The Philosophy of HitThePin #2: Rating Psychology

Hello, chess.com! I’m HitThePin, and whether you’re a longtime friend or clicked on this by accident, welcome to my blog.

Ratings. The chess playing community - and that includes me and you - seems to be obsessed about them. Many player’s singular goal is simply to get a high rating. This with ratings hundreds of points above us we revere in awe; those hundreds of points below us we look at in contempt. Point being: Ratings are everything. 

Or are they?

The issue with ratings is that we often get completely immersed by them, unable to see anything else but that all-important number. This can lead to problems in our gameplay.

For instance, a common problem that plagues many players of all ratings is that they seem to beat players much stronger than them, yet they lose to players far weaker than them. On the surface, this would seem contradictory. What is going on here?

It’s all inside of the player’s brain. When they see a player with a higher rating than them, the brain thinks, “Shoot, I have to play at the top of my game, because this guy is so highly rated.” And so you find yourself playing very well, way better than your rating would normally detonate. You play so well, as a matter of fact, that you often beat that higher rated player.

Its the opposite story with a lower rated player. When you see a player with a lower rating than you, the brain begins to shut off effort, thinking, “This guy’s rating is so low, I’ll be able to beat him easily.”

Meanwhile, the lower rated player is looking at YOUR rating and playing at the top of his game, trying to beat you. With his extra effort and your lack of effort, you often end up losing to that lower rated player.

So how can this problem be fixed? It’s quite simple. First, you have to understand the problem takin place. You’ve got that down, you read this post. The next thing you need to do is simply to go full throttle, every single game, regardless of opponent strength. 

Now, while the idea is simple, putting it in practice is not an easy thing to do. Going 110% every game you play requires a tremendous amount of willpower. It’s all too easy to ease off against that guy 150 points lower than you after you after you finished a grueling two-hour game.

How to solve this? The only way is to train your will, cultivate it until it’s an unstoppable beast. Each game that you play all out, take it as reassurance that you can do it again. It’s universally accepted: whether it be in chess or other aspects of life, grit, attitude, and mental strength are what propel people to the top. 

So so keep these ideas in mind, and hopefully, you’ll see that little number next to your name climb up.

Hey, thanks for stopping by and checking this out! Please comment and tell me what you think. Did your rating go up? What do you want me to do next? As always, I’ll see you around.

PS It should be noted that most of these ideas are not mine, they are from different, very smart people, and I simply read their ideas and compiled them into one blog post. Just wanted to say that.