Learning and the Difference Between Rating Levels
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Playing chess to learn and increase your rating is an interesting process, isn’t it? I mean you start playing chess with an ELO of around 300, then you learn new tactics and tricks, and you begin to feel the thrill of the game. You dream about tactics. Your rating increases, and you get excited, but losing gets scary. This is understandable because losing really hurts in this game. It especially hurts in this game because of the ego factor and the rating hit. Many players begin to fear losing (and learning) because they want to protect their rating (just a number!). I personally am that type of chess player. The thing about assigning a quantity level to measure quality or level of skill is that it isn’t always accurate. Or maybe it is just is that it doesn’t capture the many different skill sets that chess requires. Some players are gifted with tactical calculation, positional skills, patience, board vision, etc. The crazy thing is, a low rated player can be better positionally than a higher rated player with more tactical awareness. This might explain why you come so close to losing to a lower rated player, then you are just plain winning! With that said, players of ratings several hundred apart can be kind of close on skill. That’s why so many of us are afraid of playing low-rated players. We often lose to them because we forget that we had to give our all to get past that level. My key idea here is that we can learn from players of all kinds and rating levels. Yesterday, I was watching Emily Higgins (1300) play chess on stream, and I was impressed by her play! Her board vision and patience is so much stronger than mine right now, and I am several hundred points higher in rating! Watching the game reminded me of the quote: “When you see a good move, look for a better one.” Perhaps that is why playing rapid is better for beginners than blitz or bullet. They get to explore candidate moves and ideas instead of just playing whatever. Anyway, I just wanted to say: Review the games of people several hundred points above your rating and several hundred points below your rating! You might be surprised by the results.