Maybe it isnt just about the chess, but the quality of the arbiters, comfort of the location, players draw (such as not getting under 1800 player that is actually player at 2000+ level), tournament experience, emotional control, time management experience, ability to deal with short term setbacks....
In my content today, I analysed nine games at the FIDE 1900 level and came to a similar conclusion—winning chess games basically comes down to punishing your opponent's biggest mistakes while not making similarly big mistakes ourselves.
#22 But what does punishing exactly entail though?
Let's say going a pawn up if given a chance, if so the confusion arises when in a particular case say the position has opened so much that it's tougher to find the simple moves even being material up. Calculation skills come into the picture again and in time pressure that's a whole new skill - to weed out unfavourable combinations. The latter seems critical, to intuitively know what move is not disastrous. How to improve this aspect?
Let's say going a pawn up if given a chance, if so the confusion arises when in a particular case say the position has opened so much that it's tougher to find the simple moves even being material up. Calculation skills come into the picture again and in time pressure that's a whole new skill - to weed out unfavourable combinations. The latter seems critical, to intuitively know what move is not disastrous. How to improve this aspect?
isn't it a moving target, the blunder versus "strategy" battle? Maybe that is because a lot of your experience based undertanding evolution or actuall digestions of the things you are now saying not part of your games, have actually been internalized, so you can start using that conscious and costly part of your brain that does tit for tat at turn by turn chess time scale, more attentively and delegate the now internalized high level stuff which theory has been trying to formalized at populatoin level across generations (so we don't just keep being gladiator show offs, or might have another lifetime pursuit than chess and still enjoy and keep discoring chess the many of us, and those that do get tasked from childhood for hours and days of their development, might become, at some point also using that globally improving human understanding of chess.
So, maybe the blunders are what the theory in prior years combined with the experience set, allowed you to see now. No need to keep being split brained with the words, or even their corresponding conscious thoughts of them being target of board visual search, scannning stuff, no.. now it is part of the at a glance non-tip of cognition iceberg.
Could it be the alternative view about the same perception data, that you can consciously and verbally share with us today?
I might be wrong. I am just wondering about that alternative theory for your blog question and data I could gather so far, using what I have heard, and actually hold likely as chess theory of learning. (I am machine learning influenced, but also so psychology and stuff, also ML is itself implementing models from such science).
I think we would be vegetable drooling zombies, if we were aware of what goes on inside....
Or maybe chess is so big, that all those digested concepts, are themselves leaving a lot of room for mistakes wherever using them might bring us? plus chess clocks distractions. or is it human time management, they might as well as you to juggle while playing.. Is chess not already big enough?
So, maybe the blunders are what the theory in prior years combined with the experience set, allowed you to see now. No need to keep being split brained with the words, or even their corresponding conscious thoughts of them being target of board visual search, scannning stuff, no.. now it is part of the at a glance non-tip of cognition iceberg.
Could it be the alternative view about the same perception data, that you can consciously and verbally share with us today?
I might be wrong. I am just wondering about that alternative theory for your blog question and data I could gather so far, using what I have heard, and actually hold likely as chess theory of learning. (I am machine learning influenced, but also so psychology and stuff, also ML is itself implementing models from such science).
I think we would be vegetable drooling zombies, if we were aware of what goes on inside....
Or maybe chess is so big, that all those digested concepts, are themselves leaving a lot of room for mistakes wherever using them might bring us? plus chess clocks distractions. or is it human time management, they might as well as you to juggle while playing.. Is chess not already big enough?
What I think actually makes the difference in those ratings is opening preparation. If you enter a line you've played lots of times before and you know like the back of your hand, you play faster and better moves in positions you're familiar with, and if your opponent hasn't studied those openings then they'll either need to waste more time thinking to not lose the position which leads to time pressure which leads to blunders in the mid/lategame, or they'll make blunders in the opening which will snowball into a losing position anyway. In my latest games against 1800 FIDE players all the blunders me or my opponent followed this pattern, either a blunder under time pressure or not being familiar with a 15-move deep opening line.
