Goodbye to "Worst Rated Losses" on Lichess Profiles

One particular argument in favour of it has been posted in the forum, in that some of the worst rated losses of a particular player can be to players who had decided to make the unwise decision of using computer assistance when they had played those games.

These offending players are then often quickly detected by Lichess and promptly banned but their games stayed in the worst losses of the 'defeated' player (although some have argued that the category of "worst rated losses" could have been kept and the losses that were to banned players been deleted from the losing player's profile).

Another point in favour of removing these losses is to give a more positive focused approach to online chess by focusing only on players' best rated victories.

However, I feel it's a little bit of a shame to see it go, as having a "Worst rated loss" category gives a chance for kibitzers to look at each one of these games and have appropriate emotions of support for the players who lost (and obviously NOT LAUGH AT ALL, since that is not supportive).

In this vein, I thought I would look at 2 arguable 'worst losses' of chess world champions and then take a more positive approach by looking at a converse 'best rated victory' of a regular Lichess player.

Wilhelm Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz was the first official World Chess Champion in 1886, after winning a match that year against Johannes Zukertort. Let us witness what could be arguably regarded as his "worst loss" in a game played the previous year to that match (Steinitz - Voigt, 1885) and see if we can offer the appropriate level of sympathy:

Wouldn't it have been great to have been good friends with Wilhelm Steinitz and been present at the time of the game? We could have offered a suitably sympathetic comment to him like, "It is a terrible shame that you walked into a checkmate in one move just now and not funny at all! Here's a tip: watch out for those when you play the world championship, Mr. Steinitz" or something similarly helpful and tactful.

Actually, I played a game in a high school inter-school competition once where I played a hasty move deep into the game and allowed a mate in one. My opponent made a similarly sympathetic comment to me right after doing the mating move of something like, "You have to watch out for mates in one". You can imagine the level of happiness I felt after receiving such a helpful comment!

Magnus Carlsen

It is arguable which is Magnus Carlsen's worst loss but this is a contender (Carlsen - Pelletier, 2015) :

Again, by viewing a worst loss, it gives us the chance to hone our sympathy skills and offer the requisite encouragement. After such a loss as this one, if we were there at the time at the game, we could support Magnus by saying something uplifting to him after the game like, "It is unfortunate that you chose to put your rook on g8 on move 45. Backwards moves by the knight are easy to miss and it didn't give me any joy at all when I saw you overlook it - it took a second or two to see the refutation myself. I thought you played well the rest of the game!"

german11

This time, I will look at things positively by looking at a 'best rated victory' of a typical Lichess player. This player, german11, is an online mini celebrity, having played more games on Lichess than any other player ever (625,000+).

Also, by viewing a 'best rated victory' of a particular player, we will often see a game that could have been on the 'worst rated loss' for the unfortunate player who lost the game so, in a way, the category of 'worst rated loss' does continue on.

german11 has played 182,000+ blitz games and this is one of his best rated blitz victories.

The International Master overlooked a checkmate with almost a minute left on the clock, in a winning position, and the stalwart pounced.

It is a little bit of a shame to see the 'worst rated losses' go from the Lichess player profiles but opportunities to encourage others will not disappear. Next time you see your friend at the local chess club do a blunder, say something nice to him after the game about it - and try to keep a straight face, as best you can, when doing so!