Unskilled and unaware of it-Dunning-Kruger effect in chess

ignorance is bliss....

a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.....

ok these sayings have been around for a very long time but they pretty much sum up the theory we have been writing about. One comment about ratings...even though everyone here has one players who do not belong to a website or an organization (like fice or uscf) don't have one and are likely to have little or no knowledge of them. Over the years I have noticed something which is very often true. You can usually tell someone's chess strength (before you play them) by their comments.

The better they claim to be the worst they are! The best players i have played against over the years are very modest and downplay their chance of victory. The really weak players tell you how they are going to destroy you. There are of course exceptions but i think this rule is correct the vast majority of the time.

I think part of it is the more you study chess the more you realize that there is soooooo much about it which you will never know.That is both a blessing and a curse.

I like to watch Greg Shahade's videos on youtube, and I can most of the time predict if he gonna win :DD If he goes sth like "Ye im the best i gonna crush you, you dont know how to play..." hes probablly goin to win if he starts not so confident results are really different most of the time... and he states himself that you must think that way to win even tho he really respects his opponent but goes to this mindset just to get better results

I find I played much better before I picked up books and started studying. Just playing naturally

Started thinking about concepts and shit

Dunno.... Used to impress people who were like "damn yah a prodigy or something?" Led me to taking it more seriously and getting much worse

Any experienced player knows how a change in the character of the play influences your psychological mood.  -  Garry Kasparov

My most difficult opponent is myself. When I am playing I often involuntarily make a world champion out of a candidate master.  -  Lev Polugaevsky

this one I really like 

How vain are our fears! I thought to myself. Sometimes we fear that which our opponent (or fate) had never even considered! After this, then, is it any longer worthwhile to rack one's brain to find new ghosts to fear? No, indeed: All hail optimism!  -  upon playing Hermanis Mattison after he overlooked an unusual knight manouevre.  -  Aaron Nimzowitsch

For my victory over Capablanca I am indebted primarily to my superiority in the field of psychology. Capablanca played, relying almost exclusively on his rich intuitive talent. But for the chess struggle nowadays one needs a subtle knowledge of human nature, an understanding of the opponent's psychology.  -  Alexander Alekhine

Psychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on fact.  -  Bobby Fischer

This game reminded me of the wonderful times of my youth, when 'the sunshine was brighter, and the girls were prettier', the openings were not so well studied, and chess was far more interesting. (after a victory vs. Morozevich in Khanty-Mansiysk 2011)

In chess, as in life, a man is his own most dangerous opponent.  - Vasily Smyslov

 Chess is a contributor to net human unhappiness, since the pleasure of victory is greatly exceeded by the pain of defeat.  -  Bill Hartston

Many of us can relate to this. Six months ago I had been on rigid program of chess study. I played an OTB game and overlooked a simple tactic and thought "what's the point of all this study !?"....but the thing is, chess study is like food. You can't immediately go for a run on a full stomach without consequences.

With regard to chess, I've come to think of this idea as "psychic indigestion". We need time to digest ideas :-) We also need time to forget. The study was useful in hindsight, but now, some distance away from it, I can just be at the board with the chess ideas as useful references rather than undigested memes distracting me from the game.

Sometimes the more I analyze position in correspondence chess the simplier tactic I miss  

What would Chess be without silly mistakes?  -  Kurt Richter

How to Think in Chess mentions unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence (where most of us stand, I place myself here as I'm aware that I have some holes in my thinking), conscious competence and unconscious competence. 

A master is rated 2300 FIDE at least, they know so much stuff the rest of us don't.  A lot of it is "talent" (intelligence) too that they're just born with.  Do many people refuse to get coaching out of pride?  Or is it fear?  Lack of time and/or money?  We need to admit we're weak somewhere and to fix it. 

Look at Carlsen's games, especially the world championship ones. 

Thats a lot of words for blissfully ignorant

oviously I was not familiar with that term. lol yeeeah... It could of just been: Ignorance bliss. What do ya think bout that guys? oh well... 

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am,then I can change.

Carl Rogers

Some things are really hard to do, almost impossible to do, like playing perfectly in extremely complicated positions. But it really bugs me when I miss things that I really shouldn't have. I am always going to make mistakes. I don't have any illusions that my understanding of chess is perfect or anything like that. It's just that I have to work on relatively simple mistakes. When I can lower the percentage of such mistakes then things are going to be much better.  -  Magnus Carlsen

Dunning-Kruger Effect describes your typical 14 year old.