Are we Indian players really that weak as chess.com suggests?

On one hand the World Chess Champion is from India. On the other, Indian groups here display a pathetic average rating. Are we really that weak? Here are our top 5 groups:

1. Team India : 1795 members, average rating 1327
2. Indian Marauders: 974 members, average rating 1409
3. Team Karnataka: 141 members, average rating 1286
4. Hyderabad Biryani: 86 members, average rating 1424
5. Team Maharashtra: 60 members, average rating1432

None of the groups have touched even 1450.

Team India which is perhaps the face of Indian chess here on chess.com, is a meager 1327. It is true that Team India attracts many new players, who even if they are good players, start with 1200 rating and hence pull down average rating of the group. However that is not the complete picture. There should have been enough 1700+ players in the group to counter the new 1200 rated players. Indian Marauders are better than Team India but not overly so.

Now compare Indian groups with some other countries:
Team Philippines: 845 members, Average rating 1623
Team Italia: 619 members,average rating 1546
Similarly Team Canada, Team Greece, Team Sweden and many other much smaller countries in population, are over 1500 average rating.

Team Russia's average rating is 1701 ! Team Romania is 1794 !!

On an average are Indians really such poor players of the game which was invented in India itself ? Or is there some other answer to this uncomfortable question?

Maybe the good Indian players are playing live chess not turn based?

Maybe the good players are not aware of chess.com site on Internet?

Maybe Internet has not reached millions of excellent chess players in small towns and villages in India?

Or could the honest truth be that since chess is not taught in India (barring few exceptions) in a formal, well designed manner, we are really below average players? How many of us have spent even Rs. 100/- to buy a good book on chess? Or have really spent sufficient quality time on computer with only one thing in mind - improve?

Whatever, we need to set our goals higher and try to methodically improve our game. The average group ratings of bigger Indian groups like Team India and Indian Marauders should not be less than 1600 to do justice to the name of the country which invented the game and has a World Chess Champion in all categories.

Skand Bhargava
Team India

If we understand statistics as well as we play chess, we probably are. 

Your post could be a little more accurate if you titled it "are we indian-player based teams on chess.com really that weak?".

Assuming that every player of Indian origin on chess.com aligned themselves "instantaneously" with any of the teams is false. Even worse to then suggest that only these teams are representative of the  average playing skill of countries on chess.com. 

 It was never assumed that every Indian player is aligned to some group or the other (there are over 80,000 Indian players on chess.com and the biggest group is around 1800 members strong only). But surely it won't be wrong to assume that the average strength of these 1800 players would closely reflect that of those 80,000 members.

Indian Marauders the only team created by Indians for Indians had more average rating before the admins started chasing numbers that was around 650 then. So more numbers and less average rating is always going to be the case as Indians are particularly not willing to pay and become regular active members but use the site as entertainment only.

Team India, Team Karnataka, Hyderabad Biryani, Team Maharashtra etc do not officially represent India.. Not sure why you have added those names here..

Indian Marauders officially represents India here in chesscom League..

And to answer your question about the "Are we really that weak as Chesscom suggests", The average rating/team match points/vote chess points do not represent in any way the strength of a group. In fact there is no actual method to discern group strength..

Somewhat closer is vote chess elo and below is the elo composed from group vs group vote chess games and Indian Marauders is 8th.. So we are doing pretty well..

1    Chess Nuts                           2857     4
2    BLACK OR WHITE                  2791     3
3    Team Slovakia                      2632     4
4    Sac, Sac, Mate!                    2631      5
5    Team Canada                       2621      8
6    * The Dream Team *             2484      3
7    Cheers! Vote Chess Cafe       2480     12
8    Indian Marauders!                 2424   12
9    The Terminator                    2387      5
10    Team Italia                         2336    10
11    SuperTroopers                    2334      5
12    Learning with Fun               2301      5
13    Narz's People                     2300      8
14    Team Philippines                2292     3
15    Team Britain                      2254     5
16    French Defense Fanatics      2247     5
17    Team Romania                   2161      9
18    Bird's Opening Lovers         2158      4
19    Endgame Lovers                2140      4
20    Team Germany                  2138      3
21    The Blakenators                 2068      3
22    THE PREMIER OF ALL          2019      8
23    THE POWER OF CHESS       1993     26

Agree hsbgowd.. Team India was created by a US national who was not even remotely connected with India and vanished. Since chess.com had no control over name of the group, many were misguided.

