What Difference in Chess Knowledge/Skills ?

Can Anyone share ( preferably from yr own experiences whilst climbing up the Rating's Ladder)what a 2000 or so Player knows that a 1600 Player does not,what a 1600 or so Player knows that a 1300 does not n what a 2900 n above Player knows that almost all of us,do not ?

Tnx.

You may find this characterizing-rating-levels discussion illuminating.

Most authors tend to equate chess playing abilities as a combination of Evaluation (I've seen these kinds of positions before and I think that White/Black is BETTER by ----> this <----- much. ) and Analysis skills ( accurate and time-efficient calculation i.e. I-go-there-and-you-go-there-and-I-go-there skills)

When a player A consistently beats player B, it is usually a dominance in either one or both of the following skills.

It should hopefully be obvious that one cannot be a great analyzer and a miserable evaluator and expect to be a decent player, or vice versa.  It is usually a balance of the two.

Now I believe analysis comes with a ton of practice playing strong players at slow time controls.  Tactics puzzles and drills also helps in this direction. Naturally strong players with excellent board vision and memory tend to have a massive headstart at analysis skills. This is why these prodigy 5-6 year old kids at tourneys can scalp a 1900 without even bothering to care what a lucena position is. :)

Evaluation skills come via going over a ton of annotated games, having a coach/stronger player/friend yell at you for misplaying a specific position and a lot of STUDYING. One of the more time-efficient ways of improving evaluation skills is by going over your own games with a fine-toothed comb and having a coach tell you when you didn't "understand" the position.

So in a ways, that might answer your question. The stronger player evidently  has a better (analysis + evaluation) skill portfolio.

That's a tough question because each individual player is unique.  I can say though that in general, stronger players will be better at tactics.  That even goes for grandmasters -- so tactically 2800 > 2600 > 2400 etc down the line.

Some areas that better players have more knowledge in include:

1) opening theory
2) middle game ideas and technique
3) memorized games that serve as a reference to #s 1, and 2
4) better at visualizing calculations in terms of length
5) stronger at correctly evaluating a position (what they calculate is more accurate even if the variations aren't as long)
6) endgame technique
7) tactically better

This isn't an inclusive list, but lets pretend it forms a chain with 7 links.  If your weakest link is 1600 while everything else is 2000 then you may only be rated 1700 even after many games.  So you can see there might be many different combinations of skills that make up each player.  Although the higher you go the more well rounded you have to be.

Tnx so much for sharing,Everyone .. certainly very enlightening !!!

2900s know how to switch Rybka on :P

As a "Chess Coach" in an elementary school, it comes down to a person's attention span.  If he or she can block out the noise and chatter around him/her, and be able to focus on every single combination move, then and only then will a champion emerge. 

Yeah,I think Excellent Concentration is one of the basic/most important requirements for playing our best in any Chess Game , as Chess is as much a 'Visual'  Game as it is  an 'Intellectual' one.

Yeah .. Probably !

Yeah .. I notice lots of this in GM Games .

Simple. I know a lot about chess. I know about good and bad bishops, space, support points for knights, pawn chains, and all the tactics. That is knowledge. Easy to gain, just read a little.

Skill is being able to usefully apply that knowledge to a given position. That, unfortunately, is harder to gain.

Who is Rybka?

 < waits patiently > 

Rybka is an 'It' ...

Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. As of February 2010^[update], Rybka is top-rated on chess engine rating lists   and has won many official Computer Chess Tournaments including the 2007, 2008, and 2009 World Computer Chess Championships. Rybka supports both single processor and symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems.

The word rybka means little fish in Polish and Czech languages, where it is pronounced [ˈrɪpka].

Rybka 2.2n2 has been rated at 3110 Elo on 4 CPUs, and Rybka 3 is approximately 100 Elo stronger than 2.2n2. Current versions of Rybka use multiple processors, yielding an estimated increase of 50 Elo per doubling of processors.

... from Wikipedia

There is no universal answer. For example, sometimes a 1700 knows a certain rook endgame position, while a 2600 totally forgot how to play it. Some people are more into tactics, others like openings, etc. 

Tnx so much ,WGM Natalia_Pogonina n Everyone !!!  

Another Question for everyone :

Do we have to 'go by the book' mostly to win most of our games or can we play 'freestyle'/our own Moves ?

Someone told me that that to win GM's ,chances r better if u make ur 'own' Moves .. I've found that you can beat higher rated players if u do that but then that doesn't happen very often.I think we hv to follow 'book'/known moves (tho any 'freestyle' moves we make would hv been included as variations to Openings,etc in the database,already /maybe our moves happen to coincide with the book moves) to win consistently.

So,in the end,does it really matter whether we know n follow strictly ,the opening,mid-game,end-game guidelines( or r they juz Names given ,that we don't hv to necessarily know ? ) or juz play, guided by our 'common sense' ?

You are missing a pretty significant point about chess positions => There is only one "best" move that maintains the evaluation of the position ( won game remains won by the same margin, draw is still a draw etc.)

Mathematicians and game theorists have proven that you can't make the position magically better but you can only play the best move in each position.  Any other move will change the evaluation of the position (make the position WORSE than it already is).  

Of course, there are a lot of positions where you don't HAVE to play the best move, any good move would do ... especially if you are already winning or if the position doesn't really demand accurate play. 

With that being said => book moves just happen to be opening moves that have been deemed as best via repeated trials ( I guess you can call it history) by Masters for ages.  By playing a "book move" , you are merely leveraging off the hard work of people before you. There's nothing wrong with that. If I needed to be convinced that a book move was best, I'd ask a strong player. If I was, I'd play it. Would I ignore a move because it was book? that's just silly ... that's tantamount to me saying "I don't want to be playing what Masters considered best". :)

So this notion of "own" moves doesn't really make sense to me. Any move in chess you make that you didn't "know in advance from a book/database" is an "own move".  If you meant certain opening moves that you just feel is right, go ahead ... though I think all you're doing is :

a) wasting time re-inventing the wheel if your moves are already proven to be the best (they're already in the book by now!).  Would you rather explore some played games on the Sicilian or discover the whole world on your own after 1...c5? If you had the time, sure! :)

b) playing sub-par chess with random opening systems that books have chosen to ignore for good reason.

c) Playing novelties ... which is a rarity for a non-Master (unless it is a new development in the BongCloud system)

I know c) is unlikely ... but both a) and b) are just inefficient / silly.

Tnx All, n Yeah ,u r rite,Shivsky ..

I guess it doesn't really matter whether we arrive at that one 'Best Move' by following /having learnt from the Book or by our own Logical Deduction/Analysis .. so long as we do !

(That 'Best Move' is always out there somewhere .. waiting to be found !)

.. n I wonder ,after all this time (after chess was first founded n played),r there any more real 'Novelty' Moves (if 'Novelty' means 'New Moves' ie) ???