Hello,
I see that several high rated or top players here have no title in front of their nickname but can play on an equal foot againt chess masters in bullet and blitz games. So I was wondering if most of the time they are also masters just playing anonymously or if several of these players are casual players or amateurs who never play in competition outside lichess.
So if anyone knows (like the players themselves!)... My purpose is to know if we can improve a lot here, since I have never played outside lichess except with my father and brother when I learned the rules. :)
Obviously I'm not anything like master level but it is definitely possible to improve a lot just by playing on this, learning from losses and doing tactics!
Sure Manglecopter, 1900 is already great and I see you made good progress in a few months. It is a good motivation to play here.
But I was really talking about playing at a very high level because it seems surprising to me that amateurs could do that even by playing a lot here. It is the same as going to run alone during a few months and becoming good enough to defeat Usain Bolt.
Man, you should not consider the rating change here on lichess as a progress. My rating changes a lot by 100 points every time and it doesnt mean i am getting better or worse at chess. I dont believe that just playing chess online will make you get better. You might get faster but no better. I dont consider my self a good player but i am 2200 FIDE and i do believe that a lot of players here have titles and play anonymously.
If you look at the progress curve of Manglecopter, he was around 1500 and really improved to arrive at 1900. It is not just some statistical fluctuation around an average value.
The rating is how you jauge your progress, I don't understand what you are saying. Of course, we cannot focus only on bullet and believe we trully improved at chess, but it is already a proof that we see some tactics, some patterns, better and faster.
So, TheChessPrince, you were at 2200 before coming to play here and lichess did not help you to improve?
I dont know, man... I only play chess online... I believe i dont
Personally, I started playing chess from a young age, but probably hindered my improvement substantially by playing mostly bullet and blitz online, and hardly ever focusing on tournament or classical length chess games. I have beaten a number of FMs, IMs, and GMs in bullet, but I am well below master level for sure under classical time controls. I only recently started playing tournament chess again and my performance is around 2000-2100 USCF which is probably 2000 FIDE at best.
I'm a 1500 CFC with a 2400< rating in bullet.
I've probably played ~100 games longer than 10 minutes in my life. I've almost exclusively played bullet for my entire life, which includes ~15k games. What's helped my bullet/blitz play the most is that I've been playing more games with longer time controls. The improvement you get out of 10 Classical games, at least at the start, is equal to the improvement you get out of 1000 bullet games.
The only place on this site where you can be sure that a good player is an anonymous master is in the Classical control. That's since masters are simply players who are really good at playing tournament time controls. Example: I have an NM friend who's a 1500 at bullet.
No, they're not mostly anonymous masters.
Blitz and especially bullet are hardly chess. The clock plays a disproportionate role in the game and many players can and do turn the clock into nearly 100% of their game plan. And you can certainly have some great results doing this.
So for instance consider the opening 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nf6+ exf6
In this position most strong players could tell you that black is already technically lost. In my database the strongest games I show with this have a net score of 19 wins for white, 7 draws, and 0 losses. However on Lichess you'll see it played pretty routinely. The reason is that it allows black to play mindlessly and automatically. He's strategically lost, but can play very quickly and make a lot of time wasting 'pass' moves without immediately destroying his position.
The players playing this are generally relatively weak at chess, but have successfully managed to turn the clock into nearly the entirety of their game which can be very effective at things like 3 0 blitz and even more so in bullet.
That said, yeah you can absolutely improve an enormous amount here. Anytime you play a player who can really beat you down on the board, you can study and improve from the game. Just don't necessarily emulate what you see folks doing in bullet and blitz just because they have a big number next to their name!
With regards to the overall question, I don't see any reason why someone can't get better by playing online, why would it be any different than practicing by playing on a physical board? Ultimately it just comes down to your own commitment.
As for the question about players here comparable to masters, I'd say there are at least three factors at play that make this comparison invalid:
1) Bullet chess should not be compared to classical time controls, it is a different game.
2) Any online chess rating system where people register accounts under aliases, can register multiple accounts, etc., is inherently unscientific and unreliable for this comparison.
3) Cheating is a thing.
