Toady, when you start a game, you can choose the rating range of you opponent.
How to lower my rank
Sort:
I've been starting games with a range of -400 to 0. I tried doing -400 to -200, but I can't find a match. I don't think I've won a single game on this site yet.
Thanks for all the tips. A lot of the tactics guides tell me things I already knew, like piece value, control the center, etc, but a lot of times a set of 20 facts will teach me 2 new things. For example I never thought about controlling an empty file with a rook until someone mentioned it here.
The posts where people show one of my games and point out mistakes are really, really useful. It's too bad there are thousands of mistakes to make, and I only know how to prevent a couple hundred.
I was under the impression that resignation is acceptable once you're certain you will lose. But I know throughout the whole game that I am going to lose, and it only becomes more and more obvious. At what point should I resign?
Dude just quit, I've never heard anybody feel more sorry for themself. You can't be enjoying it.
I'd enjoy it more if I were playing someone as good as I am. Apparently, I'm the worst player on the site since I can't find a match between -400 and 0, and I've never won a game. I've been waiting for 15 minutes for site to find a match.
Oh nevermind, it found a match, but because I came over to this page to type this for 30 seconds after waiting 15 minutes, it abandoned the game. Now I have to wait 5 minutes because this has happened before and I've "violated the fair use policy" by looking away from the screen for a few seconds after staring at it for several minutes.
That kind of experience is not enjoyable, and neither is getting tied down and picked off midgame with no defense.
Go to play > online chess. You can make 3 day per move games, really think about your moves. You will win some of those if you make effort.
Scottrf wrote:
Go to play > online chess. You can make 3 day per move games, really think about your moves. You will win some of those if you make effort.
I don't like his chances. I see lots of players who rate 1000-1500 at blitz, but well up toward 2000 for online. He'll just get kicked around more slowly.
Maybe play slower games against a weak computer for a while.
Exactly, a 1200 player online is a lot worse than a 1200 blitz.
They probably even play worse moves despite the relative time controls, so it just gives you longer to play at a similar or worse standard.
Did everyone start off much, much better than I am right now? I can't believe I'm so bad. Where are all the players who haven't already spent thousands of hours on the game?
ToadyCody wrote:
Did everyone start off much, much better than I am right now? I can't believe I'm so bad. Where are all the players who haven't already spent thousands of hours on the game?
I assure you you're nothing special when it comes to horrible beginnings. When I first started on this site around 6 or 7 months ago, i got thrashed and ripped apart every game, i ended up settling at some ungodly three digit rating for months, but sitting around feeling sorry for myself didn't do anything, go over your games, see where you went wrong, and make a concerned effort to not make the same mistake twice in a row, just to start off. Oh and the most important thing, until you get to around 1300-1500, do not resign at all, seriously, I've played people around my level who didn't know basic king and pawn endings, even if you know you are completely lost, at least you will start to see how to convert winning positions into won games, and keep playing
ToadyCody wrote:
Did everyone start off much, much better than I am right now? I can't believe I'm so bad. Where are all the players who haven't already spent thousands of hours on the game?
everyone lost their first 20 games of chess on chess.com, but i think almost everyobody (that hasn't already quit) started of better than you, you try to lose which makes you a loser (literly) we all try to win againsst better players and to improve at chess not get worse at it.
You seem to be very unhappy about losing so many games, which is understandable, but what is your strategy for improving? As far as I can tell, your strategy is to keep playing as many games as possible in the hopes that you will somehow improve.
I am not a very good player and I have lost a lot of games, but I am actually a better player than I was a few years ago. I started reading up on strategy, opening theory and general principles. I don't play any live chess shorter than 30 minutes and I don't make moves without at least a few seconds of thought.
You don't need to memorize thousands of opening lines but you do need to have some idea of why you are making the moves that you are. You tend to play the same opening for White that I do (e4, Nf3, Bc4) but do you know why you are making those moves? Could you explain to me your reasoning behind those moves?
There is a plethora of (free!) information out there that can help you to improve. All you have to do is accept that it will take some time and some effort.
Good luck!
Stupaud makes a lot of good points! When I began playing chess I had the attitude that I should try to figure everything out myself without studying books and other resources. I felt this way because I wanted to prove to myself that I was naturally a great chess player. After only a few weeks I realized how flawed this thought process was. Very few chess players are able to teach themselves how to play just by thinking about the game without any outside help (I would imagine only true prodigies can do this, the same people that go on to be in the top .001 percent of chess players).
