why are lower rated players harder to beat?

ik ben nu een hafgevorderder

Maybe I do. My advice stands on its own. If you play people below your strength for a long long period of time when you yourself aren't that strong, you are likely to develop habits related to focusing just on how to: a) take advantage of your opponent's unsound moves b) defend against irrational attacks, c) avoid opening traps and similar tricks. These habits aren't bad per se, but part of what becoming stronger implies is... to develop other habits that transcend that narrow focus.

Yes, and yes.

Please explain the use of the word 'cheese' in the context used in these comments.

cheese... an easy to execute trick requiring minimal knowledge/skill, that will occasionally catch an opponent off guard for an easy win if constantly spammed

Damn I never knew this forum would grow this big

it is annoying. its a funny dynamic. its part of the game and they got us and it hurts.... but it really is cheese. Id say what hurts most is that it reinforces them. they feel pride when they deserve none and it drives us mad. and it'll only continue now that they pulled it off again.

I swear that weaker players are harder to beat. Today I've lost at least 10 games to players rated under 800. When I play someone of my level I feel like it could be anyone's game and I can win as long as I don't make any mistakes. But when I play against someone 1000 points or more under my level, it feels like they're completely in control. They have such a solid playing style that every game is just boring. They never seem to make any mistakes either, they'll just play defense until I lose a piece and resign.

Lower rated players can be harder to beat because of 1. They are sick of losing all the time 2. They are studying their asses off on openings and traps. 3. Once you drop below a certain rating everyone seems to be the same rating.. "seems to be" is the big word there.. I play have a hard time progressing at the game because I'm scared to play some 900 rated player that, just for the game i play against them plays like a 1500. Meanwhile I'm averaging an estimated 500.. so.. yeah.

You know what is funny about this post? This post was made around 2 years ago and actually this man is still with the same errors. Look at the last game you played 3 days ago.

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date ""]
[Round "?"]
[White "sanjugambit"]
[Black "kpcollins86"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B07"]
[WhiteElo "756"]
[BlackElo "748"]
[TimeControl "180"]
[EndTime ":17 PST"]
[Termination "sanjugambit won by checkmate"]

1. e4 e5 2. d4 d6 3. c4 Nf6 4. Qb3 Nxe4 5. c5 exd4 6. Bc4 dxc5 7. Qf3 b6 8.
Qxf7# 1-0

I mean,.... come on, there is not a problem with the other players that play the schoolars mate or whatever trap you think. In that simple game you made 3 silly moves with the pawn, did not take the e4 pawn... you did not developed any piece correctly and even so you left your oponent not to play the schoolars mate but to reach a similar position where he basically mated you. Come on.... this is not because you dont know the schoolars mate lines , it is simple because you are bad, your board vision sucks and you dont have the basic chess intuition. By the way you said your rating on lichess was 1700... your rating based on your games is as much 800 elo. Your oponening is 4/10 because you memorized it all, your middle game is 1/10, and your endgame is 0/10. Chess is all middlegame, tactics , strategy, logic and intuiton you lack of all the previous and that is why you are bad, and the reason is because when you see a new position you dont know what to do. You think low players memorize all the lines ? ofc not. When i was 500 elo, i never learnt how to deal with the schoolars mate, I simple made a wait to avoid it because of my intuition. Try improving your intuition, even with something basic like solving 1 grade linear equations. Good luck

I ended up here just to unload some frustration... I also had this feeling that lower rated players are harder to beat. And it's not just that they don't know openings and try tricks. I analyze every match I play (5 min blitz) and 900 player have higher accuracies than 1000-1100, and they make waaaaay less mistakes or blunders, at least against me. Also, typically they use much less time than me. I have often suspected cheating, but I don't think it 's the case. But really I don't understand why. It's a cycle: I spend months to climb to 1100 and then in a few days I drop back to 900 and I want to kill somebody.

The most logical reason that some lower-rated players may be harder to beat is because those "lower-rated" players are actually high-rated players who are simply sandbagging.

I know because I used to do that in the years past - make new, low-rated accounts just to stomp on people for fun.

But I've matured since then ... some others never grow out of it, though.

GM Naroditsky has just started a new run and plays against low ranks; I dont remember which of his recent videos it was, but in the commentary he said many lowrated players are simply underrated.

Well I do not know but I am below 1000 rating, but I think my opponent is like 1000 lol

Hi

to me its usually how inconsistent theyre gameplay is that just makes higher rated players stuck in an illusion , cause for me whenever i face players below 1100 they play openings where they dont complete the theory correctly and jump right to mid game which means a higher rated player will take them as to be an easy snack while in mid game when higher rated player dont pay much attention due to what they saw in the opening they hang pieces which every low rated player these days spot without difficulty

To be fair, some of us _are_ quite easy to beat.

im at 450 -510 and i wonder how people don't do any mistake during the whole game and then in the endgame they need almost infinite moves to find the obvious chekmate in one. (with 2 queens and two rugs...) maybe they use an engine and turn it off when they think they can do it alone??