Rock, Paper, Scissors

I've been on this platform for quite some time now and developed some rivalries. I've noticed that there are people who range in my rating level that I seem to have better results against than others. One person seems to have my number - Has won over 30 games in our matches to about 10 wins for me and a few draws. Yet other people in our range seem to play better against this person, and yet I have few problems against them - even some winning records.

I'm going to look closely at the records where I tend to win and tend to lose and start with the openings I choose. But I wonder if we all have strengths and weaknesses and sometimes the combination just makes for a definitive trend.

@Kunsoo

Wrong foot your opponent, play something off beat. Get the lightsaber out🚬

go to games explorer, then type in the opponent's name...it will show you the openings he/she plays and their success rate. I don't know if it's updated very often, though.

@kunsoo said
I've been on this platform for quite some time now and developed some rivalries. I've noticed that there are people who range in my rating level that I seem to have better results against than others. One person seems to have my number - Has won over 30 games in our matches to about 10 wins for me and a few draws. Yet other people in our range seem to play better against thi ...[text shortened]... e all have strengths and weaknesses and sometimes the combination just makes for a definitive trend.

A 10 - 30 record against someone in your rating range is not horrible. Without knowing the reason for this, all I can suggest is "upgrade everything" (and I'm NOT talking about spending money) Spend a little extra time each day on the finer points of your opening repertoire, the next day on tactics training, the next on endgames etc. Make this a daily habit. then give it time, since it normally takes a few months of this before you see any substantive improvement. Details on this can be found from a young I.M. on youtube I follow (see links) 🙂

YouTube&t=520s

YouTube

@ogb said
go to games explorer, then type in the opponent's name...it will show you the openings he/she plays and their success rate. I don't know if it's updated very often, though.

After I finish a game here I download the pgn, give it to an engine to tell me what it thinks I did wrong and put it into a database of my games. According to that database I've played the London System, with the moves 1. d4 d5 2. Bf5, as white six times this year, the earliest game dates from May. According to Gamesexplorer I've never played it. So it is updated less frequently than 4 times a year.

@mchill

But why am I losing to this player and only this player, while other people at my rating level are beating the person? And why are there players at my level whom I seem to beat at a higher rate than the others. For most of the players at my rating level, the record is pretty close to even. What accounts for the anomalies?

@kunsoo said
@mchill

But why am I losing to this player and only this player, while other people at my rating level are beating the person? And why are there players at my level whom I seem to beat at a higher rate than the others. For most of the players at my rating level, the record is pretty close to even. What accounts for the anomalies?

Give us this player's handle, and we may be able to help you. 😈

@kunsoo said
@mchill

But why am I losing to this player and only this player, while other people at my rating level are beating the person? And why are there players at my level whom I seem to beat at a higher rate than the others. For most of the players at my rating level, the record is pretty close to even. What accounts for the anomalies?

1. Use a different opening/defence next time
2. Strictly adhere to the well established "book" lines.
3. Spend more time before deciding what move to make..
4. Play over the opponent's losses to see "how" he loses.

@kunsoo said
@mchill

But why am I losing to this player and only this player, while other people at my rating level are beating the person? And why are there players at my level whom I seem to beat at a higher rate than the others. For most of the players at my rating level, the record is pretty close to even. What accounts for the anomalies?

Without seeing the specifics it is difficult to be certain but there may be some reasons not directly related to the positions on the board. If your opponent is actually a stronger player than the rating displayed suggests but carries a high game load it may mean that they make generally sound moves but lose stupidly every so often when their rapid style play unravels. Similarly a weaker player with a just a few games in progress who analyses carefully may well post a rating higher than their actual objective strength. And that's before we get to anyone who suddenly loses games when their rating threatens to push up their tournament entry rating and other nefarious practices. When facing a stronger player with a weak rating they may just play an accurate sensible opening, make generally solid moves, keep tempo and wait for you lose your way and win in the endgame. Other's go for a gambit that gives them a lead in tempo and development that may be difficult to face if you don't defend with the best moves. If you get a good position once in a while they may not pay sufficient attention, lose the game with a sigh, and make up the rating point deficit in other games.

All I can say for certain is that you and I have played four games here. It appears the first two have been archived and we can't see the moves. As for the second two the opening choice is irrelevant as it was a Gambit Fantasy thematic opening. I can't remember if either you or I or both were blitzing or not but it looks as if we exchanged on average a move a day. There is evidence in the games that neither of us were particularly tactically accurate which suggests that neither of us were analysing very deeply. In your white game you fell to pieces after losing the exchange to version of a well known tactical theme despite you playing the known antidote. Your king was stuck in the centre and you never recovered. The other game was better but you missed a simple pawn capture which would have equalised, preferring a weaking pawn move that also lost a valuable tempo. This was followed shortly after by a pawn loss on the queenside which left you with additional pawn weaknesses that you couldn't defend in the endgame. So it's the usual thing of losing tempos, allowing weaknesses, and missing tactical shots for both sides, but if you were feeding the baby, watching TV or cracking off a move in each of your 100 games before going to bed then fair enough, and the relevant lifestyle changes are in order if you want to improve your rating. If you don't know what a pawn weakness looks like or how an opponent might engineer the position to exploit it without letting you have a look in then mchill's non specific training advice may have a point. I've always felt, and I'm no expert, that you gain more from trying to understand what it was you didn't see, or why your mind wandered off down the wrong track by going through your own games rather than this attempt to reduce the game to subliminal pattern recognition that may stifle individual creativity and problem solving ability. If you don't have a good memory then it makes sense to me not to train so as to over rely on it. Your head eventually goes to mush and you end up not knowing what's going on.

@Ragwort
👍 Good post.

@kunsoo said
@mchill

But why am I losing to this player and only this player, while other people at my rating level are beating the person? And why are there players at my level whom I seem to beat at a higher rate than the others. For most of the players at my rating level, the record is pretty close to even. What accounts for the anomalies?

Ragwort gave some good advise, the bottom line is, you're losing to this person for a variety of reasons, and you simply have to get better. The computer analysis of my games on chess.com shows this as well, i.e. a dropped tempo, overlooked a knight fork, left a pawn hanging, missed a skewer opportunity etc. Rather than stressing about your W-L loss record to this person, just acknowledge you have defeated them more than once, and focus instead on improving. Oh - one more thing: Slow down! too many mistakes are made by moving too fast, just remember, this is CC, not blitz.

@BigDoggProblem

Am I violating the person's privacy? I guess not.

I do know that I got crushed taking the pawn in the Marshall Gambit a bunch of times, but that doesn't account for all of it.

And looking at our record, it seems to have leveled off since the last time I looked about a year or so ago. 24 wins to 44 losses and 1 draw (the games are always knife fights).

Here you go.

https://www.dailychess.com/chess-player/blanca

@Ragwort

The player loves playing black in the Marshall Gambit. After about 4 or 5 games or so I decided to study that opening and found I was playing it completely wrong.

@Ragwort

Thanks by the way.

But what has me curious is that the player I'm linking below - I have a winning record against 21 wins to 16 with 3 draws.

Yet in tournaments this player seems to have better results against the other.

https://www.dailychess.com/chess-player/felldancer