6 ms·
It's not tautological, though. Your position can gradually deteriorate until it is not salvageable anymore. In that situation we say that the opponent outplayed
by Certhas 3y ago
It's not tautological, though. Your position can gradually deteriorate until it is not salvageable anymore. In that situation we say that the opponent outplayed you.
The fact that the switches in probability occur suddenly is highly relevant. One reason for this could be, that you are able to avoid this type of mistake 90% of the time. So during 9 out of ten moves, nothing changes. Then it does. So in this model, avoiding blunders means honing your skills to be able to apply all aspects of your mistake knowledge all the time. In another game, that is less blunder driven, it might be better to focus on getting more things right most of the time, rather than getting fewer things right all of the time.
At this level, chess is a tactics game. Not a strategy game.
- Retric 3y agoIt’s an issue of how the games are evaluated. At most skill levels a human being slowly outplayed is trading blunders from a computer’s perspective. For a 1400 a game where an 800 crushed a 500 is most likely a comedy of errors. For a GM that 1400 crushing a 1100 will similarly be filled with missed opportunities. And for a top chess engine on significant depth, most games are practically a slapstick comedy because the best of the best represent such a small fraction of overall players.
- anamexis 3y agoI don't think that's true. Speaking as someone sub-1000 rated who plays lots of other people in the same region, the computer evals don't typically show a series of blunders. 1 or 2 blunders per game is common, but blunder-less games are also not uncommon. Just lots and lots of suboptimal but not terrible moves.
- chongli 3y agoThey may be referring to sub-1000 online rated. An 800 FIDE rated player is going to wipe the floor with an 800 chess.com rated player.
- anamexis 3y agoIf anything that reinforces my point that low-rated players aren't losing in a series of constant blunders.
- chongli 3y agoIf you’re 800 FIDE rated over the board you’re not going to be 800 online. You’ll be way above that. I haven’t played in years but I was beating 1200 rated players online as a total beginner. The ratings are not comparable. A sub-1000 online rated player is frankly a very poor, total beginner at chess, not an enthusiastic club player.
- anamexis 3y agoNo argument there, but that has nothing to do with my point that novices at chess aren't just playing constant blunders when playing each other.
- smatija 3y agoMinimum FIDE rating is 1400, so you really cannot be 800 FIDE. Also the gap between online and FIDE ratings is closer than people think.
- Retric 3y agoThat’s not correct, as of 2022: They only publish numbers above 1000, but they still come up with a number before deciding to not publish it. https://www.fide.com/docs/regulations/FIDE%20Rating%20Regulations%202022.pdf https://www.fide.com/docs/regulations/FIDE%20Rating%20Regula... Not all clubs follow those rules exactly, but you still need to track sub 1000 to know when people cross it.
- smatija 3y agoIt is since new rating regulations, which are in effect as of 2024: https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B022024 https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/B022024 See 7.1.2. Ratings aren't tracked by clubs even when players are under this cutoff - all games for rating are submitted to FIDE.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Retric 3y agoIf you’re rated 800 online and making 1-2 blunders per game playing blitz, that seems low and it still adds up to 2-4 in a given game. If you mean longer time controls then that’s definitely helping, but most games are 5 minutes or less simply because players are going to be able to fit far more such games per day. Similarly the average rating is quite low simply because everyone starts terrible and most people quit relatively quickly.
- anamexis 3y agoI'm talking about daily/correspondence games.
- Retric 3y agoOk, 1-2 blunders are more believable in that context, and uhh ouch. Anyway, it’s still an extreme edge case which says nothing about most games.
- anamexis 3y agoMy point was that it's not an extreme edge case, it's quite common, even at the 700-1000 chess.com ELO level.
- Retric 3y agoSomeone dying in a car accident is frequent/common as in happening several times a day, but it’s still an extreme edge case in terms of the average trip. If we’re talking about the average game you simply need to look at all time controls to get an accurate understanding not pick an uncommon example and arbitrarily suggest it’s representative of the general case.
- anamexis 3y agoDo you have better data, or are you just being an asshole?
- Certhas 3y agoI would go with the definition of a blunder as a move that you instantly recognize as wrong once you see the response. So the definition is relative to your own skill level. It's at least partly a property of the game itself. If the game is tossing a coin, first to 100 heads wins, then the win probability will not take major swings. If you have a game where the person in a worse position has many opportunities to recover, win probability does not swing so much.
- chongli 3y agoThat’s position-dependent. In one case you might be in a totally closed position where there’s no obvious way forward and your position gradually deteriorates. In another case you might be in an ultra-sharp, open position where you miss some crazy sacrifice combination that leads to mate-in-10. The first example is clearly a strategic defeat and the second a tactical defeat. But calling it a “blunder” to miss the sacrifice in such a sharp position feels unfair. You might have been walking a tightrope for a long time to reach that point and then made one little slip any grandmaster could be expected to make.
- indymike 3y agoI once watched a volleyball game between my high school’s vaunted multi-time state champion team and a small private school. It was a perfect example of no blunders vs. gradual deterioration. Our team played an aggressive style that would test the opponent’s physical ability and mental toughness. The small private school played no-mistakes, all defense, and no offense. They would dig up everything in bounds and return the ball. They only scored when our team hit the ball out of bounds. That game took four hours, and the only reason the small team lost was depth: they only had one substitute. Eventually, they wore out and just couldn't physically perform.
- lazide 3y agoHowever isn't it essentially saying 'You can do everything right and lose, but it's pretty rare compared to making lots of mistakes and winning.'?