But that is so true Anrthony. Anand had financial problems even for attending tournaments till NIIT sponsored him. He was hardly a product of chess culture in India or institutionalised mentoring from Indian chess federation or their likes. He did pave his own way to the top, at least till NIIT came forward. By the time NIIT came forward to help Anand financially, he was already a world class player.

 Oh, my sense of humour had taken a time out :)

The more players you have, the worse you will be.

Check this out

http://www.chess.com/members/member_countries.html?sortby=avg_rating

This shows all the countries of chess.com and their average rating.

The three biggest countries are

USA - 567000

India - 88000

UK - 69000

All of these countries with huge numbers of members are poor in average rating.  When you have so many players, most will be novices.  Think of it this way - In India and the USA, all sorts of players, good and bad, have registered to play on chess.com.  In Russia, less than 6000 play on chess.com, but you can bet they are the best chess players in Russia.  Having so many participants brings your score down.  No country with over 10000 members is even in the top 40 countries by average ranking.

@hsbgowd: Team India, Team Karnataka, Hyderabad Biryani, Team Maharashtra etc are mentioned simply because these are listed as Indian groups on chess.com and we are discussing about Indian players irrespective of whether they play in WL or not.

Regarding vote chess, it does not reflect the true average strength of whole group. In a well organized group it is merely a reflection of the best players' strength in a vote chess team. Just one top player is all that you need in the team to win in VC - just ensure that others do not vote till the top player has decided on the move. And this is exactly what is happening in all well performing groups.

@Vijaykulkarni: As you said, before admins started chasing numbers the average rating of IM was better. From this it appears that earlier IM was inviting only higher rated players. My view is that chasing numbers is good and all Indians, irrespective of their ratings, should be welcomed to a group that claims to be for Indians. Also, an average taken of higher number of players should, in my opinion, mean we are closer to the true average of Indian players (whether part of chess.com or not).

@sramanigs: I agree with you absolutely. I can say of Team India with certainty, but it may be true for all Indian groups, rating is not the criteria of membership. What I am trying to say is that even Team Australia would be accepting all Australian players without any bias for rating, just like Team India. But how come their average rating (1534) is much higher than us? Surely it should mean that we Indians, on an average, are weaker in chess playing skills than the Kangaroos. What other explanation is there?

@Estragon: While there is no 'proof' - but in my opinion (and it is simply my opinion vs. yours) that a certain randomness is built into a sample data when large groups are formed out of a vast population. Extending this argument, the 1800 members in team India may closely reflect the playing strength of 80000 Indian members on chess.com, which in turn may closely reflect the playing strength of an average Indian chess player. Or would it?

Some other points mentioned here were off topic which could be discussed in another thread.

Bhargava (Skand)wrote : @Vijaykulkarni: As you said, before admins started chasing numbers the average rating of IM was better. From this it appears that earlier IM was inviting only higher rated players. My view is that chasing numbers is good and all Indians, irrespective of their ratings, should be welcome to a group that claims to be for Indians. Also, an average taken of higher number of players should, in my opinion, mean we are closer to the true average of Indian players (whether part of chess.com or not).:

Sorry   Mr Bhargava (Skand) IM never followed inviting persons with ratings policy. all were always welcome except fr indisciplined vote chess members.(Just for your information)

You were a part of Indian Marauders before, so you know better.

 Dear Mr. Kulkarni (vijaykulkarni),

No disrespect is meant for IM, but I was never a member of Indian Marauders. You are perhaps confusing me with someone else.

The "...had more average rating before the admins started chasing numbers..." gave the impression that there was a change in direction which resulted in group's lower rating subsequently. Perhaps I got it wrong.

However coming to the core issue of this thread, to be noted is that when IM came closer to the true playing strength of Indians (here I am assuming that higher the number in a group, closer you are to the true average strength of people who you represent), rating dropped. Which begs the question, are we really that weak as the numbers show or are the numbers lying?

I don't think the small sampling of players cited by the OP is representative of the billion people in India, but lets say it is. Maybe the Indians who are likely to play chess are too busy with academic or business pursuits to devote the time to becoming really good players.  

