Characterizing Rating Levels

When playing electronic chess (as on chess.com), these three situations (in colour) are prevented from happening.

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but does anybody know of a method for improving from NM to FM? Any book, study material, curriculum, or something else is welcome.

-- Ozzie

Regarding curricula, you will have noted this list I posted earlier, that I gleaned from the Net recently. These sites present their syllabuses on the web. They could be a starting point to enable you to assess what you do and don't already know.

Updated list of 'everything you ever wanted to know about chess - but were afraid to ask':

• http://www.internationalchessinstitute.org/curriculum.asp
• http://www.trafford.com/04-2350
• http://www.chesskids.com/syllabus04.shtml
• http://www.ipswichjuniorchess.btinternet.co.uk/syllabus.html
• http://www.zedchess.com.au/coaching.html
• http://www.beginchess.com/2005/03/16/chess-course/
• http://www.btinternet.com/~cccs.chess/ChessClubCoaching.htm

I think it would be pretty interesting if the computer auto-scanned every game players play (I know this might take a lot of processing power??) and then works out how many forks they miss... mate in 1's, 2's, 3's etc they miss and a few other things... then from there guage people's strengths and weaknesses and such.  By default, higher rated players will miss far less so it would be interesting to compare those statistics with rating etc.

What you guys think?

It's an interesting idea - but too resource hungry. Getting chess.com'ers to fill in a survey may not be as scientifically accurate, but it's free'n'easy and people like doing it. The results from a survey are visible, which is handy.

Hi Ozzie,

To become a FM, I think all you need to do is get your FIDE rating up over 2300 with (maybe) some minimum number of games played.  Full details are on the FIDE website.  I have no idea how much improvement you would need;  maybe 100-200 ELO plus playing enough FIDE rated games...

One interesting site I've seen offering a fairly advanced looking curriculum is:

http://www.chessarea.com/

It looks like a bunch of titled players from Romania offering a variety of services -- if you've got the bankroll.  I don't think they're doing a landslide business because their prices keep dropping.  I haven't used their services myself, so I can't recommend them, but if I had some extra chess $$$ laying around I might try them for a month or two to see how it went.

Good luck!

It's not like FIDE is running a charity, you know...    Actually, it's more like a high school student council run amok without any faculty oversight... 

I kinda wonder whatever happened to the idea of sending off a packet of 50 or so positions and trying to make sense of it? Well, anyways, my personal feeling is that because of the differences in how people are "wired" there is always going to be different ways of taking on a position.  Does that necessarily mean that approaching a position one way is going to be proof of superior rating or is it taking the competence a player in certain positions?  With that being said, I feel it is probably more a question of looking at styles and trying to make an appraisal of competence in the prefered style as opposed to a question of absolute knowledge especially in terms of the opening and middlegame. (I would say the main exception to this is in the endgame where there is often only one way to exploit advantages to obtain a win or achieve a draw)

       And while I am on the subject of handling stylistic preferences and evaluating accordingly, I would like to just mention some rather obvious stylistic preferences.  Who likes playing against the french as white?  Some people will enthusiastically embrace the white side of the french and its closed center where others will dissappointed at the thought of dealing with that exact same closed center. 

       This is also styled by perferences to the pieces (some people want queens on, others want queens off), some would tend to prefer the bishop to knight/knight to bishop regardless of the position while others who are not quite as entrenched in those dogmas would first take a look at the position on the board before trying to claim superiority of one piece to another.  Much like why did Vladmir Kramnik play the same variation with white in game 5 in the world championship against Vishy when he lost the first time in game 3? 

All this being said, I believe that this would be a better way to try to classify rating levels, and would help players to better understand there own dogmas and what is likely to help them improve their competance in their style.

I believe understanding the psychology of the game, playing blunder-free, spotting imbalances and exploiting them, and chess study are some of the most important factors in characterizing rating levels. I think this is true mainly from an ameteur's perspective (since I am not of expert caliber.... yet!) But those factors are the biggest things for me anyways. And that's what I would recommend to any fellow amateur wanting to better themselves on the 64 squares.

This thread is taking a leisurely stroll, not seeming to head anywhere in particular. Different people take the map, say "you're looking at it upside down, turn it round" and head off in a new direction. I'm getting thirsty. Where the nearest pub?

One idea I had. Chess.com - as the world's premier chess web site - could provide accreditations via an online test (c.f. Microsoft Accredited Exams, or the UK Driving Test - Theory part).

It could be derived from the Endless Quiz (FUN -> Endless Quiz). The questions/answers would need to be validated and calibrated. Remove the personality/chess-history questions ("What was Capablanca's first name?").

Throw in a lot of positional analysis:

• What would you do at this point? check, take the bishop's knight, resign, no move possible.
  
• How many forks are possible in the next TWO moves?  
  
• Which element of chess theory would you deploy in order to win this game? Opposition, Zugzwang, Fianchetto or En passant?

This other discussion  http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/its-a-good-day-to-die  was an earlier attempt to classify chess-playing styles.

I'm in the class B range right now and I'm the opposite. My tactics are good actually, but I prefer positional play and do it well, and probably better than tactics.

from 1500 to 1900 in 2 months and you started studying only AFTER that? Yeah sure.