The best way to improve is to play lots of games and find a good source that teaches basic chess strategies. Yasser Seirawan has a great book called "Playing Winning Chess" which is full of great strategic and tactical advice for someone starting to study chess.
I felt the same way you did when starting, but after reading a few books, studying tactics, and playing lots of games, my rating started to improve :)
You don't need the books. There's lots of free stuff on the net.
Seriously, playing against a computer is not a waste of time. Footballers, fighters, swimmers, skiers all spend a lot of time practising without competing. And it doesn't feel so bad to lose. Even Kasparov got beaten once or twice
Scottrf wrote:
Exactly, a 1200 player online is a lot worse than a 1200 blitz.
They probably even play worse moves despite the relative time controls, so it just gives you longer to play at a similar or worse standard.
Is that what you think?
IMO online players who have huge ratings compared to regular play are likely to be using computers to get their moves, or, at least checking their moves using a computer before making them (which is not actually cheating, but how can you call it fair play)
astronomer999 wrote:
Scottrf wrote:
Exactly, a 1200 player online is a lot worse than a 1200 blitz.
They probably even play worse moves despite the relative time controls, so it just gives you longer to play at a similar or worse standard.
Is that what you think?
IMO online players who have huge ratings compared to regular play are likely to be using computers to get their moves, or, at least checking their moves using a computer before making them (which is not actually cheating, but how can you call it fair play)
If that is what they are doing then it's cheating, plain and simple.
stupaud wrote:
You seem to be very unhappy about losing so many games, which is understandable, but what is your strategy for improving? As far as I can tell, your strategy is to keep playing as many games as possible in the hopes that you will somehow improve.
I am not a very good player and I have lost a lot of games, but I am actually a better player than I was a few years ago. I started reading up on strategy, opening theory and general principles. I don't play any live chess shorter than 30 minutes and I don't make moves without at least a few seconds of thought.
You don't need to memorize thousands of opening lines but you do need to have some idea of why you are making the moves that you are. You tend to play the same opening for White that I do (e4, Nf3, Bc4) but do you know why you are making those moves? Could you explain to me your reasoning behind those moves?
There is a plethora of (free!) information out there that can help you to improve. All you have to do is accept that it will take some time and some effort.
Good luck!
My opening are sending pieces out to control the center of the board, and defend the pieces out there. I didn't know why I was doing these openings at first, but I've read up on tactics.
It doesn't feel too bad losing sometimes, even 3/4 times, but every single time is just too much.
ToadyCody wrote:
stupaud wrote:
You seem to be very unhappy about losing so many games, which is understandable, but what is your strategy for improving? As far as I can tell, your strategy is to keep playing as many games as possible in the hopes that you will somehow improve.
I am not a very good player and I have lost a lot of games, but I am actually a better player than I was a few years ago. I started reading up on strategy, opening theory and general principles. I don't play any live chess shorter than 30 minutes and I don't make moves without at least a few seconds of thought.
You don't need to memorize thousands of opening lines but you do need to have some idea of why you are making the moves that you are. You tend to play the same opening for White that I do (e4, Nf3, Bc4) but do you know why you are making those moves? Could you explain to me your reasoning behind those moves?
There is a plethora of (free!) information out there that can help you to improve. All you have to do is accept that it will take some time and some effort.
Good luck!
My opening are sending pieces out to control the center of the board, and defend the pieces out there. I didn't know why I was doing these openings at first, but I've read up on tactics.
It doesn't feel too bad losing sometimes, even 3/4 times, but every single time is just too much.
Do you want to play some online 1-day games with me? We can talk about your moves and your thinking behind them.
It doesn't have to be with me of course, but I think you need to give the live chess a rest for a while and play some slow games (1-3 days) with people who will give you feedback on your moves.
astronomer999 wrote:
Scottrf wrote:
Exactly, a 1200 player online is a lot worse than a 1200 blitz.
They probably even play worse moves despite the relative time controls, so it just gives you longer to play at a similar or worse standard.
Is that what you think?
IMO online players who have huge ratings compared to regular play are likely to be using computers to get their moves, or, at least checking their moves using a computer before making them (which is not actually cheating, but how can you call it fair play)
What is your opinion based on? If you go to http://www.chess.com/echess/players you can see that the average online rating is about 200 points higher than the average live rating. If you take a game from live standard where the players are rated ~1200 and compare it to an online game where the players are rated ~1200, you will see way more blunders in the online game.
GlickoRD will resolve/settle rating. Takes approx 100+ games to be effecrive.
For those that try to manipulate that: (cheating or sandbagging). This is often crystal-clear in chess.com 'rating-graph' located in 'stats'.