A similar thing I observed in team matches. In Team India between 1700-1800 very less amount of players are present when compared to other team. Whenever a team match arrives with < 1800, we always rely on bottom half of people to rescue.

once satyendranath bose while working with EINSTIEN had to try for a proffesor post as requested by his friends.by that tim he didnt recieve his degree.his friends insisted that a recomendation from EINSTIEN would surely fetch him the post.satyendranath with much hesitation approachd einstien and he was surprised and said u r d best at ur work do u need my recommendation,in d letter he wrote can u find anyone better than him and much efficient.dis is the perfect xample.we and others know wat our country is and wat type of players it produced so no need to prove ourselves.these stats r just of few people there may b many vishwanathan anands who r not in dis sit

Your logic of correlating team average strength and the country's strength is simply illogical and unpopular (as you can see from other comments). On the other hand, there would be some meaning in saying that "There are more people from India and so chess is very popular in india" but again it depends on factors like internet connectivity, #of active players etc. 

I had to add the VC group elo rating here just because of your title "are we really that weak...". I disagree with you that VC success reflects entirely on the best player's playing strength. There are many teams below us who have member ratings even up to 2800 but still performing badly whereas we have just one 2300 playing regularly for us.

@hsbgowd: My basic assumption is that the playing strength of a group as large as TI or IM would an indicator of India's playing population's chess prowess. My view(I have no proof) is that there is an inherent randomness built into creation of such a sample data. For me randomness is an important factor because it is that, which will determine whether we can relate this sample to the whole country or not. Obviously you disagree and find my opinion illogical. So are you saying that by looking at the average group rating of Team India or IM, no inference can be drawn regarding average chess skills of Indian players at large? Regarding unpopularity, my advice is not to judge correctness of any postulate by it's popularity. We all know how popular Galileo was for claiming earth is round. He had to run away from Italy to save his life.

Regarding Vote Chess, we all know how it works. To put forward my case more strongly, let me ask a question: on one side are 10 players of 2000 rating, on other side is Viswanathan Anand and 9 other players of 1000 rating. Which side do you think will win in VC ? And can we conclude that ELO shown of the winning team truly reflects the average playing skills of that side as well?

Urvang,

Thanks for your input. Yes, I had observed about < 25 years of age, but that a large chunk of players are > 55 years, went unnoticed by me. Perhaps you are right (and I hope you are) about large number of players on chess.com in the learning stage who have pulled down the average rating of Indian groups - but then the question arises, Shouldn't it be true even for Sweden, Italy, Australia, Canada etc etc ? So even their rating would be pulled down by such learners proportionately.

About vote chess, I thought it's a given that 10 (or even 100) players of 2000 rating on one side will not be able to beat a team lead by Vishy, provided his team-mates follow his decision. Why Vishy, I feel even a team lead by a 2500 player will beat a side which has only 2000 level players. So if IM's vote chess players are disciplined and vote only after they have listened to the leader, they will mostly win against other teams which are indisciplined, even if they boast of higher rated players.

The name "vote chess" frankly, is a misnomer, it's a great tool for learning, but it is definitely not "vote" chess as practiced by better performing groups.

Urvang, two plausible reasons why  Premier of all (All players with rating 1900+) and The 2K Club (2000+ rated players) are not performing as well as IM in VC could be:
1. These groups may be enjoying playing against tougher groups only as compared to IM, which may be more 'win' focused.
2. While you may have rightly observed that these two groups also have discussions like IM, yet members of these two strong groups may not strictly follow a leader (being strong players themselves, these players may follow their own judgement). On the other hand in IM the gap between top and other players may be sufficiently large for teammates to 'obey' the leader.

I am not saying these are the reasons, I am just saying they could be. Usually if something strikes abnormally wrong, you do find a good reason for that.

Again, the challenges for team and vote chess matches are 'managed' - I mean you decide who to challenge and which challenge to accept, what should be the range etc. Hence the results of these two leaderboards don't tell the whole story. For example, Team India is ahead of IM in match leaderboard, but it's average rating is poorer than IM. We in Team India are able to gather more points because we have the muscle power of more members. So we play bigger matches which means more points when we win, not necessarily the skills power.

As a matter of fact, WL results are a better reflection of how good a group is because you have to play all other groups without the ability to tailor the rating range to suit your group's strength. IM which represents India in WL did not have great results to show when I saw last. Not that Team India was any better when it was representing India in WL till September 2009 - but that is another story. So if a member of chess.com community happens to look at WL results and concludes that generally speaking Indians are not very strong players, I won't fault him.