What do they know 2700+ ?

Other than being solid in basiclly every phase of the game what stands out about players 2700 and above? Here's what i've gathered based off of a lot game commentary and analysis and interviews

1.In depth opening theory (usually ranging from 15 moves to -25! and even more for  some)

2.Inovators (usually players in the top 20 of the world set opening trends and produce ground breaking novlities that presents new problems for the other side of the board)

3.Strong Positionally (I was surprised when looking at commentary at how often a top player can go astray in complicated or tactical positons but in closed ones the 2700's really do shine brighter with ideas and deep understanding)

Anyone notice anything else about the worlds top players ?

consistency

agreed and what you call amazing is just really good technique even among 2700 original thought in the endgames is quite rare.

I think Carlsen would be an exception to your theory rule, powerlevel.

Every chess game is won and lost on a mistake.  These players simply just rarely make mistakes.  Far fewer than most atleast.

What they know is  chess, plain and simple. There's nothing magic about 2700 compared to 2650 compared to 2600 compared to 1600 besides just incremental increases in the understanding of the game. 

Endgames are great example. There are probably 100 technical draws in any of my endgame books that if you give me, I can hold a draw against a GM no matter what. But there are probably 300 technical draws in those books that I'd screw up.  The GMs would draw 350 out of 400, and the superGMs would score 390 out of 400. 

In my opening books, there are probably 60 or 70 positions that I know and really legitimately understand the resulting position from both the black and white perspective and could play as well as a GM. The GM could probably find 2,000 such positions that they know just as well or better in those same books. 

In my tactics books there are hundreds of basic tactic patterns and it takes me a few seconds to see, but there are thousands that it takes me a minute or more to figure out. The GMs are better there too.

And so on and so on.

But as ratings converge, so do abilities. They don't posses some magical ability, they just know and understand more. Which they should, it's their profession. I'm probably better at my profession than they are, it's only fair that they should be better at theirs.

I will say though that it's not always about speed -- there are people I can probably beat OTB who would kick my ass in Tactics Trainer rating points. Kingpatzer is essentially correct; but of course there are lots of elements that make up a better chess player, some even psychological.

I must say it is intriguing to read your collective thoughts and experience, I am a humbled beginner, though it makes me wonder whether striving for perfection in chess is really as much fun as seeing a few mistakes and taking advantage; making a few mistakes and trying to recover, ducking, weaving, enjoying the game, though not the pursuit of knowing more and more about less and less until one knows everything about nothing. 

Striving for perfection is a fool's errand. All chess games contain mistakes and inaccuracies, or at least choices between two or more seemingly equal paths with imperfect knowledge. 

But striving to get better means you'll see more mistakes and that you'll be more prepared to take advantage of them when they happen.

It really depends on what you want to get out of chess. If you just want to play blitz games and win a few, then virtually no work is necessary. If you want to win a  lot, then lots of work is necessary. If you want to play 5-day, 9-round OTB tournaments and have a reasonable shot at winning your class every time, then chess can take up quite a bit of your time. 

But  that work holds a certain level of satisfaction as well. There's nothing quite like torturing a player 200 points above you for four hours as you slowly grind their ego to dust :)

They know alot more then i know that's for sure.

Winning is its own reward.  Winning against stronger opponents is bliss.  

Endgame?

I love chess just as much as the next person on this site. Super competitive yes, but definitely not a sport.

_yiquan_ wrote:

glenn_coops wrote:

I must say it is intriguing to read your collective thoughts and experience, I am a humbled beginner, though it makes me wonder whether striving for perfection in chess is really as much fun as seeing a few mistakes and taking advantage; making a few mistakes and trying to recover, ducking, weaving, enjoying the game, though not the pursuit of knowing more and more about less and less until one knows everything about nothing. 

there are people who treat and regard chess as a science.

there are others who regard it as a sport.

of course all the training one needs to go through to become a strong tournament or professional player isn't fun. it takes a lot of work just like anything else. I'm sure all physical training/exercise that professional tennis players do isn't really fun either. but strong players are still enjoying themselves when they play. I don't know, I think they do a lot of ducking, weaving etc. and they all make mistakes.

to me it does seem to be the case that the fun to work ratio is in favor of fun when it comes to enthusiast internet blitz chess and in favor of work when it comes to standard tournament chess.

Exactly.

You think around 35 is where a chess player peaks?

they know how to play

The age at which you start is a big deal I think, and how early you are exposed to some level of organised chess learning. That plus natural ability is what its all about. Dumb luck really who gets to be the chance to be the top and who doesn't. But also the one's who get the chance and just work at chess obsessively is also a must. I'd also suggest to be at the very top is down to natural intelligence or being able to access more of the processing power of your brain that the average person, either through training or natural state. 

well said

I simply disagree they dont know all these endgames from the top of their head. SInce they have already went through the position their intuiton tells them the best moves to play. Which makes almost everything they do accurate. They work through them. Nobody knows every endgame. The 2700s and 2800s create more creative and new ideas. While 2600s also do so its not as consistent and they produce less and see slightly less.

I think positional understanding is the biggest difference. 

I remember watching a postmortem between Boris Spassky and Kevin Spraggett at a New York Open in the mid-1980s.  Spassky was already past his prime but he still had the positional understanding of a world-class player.  They would analyze some line to an end position, Spassky would make some comment like, "This is obviously bad for Black," or "Black's attack is too strong here," and Spraggett (who was himself a strong GM) would not always understand why.

Strong calculation skills are important.  But if you lack the positional understanding to properly evaluate the end positions you reach in your calculations, someone with better positional understanding will have a big advantage.

Of course, these days concrete opening knowledge is another area in which the 2700+ players outperform their lower-rated colleagues.