At What Rating Do People Stop Consistently Making Blunders?

key word is consistently

I know even GMs blunder, but they seem to blunder in much more subtle ways vs. like hanging your Queen.  Also, they seem to blunder a lot less and will often lose from getting outplayed.  

For mortals, what rating does it seem like people stop consistently (like maybe 1 out of every 5 games) or more blundering in simple ways like:

-hanging pieces

-not seeing a defensible check-mate attempt and getting unnecessarily mated

-not seeing obvious tactical threats and losing pieces that way

Are we talking 1600?  1700?  2100???   

I would say USCF Class B 1600-1799

That's my estimate too.

I'd say 1200 rapid or 1400 standard. Above 1200(or 1400) also blunder(drop pieces) ocassionally but not consistently. Of course, anyone can blunder at any stage if they are under pressure.

Depends on how you define "blunders" But by the definition above it would have to be about USCF 2000

By the way, I'm thinking games vs peers so 1300 vs 1300, 1500 vs 1500, 2100 vs 2100 etc

If it's GM vs _____ that's different because the position will be under more pressure and sooner, so blunders will happen much more often as players try to deal with positional problems and miss forced sequences.

I still don't make it 5 games in a row without hangin a piece.

However even if you hang a piece you make zillions of stronger moves along the way so blundering a piece isn't the end of the world.

Suppose a game is 40 moves and you blunder one piece well that may be Okay since 20 of the other moves were plus .3 in your favour so you might end ahead anyways.

In blitz? That's different.

Even strong players can miss simple things if they're in time pressure, or if they have been defending for a long time and finally "crack." But if we're just talking about fairly "normal" situations, I think at Class A they stop making unforced errors pretty consistently -- in other words, if I were betting on a Class A player, I wouldn't be too worried that they would self-destruct without being under pressure. Class B players know better, but sometimes they'll have a lapse in attention and make a mistake anyway. A 1600 player recently just hung a simple fork (Qxc6+ hitting the rook and king) to me on move 10 in a tournament game (before that he was doing quite well). Which was very surprising. He knows better, but his consistency is clearly still giving him trouble.

Yeah, I'm curious about this too.  Does NM Dale mean in blitz?  Does he count a short tactic as a hang?  Because I'm surprised if he actually "hangs" a piece one in five or even one in fifty at a slow time control.

Now, as far as other blunders, I recall watching Kasparov talk about a rapid game he was playing against, I think Short, in which the format had them both in a silent room where they could comment on the game as it went, and he was BESIDE HIMSELF at a move he had just made which would allow the forced loss of control of a square and thereby the blocking of a diagonal...he reacted as I would react if I had suddenly realized I hung a queen...so it all depends on your perspective.

I have a theory(estimate) about this:

<600 -> 27 blunders per game.

600-1000 -> 9 blunders per game.

1000-1400 -> 3 blunders per game.

1400-1800 -> 1 blunder per game.

1800-2200 -> 1 blunder per 2 games.

2200-2600 -> 1 blunder per 4 games.

2600-3000 -> 1 blunder per 8 games.

What I mean by blunder is when a player drops his piece or does not take a hanging piece of the opponent. At higher levels, it may be in more number of moves.

Apart from commenting on NM Dale's comment, I will also propose an answer in my own right...as I approach the 1400 level in blitz and 1600 level in standard I find these things happen quite a lot less than they used to and when they do happen it's usually under pressure of some kind, be it time pressure or just a very complicated situation where the disadvantaged side has a lot of ways to lose and eventually misses one...it doesn't just happen out of the blue like "oh, whoops, lol" as much any more.  But, even that does still happen, so I'd assume another 200 points or so should see most of that off.

Well, if by blunder you mean a short or obvious tactic sequence then... maybe 2100? If by blunder you mean just literally hang a piece then maybe 1500.

I would say alot of the 1800s I see across the board don't blunder in normal time situations, even in time pressure they generally don't blunder.  

1800

I think over 1800 they don't blunder that often, but I would say over 2000 is when you don't see blunders as common in one game. I have seen players between 1800-1900 still making huge mistakes, not so often as players under 1600, but mistakes evenly huge.

"NOT necessarily differences in how they approach or think about the game."

I'd say it's a little bit of both. I think about the game very differently than when I was an 1800 for example. For example I think a lot more about how choosing to close or open the position can have a big impact on how easy the position is to play for me; I think a lot more about trading the right minor pieces; I'm much more enthusiastic about outplaying my opponent by setting up a good endgame for me, rather than being afraid that too many trades equals a draw. I'm a lot more practical. All sorts of things.

1500

I think that also depends on experience. I've played a few ~10 year olds rated 1900 and I'm not sure they understand much of anything except how to calculate and a pretty good amount of opening theory.

I have to admit some of the tactics they can find in seconds are really impressive though.