Crossed 2200 Rapid, Questions...

I switched from blitz to rapid, 150 points gained in 1.5 weeks!

I really liked the way it is good for calculation and thought process, and how it is tilt-proof, enabling me to win more games out of outplaying the opponent, without time pressure, just like in OTB chess.

I really want to know the general rapid rating I have to reach so I can roughly estimate my otb rating.

Does anybody think that the 2400-2500 is a good rating range to set goals on to safely say that I am on NM level strength?

Congratulations on 2200 rapid rating! I’ve never been that high myself, but I’m approaching that rating too :)

As for your question, it’s a bit tricky. It’s difficult to assess a rapid rating to titled player strength. The reason it’s difficult is because most titled players (and similarly high rated players) seldom play rapid chess online. You’ll notice most titled players shifting from rapid to 3 min blitz (or sometimes even bullet). If they were to continue playing rapid, I’d expect most titled players to be at least 2300 rapid rating on chess.com, but not all titled players continue playing rapid that far. There’s several reasons why, but the main reason is that getting a game at this rating becomes more difficult for rapid time control.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/why-do-grandmasters-usually-have-higher-blitz-ratings-than-rapid

(You can read my post in that thread)

That makes sense. Rapid feels much closer to OTB chess for me, which is why I've switched my focus to it recently. I'll probably just keep pushing toward 2400+ rapid and let my tournament results determine whether I'm actually approaching NM strength.

Good luck on your road to 2200 as well!

That's not how it works. You don't get to NM strength just by playing online

You're probably around 1700 strength rn since you don't play OTB. You need to grind OTB tourneys to get to NM strength

Yeah playing OTB as well, mostly once a month.

Oh ok sorry I must've misread. What's your OTB rating?

I don't think you can compare cc rapid and OTB

I'm 2350 rapid rn but I think that's underrated, it should prolly be 2500 or smth

My ECF is 2050 so it's still a good amount away from titled

I think you can get to top #100 on cc rapid without being titled strength. Rapid is really weak

1689, played 3 tournaments.

Yeah, just wanted to know a rough estimate... more like, home training and once I get to a certain rating level in rapid, to assume I probably am strong enough to seriously start playing OTB to get the NM level, and not waste time and money playing otb when I am stuck on rating plateau's... etc.

Oh wow. Okay,

I guessed 1700 because that's what strong online players who start playing OTB usually end up being roughly

But 2200 rapid can also be 2000 OTB…

It's hard to compare them. You're gonna have to do the OTB grind sadly. I don't think it's a waste of money if you enjoy it

For what it's worth my OTB rating started skyrocketing while my online ratings stayed exactly the same lmao

I do enjoy it very much, it's just the lack of convenience, tournaments really far away sadly.

Congratulations!

2200+ Rapid is a area, where you are definitely a expert level player at minimum: Making you a very solid player in every part of the game.

Everyone performs differently comparing online and otb and you can be 100 online points higher than your otb rating, but also 500. It’s a very individual thing and can very from person to person.

2400+ means you are definitely nearly mastery strength - If not already.

I like to call people with a otb rating of 2100+ a "Candidate Master Candidate". You would be in likely to be likely to be somewhere in that range at 2400+ Rapid on chees.com, as a 300-point rating imbalance between otb and online is a very common one.

If you are at 2500+ online, I would be to be close to a titled player. Of course you talked about NM, not CM, but there isn’t that much of a strength gap between them I think.

All in all, yeah, I think you can think about beeing in a early mastery-level strength with a 2400 - 2500 rating, although there are still many untitled players in this online rating range.

That makes sense, I agree with this. Thanks for the explanation- I’ll just keep focusing on improving my calculation, endgames, and conversion and I hope results will soon follow!

Good luck! Patience is key!

Even once a month is fine. As long as you're not completely inactive. Rn I'm only doing once a month too, I got burned out from OTB

Can you expand further on this please. If you keep playing online and get stronger (studying, reading books etc) why can't you eventually reach NM level strength?

You can read all you want about how to cook

But you won't be a chef until you actually practice cooking

Online chess is not a replacement for real practice. You need OTB games to play

I don't think the cooking analogy holds because I didn't say just to read. I said play and study. So there is practicing involved. Now if you believe the practice is not of the same quality, I would like to understand what those reasons are.

It's not the same quality, or anywhere close to it

The most popular time control is 10+0 ig? That's way too short to have any kind of deep thinking

If you're not thinking deeply about your positions then you're not training yourself properly and you're gonna struggle in real games

Online players really struggle with calculation for this reason. They're all intuition with no calculation