Things you've noticed as you've progressed

When I was like 1100 or so the typical play was the "knight phobia", they seemed forced to take the knights of you at the earliest chance by means of a pin. I look back and I'm like, "thanks for giving me the bishop pair in an open game".

I'm now 1400 odd and the upgrade of the "knight phobia" is the double fienchetto of bishops which functions as their standard norm' of play.

I was interested to hear from higher ranked players just what style of play along these lines you start to notice that repeats itself as you progress?

Sidenote: Lately, everytime I make a #1 post it appears as light fonted text?

What else have you noticed?

Other things I've noticed?

Ermmm, it would have to be when all major and minor pieces have been traded off when you or your opponent has the one pawn advantage.

Hehe, for a while I never wanted to play a double finachetto because I had it in my mind "only silly players who play every game this way will do such things." But lately I've gotten over that, and if I think it's a good idea, I will now allow myself to fianchetto both bishops (although, not as early as move 4 )

Different milestones pop up in different ways, but one generalization among them, that came to my mind at least, was that the player who knew more seemed to be more patient.

For example they wouldn't push a pawn or trade a pair of pieces just because they could. Or if they had been attacking, they were willing to stop and change their plan to something else.

I think some of these "things people notice" can be useful to those who haven't discovered them yet, but unfortunately the patience thing seems born out of simply having a larger knowledge of different positions... although perhaps a very useful lesson in patience could be given to newer players in the rule of thumb "avoid making captures, especially in the opening phase."

As for the grey text, I've always thought it was because people posted from their phones or some non-standard browser. The text "Please be relevant, helpful & nice" is grey, but on my computer as soon as you click to type it's gone. Maybe some devices / browsers don't delete the format. My advice would be to try backspacing in the beginning (even if there is no text) in hopes it will delete any hidden formatting symbols that may be there.

Oh, one new thought that recently popped into my head during a tournament game was "every capture is a minor transition."

So there are transitions from e.g. middlegame to endgame, and there are transitions like now I'm attack to now I'm defending. But it occurred to me each time a piece or pawn was captured, the logic or ideas of the position change at least a little.

Another way to say it would be, I'm willing to more often re-evaluate the different roles and values I've assigned to different pieces or parts of the board.

Unfortunately yes, the double fianchetto is performed at least by move 4 with the players I'm playing against. At my level, all that springs to my mind with my opponents is that whatever side you choose to castle on they've got a bishop zeroed in on your the king.

In some instances, yes they beat me. In others it's their downfall. But I consider myself to be a dynamic player and not the standard whatever routine. If I notice the usual routine for long enough then over time I develop a standard protocol against it.

I enjoy playing against players who develop pieces in the opening and are looking towards the middle game. But everytime I "level-up" rating wise, I'm still playing against idiots who are pulling off wins with insecure style of play.

I know what you mean.

I've noticed some that will play a hippo type setup then shuffle around to gain time before moving on in the game... I have to admit I've adopted a rather lazy approach to this. I do my own setup, and I will shuffle as long as they do... in my mind I'm mocking them :p (unfortunately I may also fall into a draw by 3-fold if I'm not careful).

eg:

When I was in high school, never having played competitively, my strategy was to make every conceivable trade on the board. Even my friends who didn't really play much would get exasperated because I was just such a wood chopper. I entered two tournaments in high school and finished with a rating of 1018. 

Then in my last year of college, I joined the chess club and learned principles like develop toward the center, move every piece once before you move any piece twice, etc. I think these beginning principles are REALLY important and I still see B players neglecting them. 

The next big revelation was that I don't always have to initiate trades or captures. Especially revelatory was the idea that some trades help the opponent develop and are thus bad. Now I'm better about not trading good pieces for bad pieces and keeping my attackers on the board. I'm a Class A player now, and the two things I'm trying to notice more are: attacking chances/open lines/sacrifices and positional changes brought on by trades. By the latter I mean: how is this position different if I trade a pair of rooks as opposed to keeping everything on, etc. This actually lost me my last game against a newly crowned expert- that kind of positional understanding doesn't come easy.

You still havn't answered my question lol. What style of play ( in a nut-shell) have you noticed as you've progressed? :)

The vibe I've got here is that stuck-up high rating players feel too "glorified" to respond to such questions.

True, but im not high rated and I dunno what to say... 

Well, maybe I should replace what I said.

All members explain in a nut-shell, overall, what you've noticed as you've progressed.

When I say nut-shell, just summarise, don't give us a game where we feel we have to blow smoke up your arse for how well you did.

Hmm, do you mean I didn't answer? I tried :p

What style of play... hmm, so like in your example they would capture knights or play a double finachetto.

I remember I used to always play my queen bishop to g5 (or g4 as black) and take their king's knight at the first opportunity. I had heard that the king's knight was "an important defender" (in one position) and I decided it must apply to EVERY position haha :)

I played an annoying player at a club once who didn't know any opening except to play c6, d5, e6 as black and similarly c3, d4, e3 as white. He would just trade pieces and try to stay solid. I only knew how to win by attacking and in general by having an open positions so he was very frustrating to me.

