What rating signals a good player?

The answer to the question depends on what you think is "good".

GM Mednis, an author of many chessbooks, writes in one of his books, you shouldnt buy chessbooks written by players with less than 2400. He sais weaker players may play strong sometimes and may have good ideas, but only players above 2400 REALY can claim to understand chess in the whole. So in his point of view a "good" player is a player that understands not only some parts of the games and makes mistakes from time to time, but a player that is some kind of an expert in every part of chess. That view makes most of the chessplayers not "good". But I think he might be right - being "good" at something means being "good" in the whole thing, not in some parts only. So I think I am very far from being good, but getting better is the thing for me in playing chess.

I don't know what is his rating, but when I study games in my Megadatabase, I don't think I will consider him to be one of a few GMs who understand chess in the whole. Kasparov is my favorite, not because he is the legend, but if you look at how he approaches every positions...

And I know that people who have a closed mind cannot see many things...

Chess must be difficult in Canada -- you move Bg5+ and your opponent stands up and says, "that's not a check!" and body slams you into the wall screaming "now that's a check, eh?" 

(*it's a hockey joke -- canadians... hockey... get it? nudge check! see it's funny oh nevermind)

Here's how I look at it:

The average person who picks up a chess set (parlor player) and wants to play a game doesn't know anything about the game and just trys to figure it out as they go along. An adult of this type can play at about 800. They are in every household.

1200-1300 is where a player knows the value of the pieces, a few openings and some basic ideas. So they will usualy beat every parlor player out there. Most people (those not involved in chess) consider them good at the game because they never see them lose.

In the chess community where people study the game and play often and regular, 1500 is where good players start. 1700 to 1900 are very good. 2000 and up are wizards. Of course the 2400 and up grandmaster level means that the person is a chess machine who's entire life is saturated with the game. They are like the PHDs of Chess. The authority per say.

If nobody below you is good, that would make you the absolute worst good player. 

I say that 1800+ is a good player.

You mean turn based ratings here or OTB Oz ?  Both ?  

In OTB play when I was 1300-1500 I thought those over 1800 were really strong and those above 2000 were like chess Gods to me. Ofcourse , as one improves one realizes this isnt true. 

Fischer once said of A class players that they dont understand anything of chess. While that seems harsh I think compared to him and other top GMs they really don't. 

I meant 1800 USCF.

My humble opinion is 1400 is average; 1600 is good; 1800 is strong; 2000 is very strong; and 2200 and above is great. Just my opinion.

I figure once you make some sort of 'low level' (NM/CM) master class you can be considered 'good'.  It's all relative I guess.  My justification came from simply watching 2600+ GM Wesley So obliterate a 2000 level player in the course of just a few moves.  What was interesting was the post mortem... the 2000 level player thought he was 'slightly worse' after an opening innacuracy that So evaluated as 'strategically lost'.  The next round, So defeated a 2200 FIDE NM/CM (I'm not sure which title you use when you have both).  That post mortem was different... the 'lesser master' understood where he went wrong and even was able to propose ideas that made the GM think for a bit.  

Anyways my point goes something like this... it's fairly rare to see a master level player lose a game and have no idea what just happened.  Therefore, imho, masters have sufficient understanding of the game to be considered 'good'.  

Then again, when I was 1900 I thought 2100's were good.  Now that I'm 2100 I'm starting to realize that national titles mean a lot less than FIDE titles.  Maybe it's just an endless cycle of realizing how bad everyone is at chess :P.  Heck, even Carlsen criticizes his abilities.

-matt

Its always a humbling experience to analyze a game with a strong GM . I have analyzed games with GMs Spraggett and Ubilava ( one of Anand's team/seconds) and I was really amazed by how much they see/understand and by the speed and accuracy with which they calculated variations that I sometimes didnt even consider ! These two GMs are two of the nices people I have ever met as well as two of the strongest players I have ever played. GM Ubilava even displayed a nice sense of humor when he pointed out to me that he and I are both from Georgia !  

I get hung up on the avg rating of who these "good" players played. I played someone who was over 1700 but only played those under 1200, same with a player rated over 1500. Yes, they both beat me, but I wouldn't include them with players of same rating who earned it beating players around their strength.

I always thought that 1800 USCF was pretty good, now that i am rated 1840, i realize i am not that good. I guess the highr you get the higher you consider a rating to be a good player. I'm sure when i cross over 2000 (god willing) that i will still think i suck compared to those 2200 and above

I'm lucky. Essentially everyone is better than me - so it's not much of a question.

Grandpatzer´s school is proberly in Canada, You can´t judge any player on his ratng.grade, cause is depending on the players you playing against. The better the club or school youre are member in, the rating will be after how strong the opponents you playing against are!?

Spacos/Sweden!!!

4000 would be a great player.

I "read" my opponents rather quickly after the 4-5 moves in the opening. And i have my favorites openings and try to lead the game in to the variations i like, for example against d4 i often play d5 because the indians games don´t fit me.

But i´m are not a very talent player, so my tactic is often to play beside the ordinary variation!? 

About 1800-1960+ OTB (good club player) ratings online are too inflated to be taken seriously on some sites it's extreme the top player on Queen Alice Chess Club is pushing 4500+ and climbing nobody can touch him.

It's all relative and solely dependant on anyone's particular perspective; it's hard to understand how a 2400 plays moves of that quality, until you get to that quality. It was hard for me to understand how 1800 players could make such good moves, but now that I am one, it doesn't seem special to me.

It's all about your perspective. If you think you're a good player, go ahead and think that -- you can't be wrong either way.

I think any rating over 1000 at chess.com will beat most of the players in the public sector that have not played on an online site.  My current rating is 1078 and I feel I have gotten pretty good.  My rating will be going up because I am playing alot of chess now that I recently found this site.  I mainly play 1 minute games as they are fast and exciting!