I didn't buy that even for one second. That "mystery" got you banned from redhotpawn all right.

This always seems like an interesting question.  In our minds, the ranks ahead of us know exciting things.  They're exciting because to us they're currently unknown.  The unknown is a big deal psychologically.

The problem is the answer is always dull.  This is why this thread hasn't really gone anywhere

The answer is always:  At my level I'm pretty good at x, but I can see the players a class ahead of me can do z a lot better.  If only I had z I could make the climb.

The problem is, z is the same no matter what rating you are.  First off, even to GMs, "Z" is always tactics, besides that "z" is your technique in general.  The fact that technique at the 1200 level is not hanging a minor piece while technique at the expert level is not screwing up your overwhelmingly winning positional advantage doesn't matter.  From the point of view of the player, it's the same thing.

The problem is compounded by the fact that we can't verbalize higher chess skill differently.  That's why you see a NM post how at 1700 he was just trying to get the basics down and stop blundering -- when at the same time you hear a 1700 player talk the same way about when he was 1200; and you can bet players in the top 10 talk this way about 2400 players -- something of the Dunning-Kruger effect where in reality a perosn is highly skilled but underrates themself.

Instead if we were to try and characterise ratings in blocks of 500 points I think it would be more manageable.

1000-1500 tries not to hang a piece or loose with a 2-3 move simple tactic. 
1500-2000 tries to come up with an ok plan.  (Not the wrong plan)  Tries not to loose to 4-10 move simple tactic
2000-2300 has the ok plan almost all of the time but tries not to screw it up.  Tries not to loose to 5-10 move good tactic.
2300-2600 doesn't often screw up the good plan, but opponent is just as resiliant so smaller errors can throw the game.  Tries not to loose to 5-10 move strong tactics.

2600-2800 they're trying to take advantage of the even smaller errors made at that level -- when they don't it's a big mistake... while to us it's super-human to even notice the mistake in the first place.  Tries not to lose to advanced tactics.

It's hard to say what seperates strong amateur players from master and above (except they simply play better and perhaps with more consistency) since most of us don't know what it's like to be at master level.

very interesting topic :-) I will try to add some thoughts, hoping it will remain brief enough to be of some use.

I feel there is a lot of truth to what ih8sens writes for the range up to 1900 or 2000 rating (OTB). And to Gonnosuke's observation that up to about that strength it is a lot about tactics.

On all levels, some things can vary individually, of course. But maybe an interesting try to describe the steps that can follow could be:

(all that follows refers to OTB FIDE ratings)

2000-2200: when playing games with players of that strength and you calculate some difficult tactics, you will notice very frequently that your opponents has been able to calculate all of these critical lines, too. So "being good at tactics in general" does no longer make the difference. Then what starts to make the difference at that level?

You start to use the opening and the endgame for fighting. Before, you might have played the opening moves you read in books, and you might have played many endgames thinking of the elementary endgames that you might have known from the books to be winning or drawn.

But now, you notice that you start to wish to choose your openings so that they match your personal strengths more than those of your opponent, and you start preparing the choice of your openings against your oppenents before the games.

And you may notice that the players you meet at that level are fighting in the endgames just as they do in the middlegames. They do not just try to follow what they might have read in endgame books, but they fight and think and try to create problems and difficulties for their opponents, and they try to find plans and ideas and new tactical motives even in these seemingly "endgameish" positions.

2200 - 2400 or so:

I have experienced that players who reach that level start a new level of fighting in the middle game. They train to obtain a deep understanding of the plans and ideas in the typical middlegame positions that they reach with their openings and with their way of approaching chess. They start to have many types of positions that they are very good at, that they have understood very deeply, in which they may start to feel quite easily where the pieces belong, which ideas may be most effective, which nuances may be decisive, which candidate moves come to their mind most easily. They can calculate ahead more easily because they need to consider much fewer candidate moves because of this deep understanding of "their" types of positions.

2400-2600 : I think players at that level not only have an even deeper understanding of "their" types of positions, but their level could also be characterized by a considerable broadening of this deep understanding. If you only played one opening line and exactly one type of positions, your opponents would often have an easy time to find positions you do not like or to outprepare you by finding and learning concrete ways of how to play against your particular setup.

And players of that level have to find opening novelties, improvements over what has been played in all games so far, in order to confront their opponents with new problems.

2600 and above : In addition to the things mentioned for all the levels below (among them finding ways to work and play that match your personal strengths and abilities, and that turn out to be effective weapons against other players of that level), one aspect of expertise of these players is energy and quick learning. Energy to fight on the board and to do all the preparatory work that is necessary to keep your opening weapons sharp and your arsenal of opening weapons replenished. And quick learning in order to be able to absorb much of all the new concepts and ideas that are developed by all the other top players in their race to be a step ahead in the knowledge of opening weapons and in the deep understanding of positions that arise from them. A novelty played in a tournament game on one day may have lost most of its value of being fresh and surprising on the very next day in another tournament, because the opponent may already have seen and analyzed it in the meantime.

Wow, great post ilmago.