What Elo is beginner

i believe it was daughtry who said "it's not over"

It is nice that you have this opinion, but that doesn't mean it's true. 

The problem is of course the term: 'beginner'. Beginner can mean 2 things in chess: 1. a player that has recently started learning chess, but also 2. a player with a specific rating that falls within the group that is called 'beginner'. If in 50 years Carlsen plays like an 1000 player, he'll be in the beginner rating class. 

There is a good reason to use these classes. They can be a point of reference as to what should be done to get stronger. Everyone in the beginner class blunders too many pieces. That stops them from moving up in rating class. So the advice given to these players is similar, based on their rating class. 

I think beginner class reasonably ends around 1200-1400 OTB rating. 

100

0 to 900 is a beginner. Intermediate- 900 to 149900. Advanced- 1500-2000

Master- 2000 and so on

You have made that second definition up. Whether you know you have or not, I don't know. Beginner has one definition, with relation to chess or anything else.

A "beginner" class/lesson might be labelled that way for the ease of people understanding it without much thought. Don't be mislead by lazy/polite/inaccurate labelling. Most people would rather inaccurately label something as "beginner", than accurately label it as "very bad". Most of the people who take said class/lesson (in whatever activity it might be) will probably be beginners, but they probably aren't all and they almost certainly won't have to be.

It is possible to be "beginner level/standard" and not be a beginner. Maybe this is confusing people. GiggleNap's grandad would fall into this category, but he isn't a beginner.

I'm pretty sure that some people just automatically believe what they read from titled players on these forums for some reason.

Hi,

Beginner means to be in the act of beginning to learn something, but isn’t based on time it is based on skill /content progression. If a person begins to learn the alphabet and progresses to learning the first few letters they are still beginning to learn the alphabet regardless of the duration passed in doing that. A year passes and they are still on letter “d” and still beginning to learn the alphabet because they are still learning the beginning of that content. As with all other skills and content, one must begin to learn it and slowly progress or advance in that skill or content. Beginner is synonymous with novice if that helps clarify this further. It is correct then to define a person in the first stages of learning a skill or content to be in a beginner stage of that skill or content and it does not reflect the time passed in that stage but rather defines the act of being in that stage itself. You can define the beginning stage of the alphabet for example as A-C, or maybe A-G, or perhaps only A-B, but you’ll still have a defined beginner stage and anyone who falls into that stage is a beginner in learning the alphabet regardless of how long they take to be in that stage. The discussion here then is with chess, what is that “beginner” stage defined as by chess players. 

-Jordan

you are correct the term beginner is used in chess to mean a low-rated player but that does not mean that it is not bad. chess players are not linguists. it was created by high rated players who could not come up with a better term for players who are not very good or do not take the game seriously. in NO OTHER activity are people who are simply unskilled called beginners whether it be soldiers, footballers, cooks, politicians, artists, or video gamers. it is a bad and misleading term created by advanced players who cannot understand that anyone who is low rated could be anything but a beginner. it is just plain bad usage

if i were to tell my grandfather that he was a beginner he would laugh at me because the entire idea that he recently started playing is absurd

you are incorrect jordan. students with learning disabilities are not called beginners. the use of the term novice is just as bad since it means inexperienced. if you play 5000 games of chess but are still rated 1000 you have plenty of experience you just lack aptitude for whatever reason. perhaps you do not study, perhaps you have some kind of learning disability, or perhaps you just think studying chess is for nerds and you just want to play and have fun. you are not a beginner, you are not a novice, you are just a low-rated player

a much more accurate term though not completely satisfactory is dilettante. a dilettante is someone who is interested in a subject but does not commit to a deep understanding of it. someone who paints as a hobby and knows who all the famous artists are but does not really try to understand composition, brushwork, proper painting techniques, and is generally not very good would be called a dilettante, not a beginner

personally i prefer the term hobbyist. it implies that they have experience, play somewhat regularly, but do not take it seriously

Hi there!

