How do I beat a 2000+?

"A 2000 rated player isn't particularly strong and they do blunder. They don't blunder every other move but often they do make a blunder and at other times they may wrongly assess and start an unsound attack."

Hmm, I'm 2000 and I don't blunder too much, lol. The only real chance of me blundering is if I'm under decent pressure (and if it's a lot of pressure it may not be so unlikely, and this applies even to master level players and above (oh wait, you don't like that terminology, oops!)), and a solid position isn't going to do that to me. Of course I may overpress against a weaker player, or, as is much more common, I'll simply press -- they are bound to leave the first opening, as much as they may try not to, on account of them being weaker. If I try to start an attack I will consider the risk or whether it's hasty -- that kind of judgment is what gets you to 2000+.

That does not necessarily follow, and in my case it certainly doesn't, lol. I will say that a GM would have to build up a decent positional advantage and keep attacking my weaknesses before I would make tactical mistakes, though.  Which, of course, he would, nearly every time, because GMs are extremely good at that.

You have made some interesting points to support your "draw thesis," but about this one in particular I would like to comment. They may try to play moves that lead to a draw, but that will only work if that try is a success. It's like just "trying" to get a 70 on a test -- you will cut corners, and if something goes wrong you may not quite get there. If you try to get a 100 instead, you won't cut corners, and although you may mess up a little bit, I would say you are much more likely to get a 70 or higher on the test, just based on the habits it (strongly) reinforces.

So I guess the irony there is that in trying to get a different score, you actually increase your chances of getting that 70 you wanted. The point is you want to still have enough clarity to make plans as best you can, and having a drawing mindset risks messing up that clarity because instead of looking at the merits of a position you keep thinking how each move relates to your desire to draw.

So I would say playing for a draw against a stronger player decreases your odds that were already low to begin with. Although, I suspect we still don't have quite the same definition of "playing for a draw" :)

U still probably wouldn't make an 'on-your-move' open tactical error Elubas. U'd just be, all of a sudden, forced to choose the best of two lost positions/pieces. The error would've been a few moves earlier when u didn't see the tactic the GM was working on. IOW, when I play 2000+ players, it's like positional, positional, positional....oops....tactic on line 2....I repeat....tactic on line 2....

The beauty of chess lies in the beauty from Houdini's game. Houdini doesn't know nor cares who it plays - it just openly and honestly beats you....w/out any psychological games. It just plays the chessboard as it is. Which humans can (and should ?) do too ! Kinda ....don't u think ?

The gap between a 1600 and a 2000 is huge, an expert is better in tactics but they also have more pattern recognition. A strong master show me a position, I was able to tell him the players, what year they played that game and what opening. It is all about chess knowledge.

The first few answers to this is why new people are so apprehensive about asking questions.

It's as if casual players are tainting their sport.

Sadly, I agree with your sentiment. Sometimes people troll or ask obviously ridiculous questions, but I'm appalled at how often serious questions get snarky replies.

Andre, are you in the city? We should hang. It's been a while.

Thats for sure... I still dont know how to figure out the rankings. I always just played casually without the time, then came across this site; which is pretty nice.

I dont have a large number and I know very little but stop concentrating on your opponents number and play your game. you know you can do it so do it. try again when you fail and learn from your mistakes. Have fun

Cheers

J

And when a serious response is given, it's ignored in favor of flame wars. If you want a serious discussion, this doesn't seem to be the right place for it.

Perhaps it would help if a person's OTB experience and credentials were included in these discussions. I get the distinct impression that several here who pass themselves off as knowledgeable actually have no experience in the matter.

No way. In my experience as a player (2000+), coach, tournament director, and someone who personally knows a lot of 2400+ players, I would say that Arpad Elo was right in this case: I would rate a 1600's chances of beating a 2000 about the same as a 2000 beating a 2400.

In each case, when such upsets happen, usually it is because the higher-rated underestimates the strength of some idea, miscalculates something, or simply blunders material and gets outplayed from there.

Perhaps he meant how much you need to learn to go from 2000 to 2400 is greater than from 1600 to 2000. Because yeah, when it comes to how well one player scores, a 400 point gap is the same. If you don't beat 1600s or 1700s at an extremely high rate, the occasional loss will keep you from getting to 2000. This is how the rating system is designed. And a 2400 will be 2400 by not losing points against 2000s, in the exact same way.

A 2400 can pick up points back regardless of who he plays :) He just has to get the percentage a 2400 would be expected to. If he's playing a bunch of 2200s, he has to score 80% or something. If he's playing other 2400s, he has to score 50% to maintain his rating or bring it back to 2400. If he really is 2400 strength he shouldn't have much trouble doing either. He might be sick or lazy on some days, but that applies to any player, and naturally he will have better than average days as well.

In other words, the rating system pretty much is as clear cut as it seems :) People like to talk about how much it falters, but it really doesn't. There are some wild exceptions, like if you're only regularly playing a very small amount of people like 4 people, but barring these extremes the rating system works extremely well.

OP here, if you two don't mind me asking, are you talking about my responses to people asking me questions, or people's responses to my original question? 

I hope I wasn't being a jerk. I don't see it, but I surely have been wrong before.

The gap is very large, there's no doubt about that. What I was saying was that I had beaten 1900s on anywhere to a 30-50% rate, and that I shouldn't be to 2000s as often as I have been because the difference between a mid 1900 and a low 2000 shouldn't be significant enough to cause such a dramatic difference.

To use a basketball anology you seem like that guy that always says it is his "off day" for shooting. In his own mind he is a lights out shooter that has bad days. In reality he occasionally can hit an open jumper.

Ok, fair enough.

But I would disagree that reaching 2400 takes "a lot" of talent. Being a great competitor, a lot of serious work on one's game, and a lot of tournament experience will do the job, in my observation of the NYC chess scene. IMHO the most overlooked aspect of becoming a strong player is "how good of a competitor" a person is. Boris Gelfand even alluded to this: http://www.chessintranslation.com/2010/05/gelfand-at-crestbook-part-i/

In my observations, players with a lot of talent reach at least medium GM level or they retire from serious play in their teens or early 20s.

It could be. Although it tends to come in 2 or 3 week long spans, not one game streaks. I've had tournaments where I've beaten 1700-1900s on a consistent basis. I've also had tournaments where it seems that I had lost all my chess vision and for some reason couldn't tell that I had left pieces en prise. I think I can be lights out and have horrible days, but I could just be imagining things.