Players who do this (in a little more sophisticated way) are still somewhat annoying to me. But now that I'm more comfortable in endgames I find they usually get themselves into (sometimes very) disadvantageous endgames, even if the material is equal. Their pieces are just much more passive than mine so I can make them suffer and (hopefully) eventually win.

If this is what you mean by styles, they don't really repeat themselves as you progress. The better the opponent usually the less they do some gimmicky strategy.

@ leiph18

I'm no spy but according to your profile you don't even have a standard live chess rating; I was just curious but why is this?

Are you a speed chess player then?

EDIT: On top of that it says you've only played 18 games. In my eyes your chess variable hasn't even stabilised for the amount of games you've played.

I was an OTB 2100 player in college and then took a 26 year break.  As a result I'm now an 1800 player.  It could be worse....

One thing I *really* notice, but it's more a year 1986 to 2015 change, is that A players (1800+) and above know their openings.  I play the Dutch and people used to scratch their heads.  Now I play A players, many of them quite young children, and they are not surprised at all.  They have prepared lines against *everything*.  Lower-rated OTB players still do not.  (Neither do I, which is one of several reasons I'm no longer 2100....)

I have recently played a lot of chess.com Online Chess tournaments, some with 2000+ rated players and some with much lower ones.  The big difference I see, which seems to kick in around 1900-2000, is that the stronger players are very purposeful all game long.  They seldom drift along without purpose as weaker players do.  When I beat players 2000+ it's usually because they make tactical mistakes--it happens, though not often.

You can't conclude much about openings from Online Chess because players are allowed to use Games Explorer, so you are never sure in the opening who you might be playing.  But with weaker players the first move out of book is pretty often a mistake, whereas with stronger players I can't tell when book runs out--they understand what they are doing.

I also notice that stronger players are much more adept with pawn breaks, especially ones not connected with a direct attack on the king.  (Weaker players can sometimes do very well when attacking the king, as a 1300 recently demonstrated at my expense.)  I am playing some games against a FM and I have an uneasy sense that he understands the implications of pawn breaks much better than I do.

The biggest changes in my own play from 27 years ago are that I'm more resourceful in bad positions, but overall less accurate tactically.  Brain cells, where have you gone?  I also draw a little more often, mostly due to recent study of the endgames, but otherwise my play looks about the same--just weaker. Oh, one other change:  I am much calmer about being down a pawn.  I've adopted some gambits, and I had a nice game recently where I just ignored the lost pawn, played strategically, and got a mating attack well into the middlegame.  I don't think I would have played that game in 1987.

I tend not to trust long online games : /
I use the internet for blitz. Also, I tend not to like chess.com blitz lol :) so I don't really play here (I dislike the clock and small amounts of lag making it hard to pace myself).

Yes, my rating here is not very reliable. By the way there are three things I look for to see if a rating is reliable:

1) Many games completed
2) Play often (a few games a day or week for example)
3) They don't often, and haven't recently, played the same player many games in a row.

 You've played a total of...19 games here at chess.com.

Your 1800 odd Blitz rating is a fake because your rating variable hasn't even stabilised yet, so stop talking like your some chess guru.

I wasn't trying to talk like a guru. Your topic asked for others points of view, and that's what a forum offers, a lot of different people. If you don't like me you certainly don't have to believe anything I say!

I try to not look at ratings, and just judge people on what they say. When I do I'll think in large chunks like plus or minus 300 points (internet ratings aren't super reliable in any case)

Anyway, for a while I left this account with no games played. Of course then people can say "you don't even play! play same games first before talking!"

One thing I consider an accomplishment is I play blitz maybe once every two to three weeks now (I used to play hours every day). I play my long games at my club. (Hoping for more tournament play in the future, but right now I'm rusty there too.)

+1 for understanding how to be a pawn down and still in drawn game territory.

Its hard to verbalize what you come to understand that you didn't just a few hundred rating points ago.

People will play openings that are not the best at every level. one of the great things about chess is the variety of things you can do and still not be losing. Even with such a large drawing margin the better player will almost always win.

That said the higher you go the more likely people will need a good reason to trade bishop for knight or for that matter trade at all. And I haven't seen the hippo in a while even though it is playable.

One good point is that higher level players do not trade just for the sake of trading (most of the time) there needs to be a compelling reason or an advantage to be gained. if you have a good position and you force a trade you often kill your advantage, unless the trade wins material somehow. Sometimes its even good to not allow the opponent to trade, and in the opening initiating exchanges often costs tempo and hands the advantage to your opponent.

I guess I am opinionated, and will state my opinion as if it's fact lol. I try to be careful of that.

When people disagree with me on the forum though I'm willing to reconsider things, and I admit when I'm wrong.

For example maybe you want to say that example game I posted is dumb because white should do this or that, or the approach of meeting a dumb set-up with another dumb set-up is wrong because this or that, and I'll probably agree with you :)