Difference between 1400 and 1600 rated players.

It IS true that there isn't that much difference in playing ability. I know when I play an otb tournament game against someone 200 points below I still have to work very hard. When I play opponents 200 points above me I know I can win, they know it too so they work very hard too. Even 300 points isn't a huge difference.

As far as the different approaches to the game I agree with someone above who said its all individual related. But from my own observations I would say STRATEGICALLY the 1600 is better. Not so much in tactics as most probably think. They seem to have more knowledge of the correct PLANNING connected to the position (pawn structure plans).

Yeah I was close to a 1900 rating on here at one time and I lose to 1200 players on a regular basis. Not sure ratings mean much...

The difference between C and B players according to Dan Heisman:

-Class B (or 1600 at the minimum) is where hope chess starts disappearing.  This means that people stop playing moves they hope the opponent won't see the refutation to and checks all checks, captures, and threats and what the opponent threatens with a move.

-Players are more aggressive and not as defensive as they look for wins and  not necessarily "safe" moves. 

What he says about C-players:

C-players have trouble listing all the opponent's captures and seeing which ones are forced.

By looking deeper, C-players make more visualization mistakes.

Miss hanging pieces at the end of some analytical lines.

Go troll someplace else, kid.

Who would give up their darksquared bishop, thus becomming weak on that color complex while putting their knight on an awkward square... and still win?   Oh yeah, his opponent traded his needed lightsquared bishop (covers white's weak squares with a dark pawn chain) for the awkwardly placed knight.

It just means your rating was fluctuating a lot at that time. It happens at the beginning.

I heard one GM say a strong GM will usually only give you one chance to win while an IM gives you 2.  So as a GM playing an IM he said even if he got a worse position all he had to do was wait and the IM would let him back in the game.

Statements like these (and there are plenty of them by titled players) I think are inaccurate due to bias.  The player phrases it as an absolute statements but it's relative to their rating.  e.g. the hypothetical 3000 player would say the same thing about the GM as the GM says about the IM and etc down the line.

A more realistic answer IMO is how then world champion Karpov answered the question "what's the difference between a strong GM and the world champion?"  He said he just does everything a little bit better.  Openings, tactics, endgame, etc.

well to become IM you need 2400 rating and for GM 2500 i believe, the difference between a 3000 player and a GM is probably like the difference between an Im to an Expert.

IM can be close to 2500, GMs can even below 2500...

Not that numbers say anything, but i believe its possible that a strong IM can be stronger than a "weak GM", im speaking relative terms and i shouldnt use the name GM in connection with weak i know.

Yes im probably not able to judge but thats my believe...

Also we must ask can an IM have the same knowledge as GM at the same rating?? or is the GM only gotten old and has oversights and blunders due to old age...

Or is it really possible for an IM to know more than a GM..

maybe that is all nonsense but i hope it still makes sense.

Yeah, ratings are all about performance not knowledge.  A higher rating doesn't necessarily mean you have more knowledge.  Young players are a good example of this.

Possibly. But there are times I can play really good and see the board well and other times when I'm just not thinking straight making obvious blunders. It's not like the rating determines what level I'm going to play at. It really depends on the day, how long it's been since I played a game, whether I'm fully focused, etc. For instance, one day I could be playing like a 1600 player, take a break for two months and then come back and play like a 1200. In my case I haven't really played much in a year until now...

Comparing your current ratings to your best win stat your performance isn't nearly as variable as you make it out to be.

Whether you're talking about this site and your current ID or not, I suspect you were just misevaluating some positions in the games where you thought you were doing well against a much higher rated player.

I think lots of this is really more relative than people think.  I have a 1400 rating here after about a month, but if I compare that to my only rated tournament (in Greece, a US AIr Force tourney in the late 80s), it looks unfavorable.  I was beating and drawing 1750s, and apparently played the 2155 heavyweight favorite of the tourney (in the first round, unlucky draw) as an unrated player well enough that he spent a good portion of the 3 day tourney showing me various stuff (mostly Rubenstein and Lasker games), trying to get me more excited about chess beyond being a game (I always stop at the point where the game changes from "leisure activity" to "study/cramming"...because it is, after all, a game :)...).

I also have played dozens of casual games against a master (2206 at the time, not sure now) and I never won a single game ;)...but I also did not drop pieces by overlooking things, etc. I was simply slowly squeezed into untenable/forced positions and I did not have the knowledge of how to stay equal and would eventually lose when superior positioning posed more simultaneous threats than could be coped with.

In Wyoming, I was playing fairly evenly with 1600-1700 players, but I also won 3 of 5 from a 1900 player.  In California, I played a 1950 player a set of casual games and only came close to winning once and ultimately lost every game.  I understand that there are (or were then, anyway) wide variations in true strength of rated players based on geography.  A 1600 player in San Francisco or New York is not the same as a 1600 player in Kansas, etc.

People say rating here are inflated, so I should be 1200 USCF I guess?  Even here, though, in the vote chess threads my analysis level seems to be far more like the 1600-1800 players and I catch mistakes in analysis by 1900 players (not commonly, but not rarely, either), yet still my rating is 1400.  Maybe that's just too many years of only playing computers...speaking of relative...my rating according to my pretty poor chess playing app is 3860 ;).

Anyway, there's not much point in worrying about ratings unless you want to play professionally, I think.  Just let them take care of themselves.

No, it's not my current ID. I've beaten 1600 and 1700 rated players before. Don't remember what the highest rated player I beat was but I believe he was above 1800. I just started playing on here again a couple weeks ago.

Is the difference between 1400 and 1600 not approximately 2 weeks?  Depends on how much you play.

Interesting thread.  Currently I'm about a 1260.  I've found that I can sometimes take apart a player rated 100 points higher and sometimes get taken apart by a player 100 points lower.  It does seem ... that if I can beat a particular player once I can usually do it twice.  If I lose to him once I usually lose to him twice.

I think that's a clue ... about my own balance of strengths and weaknesses.  I just haven't properly interpreted the clue yet.

Yea, I know, its 200 points.  Now that I got that out of the way let me get to my question.  I am currently rated right at 1500.  3 weeks ago i was just below 1400 and joined the tourny "7th Chess.com tourny 1200-1400".

Original Poster's words.  Chess.com would be the relevant phrase.  Of course, it is possible I was making light.  A discussion at 80+ posts about the difference in the level of strength at a number is fairly irrelevant.  I have played many "low rated players" in real chess where they have amazing strengths in part of the game and weaknesses in others.  Some players are stronger against certain others and some struggle due to playing times and schedules.  Really, ratings are irrelevant mostly; I would not worry about them but would instead recommend discussion on positions.  Having said that, troll my trolling, I will troll your troll-trolling right back.  :p

I am rated below 1200 on here but over the board I am 1462 for Rapid 1374 for Rapid but my National rating i around the same I tend to play better at the board I am in a quest to learning how to beat 1500+ here is one of my good tournments Iv had http://www.ccfworld.com/Chess/Results/2014-12-17_Daytime%20Club.htm at this stage i was rated 1380 for slow play 

How long can you hold your breath because thats one astonishingly long comment without any punctuation marks to separate a sentence from a sentence and make it more understandable oh my god i cant hold it anymore i must breathe in air air

don't want to be that guy, but you also have to consider that a 1400 might be someone who just went say 4-1 against 1100 players and being so new his/her ratings are inflated

And the conversation continued smoothly as if the 23 month gap were irrelevant.  God bless the internet.