1800s(USCF) Noob or strong?

1800 = a god to noobs.

An ant to God.

1800 fide > 1900 USCF

An 1,800 player, the perfect hybrid between a GM and a noob. As in totally unbeatable to a novice yet a GM is totally unbeatable to them...

Yes, posts #93 and #95 are quite on point.

"It's the same error in logic. It's like saying a guy with ten million dollars is essentially no different from the panhandler who lives in a garbage can, because someone named Bill Gates has fifty billion! Sheer nonsense!"

This is a really interesting, and fair, point, actually. It's so easy to lose perspective. Even getting to 1400 would separate you distinctly from any casual player, period. Even a 1200 would beat just about any average person, so 200 points more than that would especially separate you from someone who just plays every now and then, doesn't read chess books, etc. I think 1400 even is a fantastic accomplishment, once you think about what it takes to go from absolute beginner to playing some shrewd tactics and making plans that actually seem to make sense :)

So yeah, in my case, I definitely look at things in terms of, how far have I come since the beginning. Also, sometimes, I'll measure things in terms of how many plateaus I have crossed, how many "turning points" or chapters in my chess career if you will :)

There are people out there like that, of course, but I would think on the whole they are very rare. Honestly pretty much the one person I know (not counting friends made in tournaments for obvious reasons) who says he's really into chess, even he is maybe 1000 tops (which still impresses me  ). And he even reads chess books occasionally -- most people who say they're "really into chess" aren't even talking on that scale. So I could only imagine what the average person was like. Even when I was under 1000, maybe 900ish, I was able to take pieces given to me left and right in my grade school chess club, and I was even better than the teacher -- not bragging, but it shows the relativity of this all.

1200s will obviously make lots of mistakes, but they'll also see lots of tricks at the same time. You really can't have any chances beating a 1200 just by being able to spot hanging pieces consistently. They will take advantage of simple tactics, but they will probably appear out of the blue to a person who had enough trouble knowing what piece covers what. There really are a lot of tactics the 1200 can see; really their problem more than anything else is consistency. They can see some good moves, it's just that over the course of the game they'll overlook many of them as well. But I think just the kinds of moves they can occasionally see are hard for many people to even dream of, again, when looking at the whole population. I do think it takes quite a commitment for most people to get to 1200, even though, of course, the commitment goes up exponentially as the level goes up.

But yeah as said, that's why I added the "200 point cushion" -- if 1200 is crazy good to the average person, then 1400 will be hard to even imagine and really gives a strong impression.

Yeah I dunno, I mean, I can only go by who I have come across and the same for you. I would disagree rather strongly, actually, that 1200 is the level where you will hang your bishops on g2 or b7 -- I think they're well beyond that. I mean, those are the kinds of tricks that I thought would be clever even as a 900ish, so 1200s should have that down quite well.

But yeah, I didn't deny that they will miss simple forks -- they will. I guess what I'm saying is that, I think 1200s are very well aware of these things, and know how to exploit them, but just inconsistently. For example, they may see the forks 3 times more often than they miss them, but over the course of a game, (since whole games involve many tactics) they will still end up missing one or two most likely, more if they are under pressure.

I grew up playing chess and always struggling to get well beyond the "know how to take pieces and some basic tactics," and it was 1200s that I thought were particularly tough and could exploit my weaknesses in this area (and those higher naturally). So yeah I couldn't agree that 1200s are "extremely weak," but then we might not define strength in the same way. I'm still comparing 1200s to people in general, which I suppose you are, too, but, well, yeah, I guess I can't really do much more than share my experiences :)

You can keep disagreeing all you want was well -- I don't consider disagreement a bad thing at all :)

Indeed, you may have a good idea of how you should look at my opinion. From my perspective, I can't know how much being a tutor would affect things, or even if you are one, so I don't necessarily have the same epistemological situation as you.

There seems to be a slight inconsistency in your logic about chess strength though: if 2100 FIDE, your rating it seems, is "much stronger/higher" than mine, 2050 USCF, it seems strange, then, that you would think the distance between 1200 USCF and 2050 USCF would only be small :)

Oh right... you're going by blitz ratings aren't you :) People like to summarize things with blitz and bullet ratings :) You can do that, and of course those things are some sort of indication, but personally I find them to also be pretty, potentially, misleading.

I mean... I could practice blitz for hours a day for the next week and raise it to 1800 or 1900, but I don't think that would make me more or less qualified to talk about chess since I wouldn't learn that much :)

Be careful about 100% positivity... would you be willing to bet your life on it? Be careful :)

Ah well, I thought you wanted rational, curious discussion, but I guess hidden in that what you really wanted was skill comparing :) That's not really interesting to me since it doesn't really teach me anything :)

I set out a couple of years ago on here to get to 1800 which I think is a reasonably strong player, yet achievable for many people given a fair bit of effort.

As I have got a little better, I have realised that the main difference is that you make fewer obvious mistakes.  Above 1800 I suspect it gets a lot harder than that.

Of course at 1800, what consitutes an obvious mistake is probably different.  I won't really know until (if) I get there.

I found Elubas comments rational enough.  He seems a reasonable guy to me. Just saying.

My first (german) rating was about 1200. From there a 1700 rating (about 1800 FIDE) rating was my aim within 10 years, 50 points each year. The top guys in my local club had that rating. It was a quite high rating for me, they werde really good players.

I came near that 1700 first about 4 and a half years later and was over that one 6 years after i got my first rating.

Now there are around 3 months to that 10 years. With a good result in the team matches and in two open tournaments i could reach that over 1700 again. So for me its quite hard to come and stay over 1700 german rating.

But in open tournaments (especially when all players from beginner to grandmaster play a swiss system in one group) i got one old IM (fallen back to 2200 Elo), one FM and some 2000+ guys yet. I have a score somthing like 0,5/10 or 0,5/15 against that opposition. That half point was very lucky.

These quys are way ahead of me. I`m a patzer compared to them.

And then let these guys play against 2500 - 2600 Elo grandmasters. ;)

I think someone needs a hug.

Joined March 7th. He'll be banned soon, don't get too worked up.

He was just banned with his last account.

What username?

Halimede

Acutally, someone came up with Halimedetosis.

But he was kicked before we could make good use of it.

? Halimede is still here.