There have been games where I made less mistakes than my opponent and better moves and my number was higher than his like 1.27 and his .67. But in similar cases my number would be lower and there's would be higher like .67 for me and 1.44 for them. So I am having difficulty understanding what the Avg. Diff signifies. Can anyone help?
Surely you know that computers evaluate positions in terms of material. A position of plus one indicates that the computer thinks you are ahead a pawn and an evaluation of plus 3 means that you are ahead by a piece (and all other things being equal, you should win).
Avg. Diff. is the average difference between the computer evaluation of the position using the best possible move it has found in the position and the evaluation using your actual move.
So if the computer looks at a position and sees a move to win a minor piece (worth 3 points) and you played some random move that in fact gave up that possibility, the difference in evaluations would be 3. If you miss winning a piece on every move, the avg. diff. would be 3.
If your avg. diff. is 1.27, it means that the computer says your moves are losing you the equivalent of more than one and a quarter pawns on each turn.
Of course, averages don't count for anything by themselves. What counts is who gets mate. You can lose almost all your pieces and still win.
You may make a lower number of mistakes but if you only one very big one, you can lose.
There have been games where I made less mistakes than my opponent and better moves and my number was higher than his like 1.27 and his .67. But in similar cases my number would be lower and there's would be higher like .67 for me and 1.44 for them. So I am having difficulty understanding what the Avg. Diff signifies. Can anyone help?