Why are the most chess hustlers stuck on a B class level ?

I mean people like in Washington Square Park, NYC , other countries those hustlers who sit all day and hustle the money or play for money.

How come majority of them is B class players 1600-1800 rating, what's up with that? Like why? Is it hard to move past B level generally or something?

They could be C class players or A class players, but majority is B class players it's seems optimal Class.

So why is that from chess point of view, is that where people usually hit the wall and it's gets extremely hard to move on , or theory comes in to play or something. ... I don't know I just thing it's an interesting discussion

🤔

In my experience players get stuck around 1600 when they're unable to tie their moves together towards a single purpose. Basically strategy. As a simple example, in a classic KID line, black advances on and attacks the kingside, white advances on and attacks the queenside. White will never even consider moves like g4 and h4 accelerating black's attack. Similarly black would never start pushing a lot of pawns on the queenside opening lines for white there.

But developing a general idea for each of your openings is hard if you never analyze with people or study. So most of these players just attack your king. So they do have an idea, but they will try to force it even when the position doesn't allow it. This is very similar to a regular 1600 who is trying to adopt a general plan, but chooses incorrectly i.e. the idea is wrong, but dangerous if you let it gain momentum.

This is just my experience though, that 1600 is the advent of this sort of overall game strategy. I'm sure in reality this is oversimplified.

Not really hard to understand.  A 1600 rated player should beat a 1200 player ~90% of the time (~87% at 1600 up to ~93% at 1800).  That kind of win rate is all you need to consistently make money, if the average person is walking up to play $5 or whatever.  If a hustler keeps a strict "I only play you until you beat me" policy, they can't lose more than $5 from the small percentage of players that do outplay them. 

Having a higher rating will raise your win percentage, but after 95%-98% the returns are just diminishing anyway.  There's no real need to be a Master to hustle chess, unless you are doing so outside the St. Louis chess club or something ...

Thank you all some answers were good and some just ...

GREAT ANSWERS :

urk

Telestu

btickler

BIG like 👍, thank you for your time

Just wondering have any of you actually played a park hustler to really know what their rating is or what they are like.I could see someone who is studying seriously at a sticking point in their progress going there to find out if their studying gave them any advantage.

I posted in another thread similar to this one.  I won't repost all of that, but briefly, I played against one OTB.  His given rating was 1950 or so, but his real strength was 2100+.  Within a few more tournaments, that's where his rating went to.  But that's where it got stuck, too.  He was there for several more years, never quite reaching 2200.

He also had a bit part in "Searching for Bobby Fischer."

Yeah, I find it quite difficult to believe that Washington Square or any similar place is full of 2100+ players.

Considering that they play for money (And actually they would easily beat most amateur players), they do it all day every single day, I think they are actually way stronger than 1600-1800. I would say that most of them are around 2100-2300. 

Look up Jerry McClinton in the USCF database.  Then look him up in IMDB.  When they made the movie, they hired several of the park hustlers as extras.  He was one of them.

Hmm.  I just tried to look him up and I didn't find him under his name for some reason.  You can find him under his USCF ID number, though.  12481934.

Anyway, that doesn't mean that the park is crawling with 2100+ hustlers, necessarily.  Maybe he towered above all of them.  Maybe he was the best in the park.  I doubt it, but maybe.

The vast majority of hustlers have never studied chess, instead they learn by playing and playing and playing. That being said, more games are won by hustlers with banter than with skill. This is not your quite, library game played by gentlemen, this is raw, in your face chess, the likes of which can throw a master off his game.

During the time period the book and movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" are set in, there was a guy there in Washington Square who was indeed really strong. I can't remember his name now, but the players called him "The Sheriff".

His character in the film is the one in the movie sitting with the sign saying "picture or game with the man who beat Tal". In real life, he did beat Tal once, and now many years later although he was mentally ill, he beat everyone in the park all the time, according to Fred Waitzkin.

I think your perception is skewed by your homeland's love of chess ...

Outside of Russia, an 1800 rated player is already better than 90%-95% of rated players.  That's tournament rated players...so they are easily better than 95%-99% of the people that play chess casually in their living room.  If you can beat 19 out of 20 people you meet, then you can definitely hustle chess if you have the desire and the social "skills".  Personally, it seems like a somewhat annoying and sleazy way to make not much money at all... 

them or you?

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/smith-and-wesson

My only experience with casual players playing for money occurred in the '90's.  I had only a 1295 OTB rating and, at the Maryland State Fair, I met a NM I know working the Maryland Chess Assn. simultaneous chess booth where players put up $1 or $2 in hopes of winning $5.  The NM begged me to stand in for him for 1/2 hour while he hit the head and got something to eat.  I reminded him my rating was only 1295.  He said, "Don't worry, I haven't seen anyone close to that all day."

He was right.  I played about 20 games and won them all.

So it would make sense that a lot of chess hustlers could make money with a 1600 OTB rating.