As referenced in the example prior, a student with a learning disability working on learning the alphabet and has learned letters a-c is still in the beginning stages of learning the alphabet just as anyone else who is presently learning the alphabet in similar stage of the material regardless of length of time learning it. Learning disabilities can be a symptom of why they are having difficulty learning something, but it doesn't define the state of where they are at learning the material. Similarly, as with chess, if you're a new player at chess and you proceed to play 5,000 chess games and didn't improve your skill at it you are still at the same skill level as you were when you began, at the beginning stage. We are not discussing chess by information such as knowledge of the famous players of the game, such as your painting reference, we are talking about the level of skill you have at chess and what defines the skill of a beginner at chess, or rather when would a beginner improve to the point they are no longer among the skill of beginners. Knowing the famous chess players does not make you any less a beginner at chess if your skill level is equal to that of those new to the game or beginning the process of learning the game, and experience implies improved skill at something through practical or repeated exposure, if you are not improving, you are no more experienced at it. We would not say someone who has watched masters play for years and rated 500 any more experienced than another player who has the same rating and played a month. The ratings suggest a relative equivalence in their skill at the game, regardless of the duration of participating in it, and both would most likely be described as "beginners" at the game of chess, or equivalent.

Now a hobbyist can be anywhere from a beginner to an expert at a skill, saying they are a hobbyist doesn't define that, but instead defines what their approach or use of the skill or activity is to them, similarly as terms like professional or amateur does. This thread is discussing the skill of a category of player, not their approach towards the skill, so duration of time with the skill isn't a measure of whether someone is at the level of beginner or not, it's how far they have mastered the skill that determines if they are a beginner at it or not. I do not believe it is incorrect to use "beginner" as defining the level of skill of a player in this respect, and the definitions for such words likewise indicate proper use in that respect, so I am unsure why you seem to be disagreeing of this use of "beginner" to describe someone who is inexperienced or low in skill at something. But nonetheless, hold your opinions to this as you wish, this topic is for assessing the level of a beginner or in your view, a low skilled player, and what level of skill they would need to achieve to no longer be considered such. In such, do share your opinion and why, and have fun with your chess!

-Jordan

Says who? The title doesn't say that. The opening post doesn't say that. The opening poster has never made a follow up post, for you to further infer his intentions. So who says that this thread is a discussion about the skill of a category of player? You? I've certainly made multiple posts, none of which have discussed that. Others have to. Do they not count?

The definition of a beginner is somebody who is new to something. They are a beginner at that thing. That's it. That's the definition. "New" is a word relating to time. It's not related to skill or competence. Any definition that you find that says otherwise has valued inaccurate wishy washy explanation over possibly harder to understand facts. Just like any definition of the word beginner that does the same.

jordan it is still dumb usage. ask any person on the street what a hobbyist is and they will tell you it is someone who does something for fun but not very seriously. ask them what a beginner is and they will say that they are someone who just started something. dilettente is the best word but it sounds too obsure. there is no perfect term other than just saying lower rated, which i am fine with. but using beginner to describe someone who has done something for years defies logic. hobbyist is better than beginner. it is neutral and not completely at odds of what the common understanding of what the term means 

in video games they call people who play games but aren't very good "casuals" if they are being nice, or "noobs" if they aren't. casual player isn't bad either.

I think that the percentile is more meaningful than the rating, particularly since the explosion in the number of rapid rated players over the last couple of years......1300 puts you in the top 10% so thats more than a beginner IMO.

How about - top 5% elite

75 -95% advanced

50 - 75% intermediate

30-50% novice

0-30% beginner

Just a suggestion. Everyone's opinion differs and is equally valid.

I did not invent anything here. Look at Silman's 'Complete endgame course' and you'll actually see the chapters are titled 'beginner 0-999', 'class A 1800-1999', 'experts 2000-2199' etc. But also Silman didn't come up with this. You could also look up the article 'chess title' on Wikipedia and you'd see that the USCF rating categories also group players of a certain playing strength together. They might be avoiding the class 'beginner' for an elaborate system with classes 'E' to 'J' but that is not common. Just because you didn't hear of it before, doesn't mean you can just linguistically push it aside as not true. 

Now beginner class might be an awkward term. As I explained, I think as a chess trainer that there's value in using it, but some people keep getting upset about the term, maybe because of questions of self-worth. I've never understood why to be honest. There's nothing wrong or bad about being a player with beginner class strength. Everyone can get stronger and everyone starts at the bottom. I've never seen stronger players give beginning players a hard time either. 

