Why are 800-1000 players here five times harder to beat than 1200-1400?

@AlexiHarvey - Here is the 1760 game: lichess.org/QouETHDHkzdv

Was this game "insufficiently complex" for a 5 minute blitz? I felt I had a pretty good grasp on most everything that was going on, besides missing that pin that caused me to move my king incorrectly and lose.

@Rogue_Zamboni said in #20:
> @borninthesixties - Here is an example where I get smoked by a low-level player

Compare your current rankings in Rapid. When playing with a faster time control, many players (like me) lose a lot in the quality of the game.
Yours is 1200 and your opponent's is 1600. This is much higher than mine (1350). Even though you played blitz, this potential of the opponent cannot be ignored.

Great example showing why your complaint about ratings being wrong is mistaken.

The guy you played here (Fadhelchess1) has 215 games as white in the Danish Gambit. 98 of these games went to 5. Bxb2. Of course he is playing quickly, he has played these positions many times and learned the basic variations of the danish. Of course he knows these positions better than you, he plays them much more often.

You have no experience of this line and you walk right into his preparation. Then you play the horrible Ne5 because you didn't see Nd5 coming. These gambits give a lot of initiative to the player making the gambit, playing slow and passive works poorly against it. Making a 1-move-deep threat with no follow-up is almost always a terrible idea. Even if he couldn't move his knights, he could just retreat his bishop and your knight isn't very secure.

He played a few tactics to finish you off but you didn't play challenging moves either.

My dude: I never said ratings were "wrong". I said the games I'm finding at that level feel harder and I lose more. I'm literally asking for advice on how to train, I said that three times. Other folks argued the ratings were broken, not me. Read up.

I analyzed the game, I don't need you to tell me my moves were bad. Again, not helpful.

The fact remains: 900-1000 are playing 12-15 moves at 10 acpl against me and higher rated players aren't. Maybe this is all because they have so much experience in their own pet lines or whatever - that's not really a helpful observation unless you've also faced this trouble and have some suggestions of how to address it.

(Hint: you might approach 'helpful' if you were to give some indication of what 'challenging moves' might be in this scenario... the computer analysis indicates ONE blunder, and everything was futile after that. And I don't think players at this level can just "see [the rest of that line] coming" in a blitz game. You have the moves ready to go somehow, or you don't.

> @borninthesixties - Here is an example where I get smoked by a low-level player making near-instant moves in a crazy line. I make one mistake (yes I moved a piece twice or whatever, but it's a game losing blunder, not a lost tempo, and it takes more than 5:00 of analysis for me to see why.) OTOH, he has an acpl of /10/ and clearly knows the line all the way out to all 12 moves and beyond (if I had defended correctly).
>
> I literally never see this kind of play OTB, even from titled players I've played.

See comments from others who have already looked at the game in question (as well as your opponent's history). Note the guy is ranked 200 pts above you in blitz and 400 in rapid. Show me some games where 800-900 level players are doing this to you.

I love some of you all think "you should expect to lose because his elo is higher" is a great answer to "how can I address this sort of play?" O_o WTF.

@deityrox said in #8:
> I want to help skeptics who are not inclined to trust players with a low rating, and save them time. I did some research using statistics from the author's profile.
>
> I went to the advanced game search on the profile page. I filtered games there by rating 800-1200 and 1200-1400. The statistics are approximate, because it filters the range by the average rating of both players, not just the rating of the opponents. The author has 14 victories in 43 games in the 1200-1400 range, including his own and others' calibration games. The author has 22 wins out of 71 games in the range of 800-1200 average rating of both players.
> His win rate in the 1200-1400 range is 32.5%. His win rate in the 800-1200 range is 31%.
>
> Perhaps someone will be interested in this information and he will analyze his own games for different rating ranges.
> My answer does not aim to somehow belittle the words of the author. Perhaps the author simply shares his impressions and likes to share his opinion with others.

thanks

> I love some of you all think "you should expect to lose because his elo is higher" is a great answer to "how can I address this sort of play?" O_o WTF.

That's not what we're saying. You sound like you have a chip on your shoulder. That isn't helping.

What was said was that you should not be surprised that your opponent knew such a line so well - both because he has a significantly higher rating (1600 rapid) AND he has played it a lot.

How much chess experience do you have? How much studying of openings and tactics? I see you've done some puzzles but no puzzle rush or streak. Also no classical games.

My feelings (and I'm not a particularly good player as you can see from my ratings and game history, so take it for what it's worth) are that several things could help you:

- more study of opening principles - not necessarily memorizing lines because, well, you can't plan for everything. In your example game you played right into a very dangerous gambit - by move 5 your opponent had his two bishops staring at your kingside on an open board and you had _no_ pieces developed. That is very dangerous even though you were up 2 pawns. You don't have to accept gambits, or you can stop at the first pawn. When I see a gambit (especially an unfamiliar one) I usually assume my opponent knows it better than I do and play accordingly.

- play slower games - classical games. Spend more time planning, dealing with threats, etc. I feel a lot of people rush into fast time controls before they have a good enough understanding of chess principles.

- study tactics and do lots of puzzles. This helps with pattern recognition which is important if you insist on playing lots of blitz.

I'm sure others can add suggestions if you are open to hearing them.

I'm terrible at openings but my two cents :
- 6. Qe7 is a bit slow, you took on c2 and went into this annoying hyper aggressive gambit so you have to be fast and get your pieces out + castle as soon as possible because his ONLY plan is to attack, attack, attack. So I would have preferred Nf6 and castle.
- 7. Nc6 Not ideal either - it doesn't help you to castle- but fine at least you catch up on development, Ne5 you know it's the drop of water that breaks the camel's back. You're up two pawns, be safe before attacking.

And then it was basically already lost.

@Hitsugaya said in #29:
> I'm terrible at openings but my two cents :
> - 6. Qe7 is a bit slow, you took on c2 and went into this annoying hyper aggressive gambit so you have to be fast and get your pieces out + castle as soon as possible because his ONLY plan is to attack, attack, attack. So I would have preferred Nf6 and castle.
> - 7. Nc6 Not ideal either - it doesn't help you to castle- but fine at least you catch up on development, Ne5 you know it's the drop of water that breaks the camel's back. You're up two pawns, be safe before attacking.
>
> And then it was basically already lost.
yeah, they played the smith-morran gambit --- it is a gambit usually played for white to have a great attack, in exchange for a pawn or 2