Very nice article
I appreciate this posting as it makes one feel the connection of heartache from beating oneself up over results that could have went the other way. Things like posted here have made me quit chess off and on through the years, most likely why I have not improved. Good on yah for sharing this, it's a balm for all my past disappointment. Cheers!
@lecw said in #10:
> Also you force people into making more mistakes by being aggressive towards them, making more threats on the board. If you're 1200 and they're 1200 and they play "a perfect game", chances are you on your side were being too passive.
is there not another way. to reduce the relative proportion or mere number of good enough moves left, slowly, without relying on material threat emergency possible acting with time pressure toward putting the thinking resources in flight or flight simplistic mode?
a way, that might be attributable more to how one is working on the global range of motion of opponent.. preemptive reduction of good opportunities. possible while doing own orchestration (well placement imagination to eventually have the backbone to jack in the box deploy (might be slow too, point is being focusing on the configuration of empty squares being more favorable to own material potential harmony, later. I am not saying one can have a single plan line doing that. but that one might be guided by some aesthetic or set of ideas that please their curiosity as possibly reaching the goal, while enjoying the full material plate. I guess I mean not so aggressive on the material exchange accounting working memory or blind spot losing a chunk by flight or fight emotional response.
might be BS all of it.. but I don't know that yet.
> Also you force people into making more mistakes by being aggressive towards them, making more threats on the board. If you're 1200 and they're 1200 and they play "a perfect game", chances are you on your side were being too passive.
is there not another way. to reduce the relative proportion or mere number of good enough moves left, slowly, without relying on material threat emergency possible acting with time pressure toward putting the thinking resources in flight or flight simplistic mode?
a way, that might be attributable more to how one is working on the global range of motion of opponent.. preemptive reduction of good opportunities. possible while doing own orchestration (well placement imagination to eventually have the backbone to jack in the box deploy (might be slow too, point is being focusing on the configuration of empty squares being more favorable to own material potential harmony, later. I am not saying one can have a single plan line doing that. but that one might be guided by some aesthetic or set of ideas that please their curiosity as possibly reaching the goal, while enjoying the full material plate. I guess I mean not so aggressive on the material exchange accounting working memory or blind spot losing a chunk by flight or fight emotional response.
might be BS all of it.. but I don't know that yet.
95+ accuracy is deceiving for sure. Just because you get 95-99% accuracy as a 1200 in a game every now and then doesn't mean you played magnificently or like a GM even. It just means you somehow avoided all the tactical traps in the position probably due to it either being a closed game or you just exchanged away all the pieces very early in the game. Any master might have played it much differently with a lower accuracy, but far superior overall strategic plans.
@dboing said in #28:
> is there not another way. to reduce the relative proportion or mere number of good enough moves left, slowly, without relying on material threat emergency possible acting with time pressure toward putting the thinking resources in flight or flight simplistic mode? [...]
Yeah... unlike other strategy games, chess is just not that complicated, especially below IM level. Back to the subject of the OP - what decides >80% of games is being ahead on material and winning an endgame.
Or to phrase it differently - in most games it's pretty easy to survive until move 40 if you're willing to sacrifice material in order to not be mated - so in practice a successful attack tends to win material and that is good enough
> is there not another way. to reduce the relative proportion or mere number of good enough moves left, slowly, without relying on material threat emergency possible acting with time pressure toward putting the thinking resources in flight or flight simplistic mode? [...]
Yeah... unlike other strategy games, chess is just not that complicated, especially below IM level. Back to the subject of the OP - what decides >80% of games is being ahead on material and winning an endgame.
Or to phrase it differently - in most games it's pretty easy to survive until move 40 if you're willing to sacrifice material in order to not be mated - so in practice a successful attack tends to win material and that is good enough