Is chess more enjoyable as you get better?

Like most people here I suspect, I'd like to get better at chess.  But sometimes it crosses my mind - what's it like getting to 1700, 2000 or higher?  A lot of the time I play knockabout games that are a bit of fun, but the higher my rating goes (sometimes), the less I feel inclined to do that.

So, is chess still fun when you are quite good at it?  Is it more enjoyable because you don't make so many stupid mistakes?  Or is making mistakes even worse because you are supposed to be quite good?

When you begin to play, chess is only a game. 
As you get better, you begin to discover other aspects : sport, science, and art. For me, I feel that a better understanding of the most beautiful master game is the more valuable thing you can hope for when playing chess.

Like many things, everything is more fun as you get better.  However, with that being said, the more you know the more you know how little you know.  Mistakes and losing to low rated players OTB is very frustrating, but it's still more fun to win most of your games than to lose them!

For me chess becomes much more fun the more I improve.

It becomes more creative, more spectacular, more interesting.

Let's say that a beginner understands only material balances. The whole features of a positions are just in the "count" of material on the board.

Then as you become intermediate, you start looking at static positional features. Such as backward pawns and pawn majorities, passed pawns, etc.

Then when you reach the advanced (here "advanced" I mean 1800 FIDE or so) stage you start understanding the dynamic features. How piece activity can compensate for structural weaknesses. You learn to take a dynamic advantage (that would be istantly wasted by a beginner) and work with it.

A whole wealth of possibilities opens up.

For example I was amazed by this game:

http://en.chessbase.com/home/TabId/211/PostId/4008495

I would have played 25.Bxc5 thinking "oh, it gives me a protected passer!" and 14...e4 for the exact same reason. Thing is, the computer suggests my moves, so they don't fail tactically.

However GMs reason in a different way, where a knight activity is more valueable that the holy grail of a passed pawn for intermediate players.

for me it gets more fun the better i get. Not rating wise, because my rating always seems inflated. But for me it gets more fun the more i know, i just hate not to know position not know what move to play and all that, but to me personally the more i know the more its fun. Except  for the times i realise that what i know is nothing compared to what else is to know and what masters know.

yes its really shocking, but you posts are seriously good!!

thank you :)

whoa man, nobody has ever said that before

Two reasons why it gets better for me

1) See more into the game, more beauty, more options, more styles

2) Blundering is extremely frustrating. If I didn't lose half my games due to horrible "loss of focus" blunders, I'd be rated much higher and my games would be a lot more fun. I hate throwing away a good game due to 1 bad move.

Nope.

Chess is most fun for me when I'm improving and can see it (I'm beating strong players with nice games).

For me, all games are more fun when I am exceeding my expectations and less fun and more frustrating when I fail to meet them  Therefore I go through periods of having fun and periods of frustration based on my expectations.  There is never a long period of  fun or a long period of frustration.

like most things, the less serious you are about it the more fun it is =)

but winning tournaments doesnt hurt... =/

Chess is fun!

Now if your married

and your wife hears you say you enjoy chess you now have problems.

Now you have 2 options buy her a huge diamond ring, dinner, take her to that boring opera (5hrs) she loves and then come home and take of business and put a smile on her face or just quit chess.

i know its a famous saying and they used it even for the davidoff advertising. but still it packs a lot of truth especially in chess and you cant say it often enough,ironically its the first time i read it in a chess forum.

It may be your first but it will not be your last in a forum at chess.com. Things get repeated so many times here.

To me it is always more fun when i won games and was not sure why or thought i had a good idea why. That being said for all types of games. The more i knew and understood the rules it seems the more frustration would set in it.

I guess I've been on the internet too long. I've seen that quote at least 1,000 times... it's become such a boring, overused cliche.

I make blunders most of the time even to lower ratings. I consider blunders as part of the game. So when I do, I don't regret much. Just continue to play from blunders to make position better.

At the beginning it also happen to me it was hard to play 2000. But when I do that more often I can see draw them, then sometimes I win.

My stats say Avg. Opponent Rating when I: win : 1583, Lose: 1816, Draw: 1735.

Yes, it's more fun when your rating get higher. And it will get higher if you play higher ratings.

That's all quite reassuring; most people do seem to enjoy chess more as they get better.  It's a long process though; but I seem to beat more 1400-1500 rating players than I used to.

The blunder thing is annoying though; I seem to see a move is bad the moment after I play it, but not the moment before.  Maybe sitting on your hands should work online too...

I wish I had more time for longer games; it's mainly blitz these days and I'm too old (55) to be much cop.  Still, it's good fun and occasionally I play a game I'm really pleased with which makes up for the ghastly ones.