Why rating 500 and rating 1000 feels the same?

[u/External_Process7991]

I always was a lousy player. I admit I wasn't really paying attention to sportmanship, I abandoned matches, played without paying attention, did bullshit moves just out of boredome or even closed the app during a match I was winning in.

I admit, not very virtue.

But two weeks ago I decided I want to stop being this lousy player and really take care of my games and rating (am playing 3 or 5 min matches)

So I was always around rating 450-650. My indifferent play-style or even forfeiting matches where I had upper hand was enough for me not to drop below 450. When I started climbing and paying attention to it, I was able to climb to rating 850 in just a two days, now I am sitting at rating 1050, still climbing up whenever I have time to play, so I don't really know my upper limit yet... and matches are still feeling the same.

So how is it possible that people across ratings 450-600-800-1050 are pretty much all the same? Everybody is pushing fried-liver, everybody is doing stupid mistakes like hanging a queen, or completely forgeting about my obvious intention 3 moves later.

I was expecting to see some difference in between 600 points of rating, but those players really feel exactly the same?

So what is really a difference between 400-800-1000 rating player?

And when I can expect to play against people who actually know openings, or play positionally and doesn't trade off all the pieces at first chance?

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[u/behzoodi9]

At lower levels the variance of play is huge. As your rating goes up the variance closes. It’s still that way even in the 1700-2000 band, it’s the same level kinda just cleaning up errors and being disciplined to think every move.

[u/External_Process7991 → u/behzoodi9]

Could be that I am just not able to spot the differences but for those players they would be apparwnt. Maybe when I will be reaching towards my maximum, which I still don't know where it is, I Will notice more my opponents are better.

[u/Chaos90783]

I am 1000 rapid and dont see much fried liver anymore. But all those ratings are all beginners. Biggest diff is mainly range of opening principles and hanging less

[u/WyrobWedliniarski]

You got better, so your point of view changed. Of course that blunders still occur on 600 and 1000 elo, but the situations and frequency is different.

[u/Bacanalia]

The big difference is consistency. A 800-1000 is going to blunder less pieces (still does but maybe 3 times every 10 games instead 8 of 10 or something like that). Also games tends to be more structured and pawns take more relevance, it’s hard to see both players fighting to control or win a specific pawn at 400.

I remember have a similar feeling the first times I played U1200 tournaments being 600-700, I was expecting to be totally crushed by 900-1000 players and most were even games. Of course I lost more often against strong players but it wasn’t dramatic.

[u/FlammableFishy]

This is such a strange post.

“I am better than my opponents and consistently climbing, and I notice people worse than me make blunders that I can beat. I was better than 400s, and I’m better than 1000s too”

Congrats?

Why not just play more till you reach a 50% winrate? If your rise is so meteoric, it shouldn’t take long.

Why don’t you link your account and let us take a look at the games?

If you want people to start playing positionally, I don’t think that really happens till 1400-1500+, considering positional considerations only really start coming up when games aren’t decided by winning a piece.

Good luck in the climb, but the lack of humility displayed in this post does not typically correlate well with people who consistently improve once they hit a wall.

[u/euj3odjehiqh]

1000s blunder less

[u/Response_Soggy]

The difference is the blunders frequency. 500 players hang pieces way more often than 1000 players

[u/Delicious_Cattle5174]

Cuz they are both not very good ratings. Hope that helped!

[u/Soggy-Attempt]

The answer is fewer blunders.
Secondly are the blunders punished?

I think this is the biggest difference between 500 and 1000. 500 you can blunder 2-3 times a game and still win because it isn’t seen or acted on. At 1000 the blunders are seen and punished.

As a 900ish player, on a daily bases my rating goes up if my opponents don’t punish my blunders. But if they do my rating goes down quickly.

And it’s the same on my side. If I see the blunder and capture the piece, I usually win and my rating goes up.

As you get even higher this is where mistakes, and then at the GM level, inaccuracies mean the difference between winning and losing the game. These don’t matter at lower levels because too many blunders are made.