortunately for me, the only rating on chess.com is a pathetically low "speed" rating which has some guys doubting that my contributions to vote discussions are not to be taken seriously. A little unfair, to say the least, but I deal with it. Most of the guys are pretty respectful even with differing opinions. That`s a good thing!
TacticalBlindSpot wrote:
crazypiglady wrote:
I thought maybe discussing with other players would help me think about a next move in a game but I'm not sure how vote chess works and what group would be appropriate to join to vote in. Does anyone have any suggestions of a group/club that would be suitable for someone around 1187 (daily) to join and discuss moves?
Thanks.
Vote Chess can be fun, but it is not a good way to learn. The reasons are simple:
1) There are usually more lower rated players voting than stronger players. Getting 90 1200s discussing moves is pointless. They will simply outnumber the 10 2000+ players in the group.
2) Even among stronger players, style can come into play. This is especially true in opening choices. Worse, if you have 2 groups that "split the vote" between 2 equally good choices (i.e. a positional choice and a tactical one), the likelihood of a 3rd choice (which is usually a mistake) winning is very high.
3) As the game goes on, stronger players will get frustrated by the mistakes that win the vote and leave the game. This means that you are left with the worst players in the late middle and endgame.
In short, Vote Chess is a bit like playing blitz or bullet: do it to have fun, but do not expect to improve doing it.
Join the Caro-Kann groups and you may change your tune.
yakuza_ronin wrote:
was interested in the same thing and joined some active vote chess clubs and my conclusion is that it entirely depends on the folks on your team and how well they discuss the moves / strategy. many of the vote chess games i saw nobody talks...just log their move and leave.
please let us know if you find a club you'd recommend.
Well said!
Optimissed wrote:
It's a good way to learn if you're a weak player on a strong team.
It's a good way to learn whether weaker or stronger as long as the rest of the team is not rated 200-300 ELO below or above you. If you would be paired with someone in a tournament bracket based on close enough ratings, then you can reasonably assume you could learn *something* useful from them.
Interacting with other players via avenues like votechess, or just shooting the breeze at a local club, are important learning tools. People that play puzzle rush and blitz all day and learn completely on their own end up with a foundation of chess knowledge with gaps and assumptions.
Chessflyfisher wrote:
I think that it is an excellent way to not only learn about a certain opening/defence but to also help educate other players as to the "proper" ways to play certain systems. I belong to two Caro-Kann groups (I also belonged to a third one that is inactive for the moment). My only complaint is that sometimes the voters tend to follow the lead of the highest rated player (be it a chess.com and/or USCF OTB rating) without noticing that some players have very respectable USCF correspondence and/or ICCF ratings and they can add valuable opinions to help formulate a good choice in the vote decision. That is my situation. This is why I periodically update my profile to show my "real" value as a better than average correspondence player. player. Unfortunately for me, the only rating on chess.com is a pathetically low "speed" rating which has some guys doubting that my contributions to vote discussions are not to be taken seriously. A little unfair, to say the least, but I deal with it. Most of the guys are pretty respectful even with differing opinions. That`s a good thing!
Good analysis is good analysis...if a team is prone to ignoring input based purely on rating, then they may be a good team, but there are better ones 
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Oct 16, 2019
0
#28
I'm one of those strong players who leads in VC games. Yes, we end up playing my recommended move almost every time, but I still believe that the other participants help improve our performance. Even if I don't get outvoted, there are usually a couple times per game when their comments lead me to change my recommendation.
Even at my level, I find VC helps my chess. I have a tendency to get lazy in my analysis, and VC forces me to analyze more diligently and explain my reasoning.
It also doesn't hurt that I enjoy it.
Bramblyspam wrote:
I'm one of those strong players who leads in VC games. Yes, we end up playing my recommended move almost every time, but I still believe that the other participants help improve our performance. Even if I don't get outvoted, there are usually a couple times per game when their comments lead me to change my recommendation.
Even at my level, I find VC helps my chess. I have a tendency to get lazy in my analysis, and VC forces me to analyze more diligently and explain my reasoning.
It also doesn't hurt that I enjoy it.
Ding ding ding 
. Winner.
Optimissed wrote:
btickler wrote:
Optimissed wrote:
It's a good way to learn if you're a weak player on a strong team.
It's a good way to learn whether weaker or stronger as long as the rest of the team is not rated 200-300 ELO below or above you. If you would be paired with someone in a tournament bracket based on close enough ratings, then you can reasonably assume you could learn *something* useful from them.
Interacting with other players via avenues like votechess, or just shooting the breeze at a local club, are important learning tools. People that play puzzle rush and blitz all day and learn completely on their own end up with a foundation of chess knowledge with gaps and assumptions.>>
I remember when I started playing and there were these players at the local club who would discuss possible moves in a game and move the pieces around and pick them up and put them down and discuss possible lines and I really couldn't follow it all. A few years later when I was probably strong enough to beat them all in a simul, I still couldn't follow them when they did that. I like systematic analysis and how can it be systematic with a bunch of people with different ideas who all have an equal input?
Yeah, those other human beings with their different ideas and equal input can be pesky...
As for the characterizations at the start of your paragraph....you can do that with anything:
"I used to know a guy that did systematic research on his own...he would move his cheap plastic pieces back and forth, and flip aimlessly through obsolete books, and teach himself Russian just to read some obscure annotated games, and try pointlessly to refute the King's Gambit...but I really could not see any method to his madness. A few years later I could easily have beaten him, but I didn't play him so we'll never know how much better I was/am..."
