Over in the world of chess.com a person is opening a second account to see if he can go from a rating of 800 to 2200 in one month. Chess.com is affiliated with the USCF through our online blitz rating system. If chess.com allows stunts like this to occur should an organization that takes ratings so seriously that they will not award a full point for a win anymore in some cases be associated with such rating trivializers?
Sounds like someone is sandbagging to start with an 800, and climb to 2200.
I’d say a person could climb substantially in 30 days if they studied for 5 to 8 hours a day with a coach. But I seriously doubt the average person could study that much chess.
From reading articles by grandmaster, they often get their GM title without *studying that much, but then reality hits that in order to become a super GM, they actually do have to study up to 8 hours/day with a coach. Most will say at first the hone up on their weaknesses, but then after a while, most of the study is concentrated on upcoming opponents. But all the articles say it’s takes some dedication, plus time, and that it’s very exhausting to train themselves to study that much until they get used to it.
When I say study that much, I mean they’re not studying anything like 8 hours/day. No idea how much studying they would’ve done, I guess it varies. But I doubt a 14 year old GM could have more than 2 or 3 hours/day dedicated to that, and have time to do the stuff normal kids do like go to school and do homework.
So either the person is heavily sandbagging, or is on a soul crushing mission to learn to play better chess. I won’t say it’s impossible, but they should have some serious documentation and a video diary of how they achieve it. For one thing, will people be able to look at the games and say all the games were played by the same person?
-Obviously the person will have to expect all his games will be put under a microscope to see if he had any help from a chess engine or even a database.
A database alone would suffice to make sure every game was played with the first few moves guaranteed not to blunder, and at least be considered playable by a grandmaster. Or if the guy’s really ruthless, he’ll filter for openings played by GM’s rated 2650 or higher.
It takes about 3000 hours of study and play, at a minimum, to go from a first established rating to a strong amateur rating around 2200. A number of talented kids have done that. That is usually about three years of work. For the not so talented and the busy, 10,000 hours of slow, methodical work and play seems about right. That takes real dedication and sacrifice to maintain a level of consistency in work habits as well as in performance. It takes time for concepts to be grasped, combined with other concepts, utilized in play, evaluated, and made a part of your thinking process. Ideas take time to gel, especially if they are not “sticky”, that is, interesting and useful enough to spark memory and/or pattern recognition.
30 days is not enough time, even working 24/7, to develop the knowledge and skills to become a 2200+ player. I smell a rat here with an attempt to manipulate a rating, not engage in real learning. Hey, I just deleted some spam today from Dr. Oz claiming if I took his secret formula pill, it would improve my focus and scores on tests. Amazing!
What is so offensive to me is that this player is already a master who is supposedly opening up another account that he plans on rigging to start around 800 and see if he can play his way to 2200 in 30 days. My concern is the USCF being associated with an organization that would allow such a stunt. Chess.com obviously is popular but how can rating purists such as the USCF have rating trivializers for bedfellows? What sort of message is this? Of course it takes much longer than a month to go from 800 to 2200 legitimately or 2200 would not be worth very much.
chess.com/index.php/blog/Mat … in-30-days I should have not been so lazy and provided this link in the first place. I submit this to be judged on its merits.
A number of years back I knew a chess instructor (C-player level) that wanted to let his students know that they shouldn’t be worried about one bad tournament and they could recover their rating points quickly to get back to their real strength. He tanked his on-line rating (maybe ICC, maybe chess.com) by about 500 points to simulate a really bad string of tournaments and then recovered them all in a month or two.
He told me about it after it was done with and his students realized that they should simply play without worrying about their rating.
But what kind of pedagogy is this? One of the rules of rated chess is to play your best at all times. I don’t have the latest rule book in front of me but I’m sure this is mentioned in it. A student’s logical extension of this may be to justify sandbagging as ok because you will just get the points back you threw away later with a financial reward even!
Wouldn’t education be better served by the challenger I’m referring to just playing players of the various class levels he wishes to demonstrate the weaknesses of? Of course, some of his opponents may just roll up into a ball but others will probably bring their “A” game while going down in defeat.
My biggest issue with this is that chess.com is allowing this. Where will this end? The USCF rating is the most valuable asset we have. I will grudgingly accept that fractional points help to maintain the integrity of the system at the cost of a few rated mismatches. But should we stay affiliated with an organization that condones intentionally subpar rated play?