When "Chomping On Hanging Pieces" is a TERRIBLE Idea...

Look at my peak rating, I think 2500 last year or something. I dropped after only playing in arenas. I can send you a lichess game invite to prove my rating if you want in DMs.

Also that site says I should be an FM and I'm nowhere near that so seems very inaccurate.

That's quite a tilt. Given that you've been vacillating around 2100-2200 for quite a while, I'd wager your true strength is somewhere in this range and your all-time-high is not representative of your ability.

You really shouldn't judge yourself by your absolute peak performance. Rather, it makes more sense to appraise yourself at your most frequent performance.

Chess.com bullet of 2100-2200 maps onto 2000 FIDE or so, which is accurate for you.

1400 is the startup for FIDE standard ratings. It was at 1000, and since 2023 there was a 400-point base hike which affected all ratings up to 2000 in analogue fashion.

1400 FIDE=beginner/post beginner.

It's not a tilt. If you played arenas only you would become a 1900 over time. I've made a post about how arenas have different rating systems to player pools.

I've never even dropped below 2400 on lichess during this time and I play way more consistently on lichess.

I'll play 10 games of 1+0 rn. I should win at least 8 games because they're not arena games.

I don't know what to tell you. Your peak rating in the last 90 days is 2198, so the numbers aren't matching your perception.

Maybe Lichess is just easier.

Anyway, FIDE AND USCF ratings correlate more strongly with slower time-controls on chess.com. The variance in bullet scores on chessgoals.com is something like ±150. You might just be better at fast time controls than slower ones and are at the high-end of the variance.

Are you just ignoring my point about arenas? I can get to 2500 easily in the player pool. The arena pool is completely different though.

Got 6 wins in a row I cba to play more

7/10 games puts you at about 2300 performance rating, which is pretty good, but not 2500

There might be a difference in the rating strength of arenas since some players only play in arenas, creating a seperate rating pool. But that's speculative. Try playing outside of arenas for a month and see where you most frequently sit.

Ok how about this. I'll get to 2400 in the next couple of hours just to prove a point.

Good luck, I guess. But it wouldn't really prove anything other than you're fairly skilled at bullet.

Have fun!

it will prove "my true strength" isnt 2200 lol

ok i cant be bothered to play all day but i got up to 2300 in under an hour and finished on:

24 wins

4 draws

3 losses

i think its fair to say arenas are much harder...

I wouldn't say it's fair to say that at all. The arenas your participating in are open rating, which means you are likely facing opponents several hundred rating points below you. That's why your average opponent rating is 1870. You will gain relatively little rating for wins in this pool and lose quite a bit for defeats.

This says nothing about the strength of the pool and more about its composition.

actually i don't gain any rating for beating an 1870. this site doesn't allow rating gain if you beat somebody 400 elo lower rated than you.

poor design idk why chess.com does this. 1870s can and do beat me.

Nevermind, it is no business of mine

Anyway, I rarely think "chomp on hanging pieces" when I'm playing.

Usually, I'm looking for important squares and trying to control them ... or trying to nudge my opponent's pieces to unfavorable positions ... or trying to gain space with tempo ... or trying to double my opponent's pawns ... or trying to pry open files for my pieces ... or trying to close files to obstruct my opponent ... or trying to pressure backward pawns ... or trying to weaken my opponent's kingside ... or (well, you get the idea) ...

Taking free material is mostly an afterthought - a surface-level idea, skimming over the tops of the water. Most chess is played deeper than that - down where the monsters hunt, in the shadows and the murk ...

Yeah, turns out there’s tonnes more to this game than just that horrific oversimplification 😂😂

The worst bit is, he doesn’t even give guidance to players as to how to go about identifying hanging pieces. There’s no advice on calculating capture chains, or looking for overloaded defenders, or pins, or any basic advice that could actually benefit players who need to hear the advice. It’s just a platitude that doesn’t help anyone, and makes people feel badly about their chess as if it’s so simple to improve. 

If all one needed to reach a “decent” level of chess was for someone to be told “pick up free material”, with no further elaboration, we wouldn’t have anyone rated below, say, 1000.

Hey, what's the deal with chessblackbelt? What did he say that made everyone disagree?