Bramblyspam wrote:
It all depends on the players. A good vote chess team will have some strong players who are active in leading the discussion, and good discipline in the voting. For example, a team may have rules that nobody votes until 24 hours before the deadline (so there's time for discussion), and nobody votes for a move that hasn't been suggested in the discussion.
You won't learn much from VC games if your team has no discussion or discipline, but not all teams are like that. My recommendation is to look at some completed VC games, click the "archive" tab, and go through the entire game move by move, checking for the quality of the discussion. When you find a club with a VC team that impresses you, join it.
Here's an example of what VC at its finest can look like. Both teams had great discussion and discipline, and were led by strong players who were happy to share their thoughts. Check it out if you like.
https://www.chess.com/votechess/game/120456?mv=0&san=e5&activePagination=archive
I totally agree ! I myself have learned a lot through vote chess !
A beginner cannot get into an "inner circle" [with the strong players] of a strong vote chess game. But
the beginner can suggest moves and will get a response from the strong players. The strong players will give diagrams and/or explain why they think certain moves are best.
marknatm wrote:
Annotating your own games is one way to improve. What openings do you like to play?
Caro kann confuses me and I don't usually succeed in it. I play Scandinavian defence more often as black.
I haven't annotated my own games yet. Good idea. Thanks Mark.
TacticalBlindSpot wrote:
There is a reason that virtually all Master vs World games favor the master (even when Masters are in the World group!). The strength of the group is equivalent to the mode of their ratings.
Yes I suppose that sounds logical if people in the group don't change their mind. But even this would be useful to me as I'd be looking at all the suggestions (and crucially the reasons behind them) even if I didn't suggest a move myself. I may add my suggestions but would hopefully be learning through watching the chat as well as the decided move.
Ridiculous.
Reality often is/
- Votechess is highly instructive when played on a good team
And winning the lottery is a great way to fix all your financial problems. So why doesn't everyone just do that?
- Your premise is just bad...a group of votechess players at any rating level plays significantly better than an individual at the same rating
Completely incorrect. A group of 10 1200s will play like a 1200. You do not get stronger when playing as a committee. The only real benefit you get to the committee is that it is harder to play impulsively.
In perhaps the largest VC game ever played, Kasparov beat over 50,000 players (including many other stronger grandmasters) playing the other team. If somehow adding more players together increased their strength, that should not have happened. Yet, the same thing happens in virtually every Master vs the World game.
- Outright blunders are actually quite rare in votechess with any team that has more than a handful of players...inaccuracies are quite common, though
In restricted club games, this is true. In vote chess games open to the public, not so much. However, even in club games, it is not uncommon to see howlers sneak in when the players are 1) not using engines (which they are not suppose to do!) and 2) are all (or mostly) sub-2000.
If you have 1-2 very strong players who provide analysis and the rest of the team votes on only the moves they suggest, it is not so much vote chess as it is a more complicated version of hand-and-brain. Once again, you would be better served (in terms of instructional value) by watching a strong IM or GM stream where they ask the audience to pick between 2 moves (Marc Esserman does this quite often, if you are looking for an example).
- Master vs. Many votechess games are the lowest common denominator of votechess, and should in no way be taken as a good example of how votechess is supposed to function
P.S. Yakuza Ronin is incorrect...votes are visible, and a club admin can remove any player from the team that is not voting by that club's rules.
Democracy is suppose to function by picking the best of all options. Ideally, it does that. In reality, not so much. The problem is all these darn humans!
And yes, for club games, having an active admin can help mitigate the problems. That doesn't change the fact that it is about as useful (in terms of instructional value) as blitz or bullet. Sure, you can get something from it - but the chances are low and the time investment is high. In short, the improvement:time ratio is much better when doing other things.
- It's about 7-8 orders of magnitude easier to find a good votechess team than it is to win the lottery.
- 10 1200s definitely play better than 1 1200, purely in terms of blunder checking and a broader base of opening experience alone. But regardless, as you well know, there's no such thing as a votechess team where everyone shares the same approx. ratings. so...unless you are the single highest rated member of a votechess team and by a good 200-300 rating points, you stand to learn from the games.
- And what was the time control of the Kasparov vs. World game...? Bad example, since there was no time for real discussion or research. But even if you went that route...Anand was losing vs. "the world" on chess.com when "technical difficulties" halted the game, so, massive votechess teams are essentially playing even with world champs.
- You try to weasel out of this sketchy position by saying that having 1-2 strong players on a votechess team is not really playing votechess as intended, but it's a perfectly valid and utterly common situation for a ton of votechess teams.
- Watching a streaming GM is not remotely as instructive as playing out a full votechess game. If you believe this, then you clearly have never participated fully in a real votechess team game. And even in the lowest common denominator public votechess games, you will do better for your investment. Is it better for you to listen to Esserman and put in a faceless vote, or is it better for me to be asking IM Pruess direct questions in a votechess game about how he makes his decisions, and getting direct answers in response? Wait, don't answer that, your judgment is suspect
...I'd rather let other posters come to their own conclusions.
- Please point me to a votechess game you've actually finished that has team of more than 10, less than 50 players, so I can read the team comments and figure out where you're going wrong.