4 ms·

> calculating the monthly average This abstracts away a fundamental property of skill improvement that is true for any game, but intensively true at chess: any

> calculating the monthly average This abstracts away a fundamental property of skill improvement that is true for any game, but intensively true at chess: any ELO you win during a gaming session will be lost soon by a new gaming session in which you play the game tired, or unfocused, or angry, or feeling under the weather. You still improve from one session to the next, so there is a little delta because your average ELO win is greater than you average ELO loss, but it makes the overall process extremely slow. What I'm saying is that 100 ELO doesn't make that much of a difference in skill. You probably regularly play at +200 ELO of your actual ELO. However, maintaining a clean game hygiene and actually accumulating the ELO points to reach this level of "estate" is a whole other story.

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Levitz 5y ago
Which is why, if the objective is to improve, you simply don't play unless you are in good conditions to play. The higher your ELO the better your opponents, the more you are set to learn. I understand this used to be harder in the past, if you are to meet a guy at 5 to play a match then that's that, but in today's age there is really no reason to have a subpar performance in competitive matches.
abnry 5y ago
This is so, so true. I play chess, but only for fun, or as a way to pass time. I play 2+0 bullet on lichess. I am solidly 50th percentile. If I lose a material advantage, I'll very quickly resign. There are so many things wrong with this from the perspective of "playing chess well". At my rating, it is ludicrous to resign when down a bishop, as there is too much variability, let alone the variability in bullet chess. I don't bring a fighting spirit because I don't want to expend the effort. If I did so, I'd certainly be rated higher. But I haven't attached any ego to my rating so I am free to play how I want.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Levitz 5y ago

Which is why, if the objective is to improve, you simply don't play unless you are in good conditions to play. The higher your ELO the better your opponents, the more you are set to learn. I understand this used to be harder in the past, if you are to meet a guy at 5 to play a match then that's that, but in today's age there is really no reason to have a subpar performance in competitive matches.

abnry 5y ago

This is so, so true. I play chess, but only for fun, or as a way to pass time. I play 2+0 bullet on lichess. I am solidly 50th percentile. If I lose a material advantage, I'll very quickly resign. There are so many things wrong with this from the perspective of "playing chess well". At my rating, it is ludicrous to resign when down a bishop, as there is too much variability, let alone the variability in bullet chess. I don't bring a fighting spirit because I don't want to expend the effort. If I did so, I'd certainly be rated higher. But I haven't attached any ego to my rating so I am free to play how I want.