Are You Statistically Doomed to Fail in Chess?

Assume that there about 30 possible legal moves you can make each time it is your move. Assume there are 3 candidate moves which will not lose the game each turn. This gives you a one in ten chance of making a good move. It also means you have a one in a thousand chance of making three good moves in a row. The average chess game is said to be forty moves. So... how doomed are you?

That's just to find a game that won't lose. In the majority of chess positions most of the moves are bad moves. They are either weak, too passive, or just plain blunderoos. Try it for yourself. Look at the position in a game you are playing. How many moves do you have? How many do you think are good moves?

Ahh! But take heart in this. You DID manage to recognize very quickly over half of the bad moves, didn't you? So what if there a zillion different positions with several series of moves to lead to each position. About 80-90% of those positions will never happen in serious chess. Even a class G player (rating of 600 to 800) will not make those moves.

Reference Notes:

1. Usually there are four or five candidate moves in a position as shown in several psychological studies about how chess masters think. Lower rated players will spend time thinking about non-candidate moves by mistake.
2. The average number of moves as 30 came from a database I think (anyone?). This is a surprise to me. I always counted about 40 legal moves in most of my chess positions.
3. 40 moves for a game of chess is a widely accepted number. This is why increments only count for 2/3 of the total time on chess servers. This is a real surprise to me as most of my games used to be closer to 60 moves long. Yet the 26 games I've completed here average under 30 moves!
4. As for the 80-90%, I just made that up... seems right to me. ^_^

BAM! Well said!

"No e4 days"

I'm not sure the 1.e4 players would like that.

Excellent minds here! I think the only way it could be applied practically (well almost practically)... hmmm.

No, never mind it could NOT be applied practically. It would only work if your opponent made perfect moves. Otherwise he suffers the same doom.

Ahhh... I feel better already. ^_^

But as I was saying the last paragraph, people seem to be very good at disregarding most of those bad moves already.

Let me put another statistics on it:

Most chess players only look at at a few candidate moves though these moves are not the always the best moves to be looking at. I am going to make up some numbers based on my observations with no statistical survey.

1. I will say there are about 3-4 good moves in most positions.
2. Most players will consider 3-5 possible moves each time it is their turn.
3. Most players will consider 1-4 'good' moves each turn. (I've had a few class E players point out some gems to me before.)

What do you think? Does it seem more reasonable that we play best moves some of the time and good moves most of the time. That as we get better we choose better and best moves more often. We are sounding less doomed by the minute.

you've never seen Tal play.he thrived on mistakes

his not yours

Think of this for a minute. GM suffer the same fait we do.  They also play weaker moves just like the rest of us. Otherwise they would all be world champions at the same time!! 

If everybody played flawless, this would become a boring game!! To be able to make mistakes and recover from them, makes the game interesting. 

 You beat me to the punch.

this is the answer, so it evens it out again any probs you face your opponent does to so we`re back to even money......

 I am amazed by the fact that most times I become fun of a chess site that offers forums, "we" are always trying to apply statistics and some other math feels to chess in an intent to try to figure out why "we" lose at the game, no even statistics can be applyed to many situations in chess, there are chess players who have lost many games after having played stronger moves than his opponents throughout the game then he failed to see a combination which will give his opponent the win and WAM! like some of you would say "there goes the game", failing to see when your opponent has chances for counter play is in many cases the difference of wheather somone makes it to the next level or not, some chess players are more dangerous when their opponents have the advantage than when they have the advantage themselve, to get the advantage in many cases will mean that you will need to be able to play good moves and understand how to get the advantage, but to get counter play when somone is losing in many cases don't require much technique, to get counter play from an inferior possition some chess players just fallow the lead and keep and eye out for any opportunities that may happen, I myselve became a better chess player when I understood that it was not enough that i had enough technique to get an advantage in many games and that i needed to improve on how to not give my opponents counter play once i was winning, if you are not able to do this as a amateur you will never make it to the next level, because most amateurs just follow the lead and look for counter play this means that if "you break a leg in the run they will eat you alive" this sometimes happens in master chess level as well, there are masters who just follow the lead and are always looking for cheap shots

That's an excellent point. I have this weakness when I play. Sometimes when I get ahead I will figure. "Oh, the games over, now I can coast." A lot of tenacious opponents at different rating levels have punished me for my this.

The real comedy is a game where both of us have this bizarre idea that a game is 'over' before mate. This games tend to go back and forth. Its so much easier for me to concentrate on fighting for a draw after getting a disadvantage.

Of course I think we all get moods where we just want to give up and move on to a fresh board. "I'm sick of this game! My Knight has been pinned for almost the enitre game." Haha! Your opponent knows what he is doing (this is the most annoying apsect of chess for me). It can be hard to tough it out sometimes.

So does anyone have a good mantra for bucking up the spirit when you drop a few Queens?