The differnce between good and bad players..

Is not the quality of their good moves, but the quality of their bad moves.

I think......

Probably true up to a certain level

To me, there is only experienced players & experienced beginners. "Good" players win or lose based on their knowledge, experience, and skill level. They are cordial, well read and personable. They are confident and disciplined. Hardworking and possess a lot of will.

"Bad" players lack self-awareness. They win or lose according to luck. They are resourceful, using whatever means to intimidate, swindle, and bully you. They are awesome in their own minds. Overflowing with confidence, but no reflection. They are quick to make excuses rather than study or self-analyze.

Weak player has a slogan "One & Gone", especially when they play a good one. Weak player play for time only then run like a girl. Their famous principe : Win is Win, LoL

Maybe you could say consistency of their good moves?

Not sure how you can divide all of chess players into either good or bad though.

Maybe we could say how much hope is in a move... hope that what was left unchecked wont beat them and hope that what is threatened the opponent wont react to correctly.

Let me give an example.

I go on TT, and figure out a fairly complicated 5 move combination, and score 100% (yay!)

The GM who played the source game played that combination no better than I did. We both did it perfectly.

But if we are both faced with a different position, and both play the wrong move, my error is likely to be far more severe than his.

It's like golf, my 30m put is every bit as good as a pro's 30m put, if they both go in.

But, If neither of us makes it, he's likely to finish closer to the hole than I did

I noticed something interesting when using houdini to analyze games (I know, I'm not going to use houdini any more, at least not without having reviewed the game without it first.)

The thing I noticed is, the evaluation of the position never gets better for you by you making a move.  The evaluation can only go down.  The only time it improves for you is when your opponent makes a bad move.

This is probably just a quirk with the process that's used but I thought it was interesting.

It's not a quirk. The theoretical evaluation of a position assumes best play from both sides. Thus, with best play, a given position is say, +1.3. So, play the best move, and it's still +1.3.

This kind of relates to the idea that chess is a draw with best play (initial evaluation is close to +0). Thus, you can only win (improve the initial evaluation) by your opponent making a mistake.

Very true. Thanks for this idea. I will remember it.

It would have been better to speak of worse and better players for I think it isn`t possible to speak of bad FIDE ELO 2200+ players. I don`t play too many FIDE ELO 2250+ but I would say it is true up to this level.

This idea is probably correct for any level of player. Since (we think) it is possible to make the best move in a given position, anything less is a bad one. I would add that the quantity of best moves/bad moves also has something to do with it as a GM will make more "best moves" than I will, AND when we both fail to make the best move, his is better than mine.

If player is growing, then he is a good player.

Yes, but what I meant is that at a certain level, you must add strong positives to your play rather than simply substract negatives to make the difference.

For example, you want to become expert in some opening variations, or middlegame structures, very strong in endgames, things like that.

But it's true the definition of mistake I had in mind was rather something like 'a bad move which is recognized as such by a player around your strength'. Your definition is broader.

There is no such thing as a move which has a positive effect.

You can either:

1. Maintain the equilibrium.

2. Weaken your position.

So by that, yes, the quality of a player is based on the quantitity and severity of their weakening moves.

That's certainly a very cold and clinical way to look at events on the chessboard

Of course, since games are played by humans, then there is such thing as a good move. Some are a lot harder to find, some create a lot more problems for the opponent etc.

An expert is a a person with master level tactics but class A endgame understanding

I think the difference between the masters and us mere mortals is the frequency of mistakes. Granted, this is very closely related to the severity in many cases.

I should've lost a game to a 1400 the other day, but he missed a simple tactic. Oops!

http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=77346434 

So true. But often SOMEONE is whispering just that, but it's a lie!

That fairy's got a clone, and it's not always easy to tell them apart.