does chess become exponentially harder?
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Hello! I’ve heard from several people that as the rating goes up the level of difficulty trying to move up the rating ladder increases exponentially. So far I haven’t really encountered this phenomena, but I was wondering if that is the case?
Mar 9, 2021
0
#2
Yes, kind of i guess. Chess.com ratings are more exponential around the 1400-1800 range. Exponetial in terms of skill, calcultion accuracy and depth, opening knowledge/memorization etc. I forgot where i got the date but its from some other chess.com post. FIDE is around 700-1000
MelvinGarvey wrote:
To be noted, the acquisition and integration of new concepts in chess, can get one to go through a temporary decrease in results and ratings, during the phase where the brain is doing some sorting out, comparing, linking, ideas and other items to each other, and also prioritize them.
Interesting! Yeah, it can happen I suppose. Integrating new ideas or openings can be tricky!
Absolutely it becomes much harder. Just like any learning activity. And u see less results for your effort.
If you go from 500 to 1000 you beat a lot more people. And can see your improvement dramatically. But as one gets much stronger one has to fine tune more and more to inch up their rating and the field of competition becomes much smaller and harder. Now if you have never hit a wall yet that is great but eventually you will reach a point where the effort to improve will increase dramatically. Even Magnus is not able to improve much anymore... If he does he sure does not gain a few hundred points.
Or to look at it another way. If you learn to swim there is an initial difficulty. Then vast improvement. Then if u learn different strokes learning improvement etc.... But if u become competitive more work for less noticeable improvement. Till u become an Olympic athlete trying to shave a fraction of a second of..... Best of luck ! Enjoy the journey!
Yes, it becomes exponentially harder to improve.
Imagine you've already memorised the first 15 moves of your favourite openings and most of the main sidelines too. You're familiar with the pawn structure and have a decent middlegame plan for most positions. You know most endgames fairly well, except for some really specific and nuanced ones which rarely show up. You're fairly good at tactics and can spot most sacrifices, but the complex studies still confuse you.
How are you going to increase 400 rating points? It's going to be a long journey where you have to gradually fine tune each aspect of your game for marginal improvements. You're going to have to study in detail positions which only show up 1 in 500 games. There isn't going to be a single lightbulb moment that instantly increases your rating by 200+ points anymore. It's going to be a whole series of small, marginal improvements.
Nghtstalker wrote:
Absolutely it becomes much harder. Just like any learning activity. And u see less results for your effort.
If you go from 500 to 1000 you beat a lot more people. And can see your improvement dramatically. But as one gets much stronger one has to fine tune more and more to inch up their rating and the field of competition becomes much smaller and harder. Now if you have never hit a wall yet that is great but eventually you will reach a point where the effort to improve will increase dramatically. Even Magnus is not able to improve much anymore... If he does he sure does not gain a few hundred points.
Or to look at it another way. If you learn to swim there is an initial difficulty. Then vast improvement. Then if u learn different strokes learning improvement etc.... But if u become competitive more work for less noticeable improvement. Till u become an Olympic athlete trying to shave a fraction of a second of..... Best of luck ! Enjoy the journey!
Thanks! Yeah, I’ve hit walls before, but usually I just learn a few things and then suddenly start increasing rapidly until the next wall, but it seems as though it’s obvious what I need to work on and time/ motivation are the factors which determine my rate of growth. I played for many years extremely casually while I was in school and didn’t grow much at all, now that I’m trying however it’s seeming to go by quickly, like my walls only last a month or two. But I’ve heard a lot of players tend to stagnate around the 1800-2000 range, like it takes years for them to gain rating.
Well you have a lil ways to go to 1800!
then let us know!
yes, it does.
the better u are the more things u have to learn exponentially because ur opponents increase in capabilities rapidly the higher rating they are.
a 1500 rated opponent is going to be far superior to one thats only 300 rating lower, thats how extreme this game is. To make small amounts of progress u have to learn exponentially more things, and content. This is why all the top GM's spend, or at least have spent in the past up to.8 hours a day just studying openings and things like that.
Mar 10, 2021
0
#10
I'm 1474 and, like, I just need to play slower. Not really a wall. Well, actually a wall made of loose stones. But yeah