What I do wonder about is whether 'beginner' class should actually be understood to mean 'beginning clubplayer'. That actually correlates to reality, where, in my experience, adult players playing at clubs that have a rating below 900 basically do not exist. That's different in this online environment, but we should realize that the internet was not around when people started being put into rating classes. After all, there always used to be a class below 'beginners' that were called 'home players' (or players that just play at their own home) in my country.

I should know better than to reply to somebody who states that all opinions are equally valid... I guess I'm bored.

You've just called me "elite". Better than "advanced". If 1300 puts you in the top 10%, my ~1900 probably puts me top 1%? It must be at least top 2%.

I suck. I have no talent. I was basically born with a broken memory. It just doesn't work properly at all. It never has. Have you ever heard of a grandmaster with a bad memory? So yeah, no talent. I've never taken the game seriously, studied it much or been coached in any way. I've spent a lot more of my life on a break from chess, than being active on a website and I've never played in a club. I've read a single book, to give some context. One book, about ten years ago now, and I basically skimmed it and didn't go into detail with it's examples.

You've just categorised me, a pretty weak casual player, very firmly into your highest category. Do you have any idea how funny that is?

just because some moron named silman decided to abuse language by calling my grandfather who has played for 60 years a beginner does not make it any less dumb

Fine, I shouldn't have said you made it up. Of course I've heard it before and it often bothers me. That's why I've comment multiple times on this thread. I know there's value in using it. I talked about it in the post you quote. It's value is to make people who aren't beginners, but whom still play at a beginner level, not feel attacked, by being called bad. That's it. that's it's value. That is the value of using the wrong terminology. Most people that use it wrongly, know they're doing so and they do it for that reason that you've had me repeat myself over. Some people however, see these people intentionally using the term wrongly and use that as evidence that it's correct usage. It isn't.

No, there is quite a bit of other value to it and you've got me repeating myself now. As a chess trainer, I give different advice out for players with different playing strength. So when a 1500 rated player comes to me, I will look at their games and will pick on a whole host of different things than I would in a game of a 1000 rated player. And it so happens that what you see in a certain class of players is that the advice is always the same: stop losing your pieces, and start winning theirs. That advice can be given to anyone rated 0-1200/1300/1400. I've seen players rated like 800 who play strategically better chess than some 1500s, but they don't stand a chance because they keep missing tactical ideas. So if I want to help someone out, these rating classes can help me pinpoint where the likely problem is that is keeping someone back. It's just the truth that the only difference between a 500 player and an 1100 player is the frequency with which they give pieces away, while a 1600 player is just a completely different player from a 1900 player. Again, that's not to make anyone feel bad, everyone starts somewhere and even if you don't (want to) improve, who cares, it's a game, let's have some fun. But for those people that do want to improve and for those people wanting to help out improving players, these rating classes are useful.

Again, we could argue terminology, that's fine. I think I like 'beginning clubplayers' for a class of players of 600-1200/1300/1400, but I don't mind. If you don't, find a better word. I find 'expert' for a 2000 player quite weird myself. Compared to a grandmaster, a 2000 player knows next to nothing. Yet we still call the rating class 'experts'. Even the 10 year old prodigy that gets there extremely fast with innate tactical skills. But that's the way it is.

just call them casual players or hobbyists. once again, calling an old person who learned to play when botvinnik was champion a beginner is dumb. there is just no way around it. 

That is all we're arguing about. Terminology. I honestly can't work out any relevance to that large first paragraph you wrote. I agree that "expert" is strange. I've always thought that. "Beginner" is just plain wrong though. The problem is that "bad" or "weak" would offend stupid people. That's just the world we live in. So people often say "beginner" to refer to low rated players instead, even though it makes zero sense. There's a lot of overlap between "beginners" and "bad" players (as in a high percentage of bad players are beginners and a high percentage of beginners are bad players), but they're still just two totally different things that share nothing more than a strong correlation. You cannot label a rating range as "beginner" and say it makes sense. People do it to be PC, nothing more. It isn't accurate.

I gave two simple options, casual players and hobbyists. these are not insulting. you can also use lower rated which is simple and descriptive.