N1 Chess Player

[Kanisha Dezarn]

Ihave been playing chess professionally from my childhood, and most of my friends are also pros. Quite often amateurs send me emotional messages stating they are willing to start training intensively in order to become a grandmaster, and even move to Russia to ensure best results!

They have blind tournaments... for blind people I mean. The ones that have been blind from a young age I think are around 1500. Players that used to be masters but lost most their sight due to old age or sickness would of course be stronger.

And Ray Charles was what, estimated at class A? I just know the people who usually show up to these tournaments generally top out around 1500. It wouldn't surprise me if you'd find stronger blind players playing in sighted tournaments.

In the 2009 US Blind Championship the winner, Dennis Cummings had a rating of an expert. There was another player rated higher, also an expert, who withdrew after a couple of rounds. He felt he had an unfair advantage because he was legally blind, not totally blind.

As for the strongest blind player, overall, my guess would be GM Peter Biyiases, who won the Canadian Championship, in the 70's, but eventually went blind, due to a condition. As for the best female blind player, I'm guessing it's a Russian master, somewhere, though I'll gladly be a runner-up.

What confuses some folks about the term, "blind", is the fact that blindness has varying degrees. Though some players in our division are partially-sighted - like myself - others are NLP, meaning they have no light perception, at all. The qualifying standard, of course, is whether a player can see well enough to drive. (If not, they are generally considered legally-blind, and are classified as simply blind, for competition.)

While my slow and quick ratings seem stuck in B Class, I play a decent game of Blitz, as an Expert, officially. I suspect I'm among a very few blind players who even bother with Blitz, however, but I feel pretty good to have achieved at least that.

Last week's article about Puzzle Rush provided great feedback, so I would like to thank you for your comments. When I see that people from different countries, different political views and different playing strength share passion for chess, I feel that the FIDE's slogan "Gens una sumus," which is Latin for "We are one people," is actually true.

One of the most common comments can be summarized like this: According to the scale I am supposed to be a strong tournament player, but I am rated only 1600, so the evaluation is not right! Naturally, such a comment brings a logical question: What is a strong tournament player? Or better yet, what is a strong player in general?

Meanwhile, for a person who just learned how to play chess everyone looks like a grandmaster. Don't laugh, I know what I am talking about. Some time ago one of my young students told me that he played a simul against a grandmaster in his school chess club. I was surprised, since I didn't see any announcements about such an event. After some investigation it turned out that the "grandmaster" was a local 1800 player.

Some of the reader views truly surprised me. I expected to see comments like "Yay, I scored over 20 points and my rating is 1600!" Instead I saw something like "I scored over 20 points, but my rating is only 1600. I suck ".

It takes years of dedication and hard work to achieve a rating of 1600, so why not be proud of it? It reminds me of people who complain about some minor inconvenience, thinking that it makes their life miserable. They forget that since they have a roof over their head, food on their table, clean water and access to basic sanitation, they already live better than billions of people who don't have these necessities!

Now let's check some statistics. According to USCF data, if you are USCF rated 1600-1699, then you are better then almost 83 percent of all other USCF members! The statistics are from 2004, since I couldn't find more recent data on the USCF website, but my guess is the situation today should be even better for 1600-rated players. Scholastic chess is booming, so the base gets much bigger and therefore your placement should be at least a couple of percentage points higher!

You might be the same kind of a person who doesn't trust statistics. Or maybe you simply think that being a good chess player is not about statistics and percentiles; it is about good play! Fair enough.

Just keep in mind that if a chess player has a modest rating it doesn't mean he cannot play good chess. Let's do a simple experiment. I'll give you two games. One of them was played by two grandmasters in the semifinal of the Soviet championship, which was traditionally considered one the strongest chess events in the world. Another one was played by my student (USCF 1543) vs a local player (USCF 2079).

Was it easy? Please share in the comments if you guessed correctly (or incorrectly!) and what were your clues. I hope I have managed to convince you that being a good chess player is not about ratings, or at least it is not all about ratings.

Without being too hard on myself I thought I was the worst! It took me about 11 attempts before I could finally beat a 100 ranking novice engine. Other times when an opponent would offer me their king is over look the checkmate chance and throw it away to stalemate. Is that a run for money here?

Yeah, I really don't know what's the point at times in wasting brain energy moving damn pieces around a checker board as if your life depended on in when there are simply other things my mind appeals to more! seriously man, chess is something I enjoy enough to play on here but I dont like it as much as other stuff!!!

However, in the specific case of USCF ratings, they did a few things with ratings for kids (giving them extremely low start ratings, e.g. 400) that have messed a bit with the system; see e.g. this article and the comments:

I believe that for USCF rated players, expert is the line that separates the amateur category from the professional category. A tournament director should be able to answer this definitively. So that starts at 2000. BTW, experts are in the top 3.6% percentile which means they can beat 96.4% of other rated chess players. That means they can beat approximately 99.99999% of the world's population.

I'm currently a 1600 chess player. I have managed to increase my rating this year by 200 points. I have trouble winning against Class A chess players. I have really good and close games, yet I still lose. What can I do this year to improve and become stronger. I have read chess books like Amateur's Mind and Silman's Complete Endgame book. These books have helped me increase my rating by 200 points. What other books or training do you recommend?

I recommend simply playing rapid games, or longer, and a post mortem analysis with computers and self analysis. Playing games against stronger players is desired if possible. I recommend starting to learn some opening theory and form a good repertoire. Whatever your opponents play, you should have a response that you enjoy. You say that you are good at playing closed games. I would rub against your wound here and advice you to play open games. Open games also helps on your tactics, which everyone will tell you is important.

Get a "better" player, at least "A," probably expert or master to comment on your close games, point out where you went wrong and lost, and point out missed opportunities that you may have had to win. Turning a bunch of "close games" from losses to wins will probably do more for you rating than anything else.

There are plenty of people who will help you if you allow them to view you games. This is easiest on lichess, especially since they have a free computer analysis. After finding your weaknesses, you will be able to improve the fastest.

I actually try to see ahead but its like I'm blinded by the fog so I can only see so far. No matter how many games I play I just keep getting worse. I mean my blitz rank is like the level 3 computer. I try to find tactics but I just can't see any. Maybe chess just isn't my thing.

Undoubtedly he was an amazing player who singlehandedly defied the soviets, but today we also have amazing players like Kasparov (who'se doing a similar thing) and Anand. Why are they so under rated?

I think most people's opinion is based on dominance. I think it's been established that you can't simply compare skill levels between players of different time periods, all you can do is look at how they dominated their contemporaries.

I think at least as many people consider Kasparov the greatest player of all time as those who favor Fischer, and perhaps many more. But few players have dominated chess in their own time period the way these two have.

However, I think it needs to be said... he may have been the greatest player of all time (it's possible) but I don't think anybody should ever claim him to be the greatest World Champion of all time. No matter what the reason, he never defended his title.

Fischer was a hero. He was an individual with personality. He was charismatic and stuck to his principles. He took on the entire Russian chess establishment by himself, and won! Furthermore, he did this at a time when, politically, this was a very good thing for an American to do. Adding to all this is the terms by which he left. He left in the same manner that he entered the chess world: Unforgiving and unflinching. He refused to play by the rules of FIDE and rode off into the sunset. He became immortal. And who took his place? A machine. A small unassuming man from the Urals, Anatoly Karpov played chess in a way much less accessible to the public. He developed and blockaded and only needed the smallest advantage to grind out technical wins. He was no hero. A generation of chess players that had been inspired by the success of Fischer began to romanticize their lost hero, calling him 'the true champion.' Decades later, some still cling to his legend.

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