At what rating am I not a patzer?

I would attempt to say that you are no longer a patzer when you actually know what you're doing, and do a good job of it. In reality, however, you don't know what you're doing when you play someone whose rated 200 points more than you.

@Mika_Rao, that's an interesting question. Lower rated players might enjoy the game more since they have more freedom to make what moves they like. Higher rated players, on the other hand have less freedom since they are restricted by virtue of being forced to move based on informed choices. That is, lower rated players are not bounded by a sophisticated knowledge of the game of chess. It might be that higher rated players do not enjoy the game as much since it seems that everything they do is just tedious work, which does not include any spontaneity. On the other hand, higher rated players may be better suited to appreciate the beauty of some sequence of moves, or plan of attack.

Weak players are all weak for their own individual reasons. Strong players are all strong for the same reasons.

Haha! Great reply kleelof.

Indeed. I agree with those who say ratings don't matter. It's all relative.

On the other hand, there are some people who treat you ad such because of their rating.

I just think of an patzer as an, " poorly informed (less experienced or not as well traveled) player".

Yes! Nailed it!

@Nemo96: Looking at your profile, you are in the top 83.6% of people on chess.com at Live Standard.  That's important because it doesn't say you are in the top 16.4% of people worldwide or people that know how to play chess, but in the top 16.4% of people who play chess on chess.com, which includes virtually every titled player in the world.  Experts, CMs, NMs, FMs, IMs, GMs, Super GMs (like Nakamura), out of all of them, you are in the top 16.4%.  That's way over the hump on the Bell Curve.

I suppose compared to most titled players untitled players like us will always be relative 'patzers.'  I'm assuming that unlike most titled players, you didn't get intensive chess training between the ages of 7-12 before the corpus collosum formed, making chess playing a natural instinct on top of continuing dedicated study throughout your youth to the present day.  I'm guessing that when you were a teenager you didn't have other titled chess friends who thought a cool way to spend a weekend would be agreeing to play 50 games in a row from the same opening 10 moves to see what would happen to the position.  Me either.

Yet, if you are in the top 16.4% on Live Chess on chess.com, you obviously have a pretty good idea of tactics and strategy that surpasses, well, not just 83.6% of the world's population, but 83.6% of the people who regularly play chess on chess.com.  That's nothing to sneeze at.  I'm gonna end by guessing that you can pretty much walk through any casual chess player in your area outside of a local chess club and none of your friends want to play you at chess anymore unless they are online players too.

nobodyreally wrote:

kleelof wrote:

nobodyreally wrote:

kleelof wrote:

According to Google, a Patzer is a 'poor chess player'.

That makes me a patzer because I've been poor all my life.

It comes from the german verb patzen (to blunder)

Yea. Leave it up to the Dutch to quote German and miss the joke.

Is that a joke? Really? I thought it was a statement.

A poor chess player could be understood as a chess player without enough money.

That was the joke.

OMG, did you really think i didn't get it?

It's multi-interpretabel. And so was my answer

I'm so many steps ahead of you it's dizzying.

Depends on the company you keep.

If you hang out with super GMs you are a patzer with a 2400 Elo rating; if you play in regional tournaments I guess about 1900/2000 chess.cm would be enough; at your local club (unless it is a very good one) you are probably no longer a patzer if you have reached 1600 chess.cm rating.