Monday, October 03, 2005

What will the future bring?

Will training at CTS have a positive influence on my rating?
Officially that can only be proven with the dutch ratinglist in hand.
The next rated games lie ahead.
Within a few weeks the regional competition starts (7 rated games).
And a regional championship (9 games).
Both happenings last until april/may.
The rating will be available only per august 1, 2006.
In january I plan to go to the Corus tournament.
Ratingprogress from that will be available per may 1, 2006.
So that is some time to go.

Maybe I go to an unrated rapidtournament in November (5 games G25).
This should give an indication of progress.

So since we have to wait for an official prove, what do I expect?
I will try to estimate.
Be prepared for my infamous algebra.
I expect my rating at CTS to increase every month with 20 points.
Right now I have gained 60 points. If I can maintain the pace it will be 100 points within two months.
What is a rating gain of 100 points worth in the real world?
The points at CTS are somewhat compressed.
This means that a ratingdifference of 700 points OTB = 500 points at CTS.
But that is when you compare the level at CTS with the level OTB.
This isn't reciprocal.

If my rating at CTS improves to 1900, I don't have the level of 2400+ OTB of the masters at CTS. Maybe I have equal tactical skills by then, but I miss for instance their positional- and endgame knowledge.
Now I have to make an assumption.
Let's assume that the ratingprogress depends for 30% on tactical skills.
This means that every 100 points CTS transfer to ca. 30 points OTB.
Given the fact that ratings are compressed at CTS with a factor 500:700 (see above) leads to 100 points CTS = 42 points OTB.

It is not unusual for a rating OTB to wobble +/- 60 points.
A progress of only 42 points lies well within the usual bandwidth.
For a prove I should say that a ratingprogress of 100 points OTB is convincing enough.
This means 238 points improvement at CTS.
To reach that I have to solve about 100,000 problems at CTS.
That will take another 8 months to complete.

So:
100,000 probs = 10 months = 240 points at CTS = 100 points OTB.

Since 13 yo youngsters tend to kick my butt by tactical means and not by sophisticated positional play nor endgame skills, I hope that the attribution to the rating by tactical skills of 30% is underestimated. At least below 2000.

For the final conclusion you have to be patient.
If CTS is the holy grail, I don't expect many followers to go for it.
But the arithmatic was fun.

CTS
circle 0: 1470
circle 1: 1500
circle 2: 1520
circle 3: 25,000 /70,000
Highest rating 1567

5 comments:

  1. The lower the rating, the higher is the proportion of tactics. I would say that around 1600 tactics is more than 80% of the business, at 2000 it still may be 50%. But I really don't know - just my estimation.

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  2. Is that 25,000 OF 70,000 total problems?! If so, holy crap. How many have you been doing a day?

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  3. PMD, that is correct. While you were pestering trouts Mouse and I did some homework. That means 400 problems a day. We found that it is an idiot idea to try to do multi movers if you can't even do one movers a tempo. The problems at CTS are simple and adapt to your strength. The time constraints make that you are only rewarded for patterns you produce a tempo.

    Try it your self: play against a computer a tempo. Even when the level is one ply deep you will score only 50% or less. So all this positional play and thoughtprocesses is really nonsense AT OUR LEVEL. First learn to do one movers correct a tempo.

    In The Netherlands an adult looks about three hours per day television. We have 33 TV-stations and the quality is such that doing chessproblems is far more entertaining.

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  4. Now that winter approaches (it is snowing right now), the trout can breathe a sigh of relief as I put up my rod and hunker down to my chess study. I don't have to worry about T.V. either because I haven't received a signal or had cable in over seven years. I have a T.V. set but I use it to watch movies only.

    However, I think if I lived in the Netherlands I would probably be so distracted with the Amsterdam "coffee houses" that I don't think I'd ever get anything done ;)

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  5. PMD, I'm proud that our coffeehouses are famous even in the US. I don't see any reason why softdrugs shouldn't be legalized. It is far less harmful than drinking a beer. I lived for 32 years in Amsterdam and about 6 years ago I tried some softdrugs. Just for the experiment. But you know what, softdrugs make that you lose control over your mind. Since I don't like that, I fell asleep everytime I tried it. So I'll stick with beer. . .

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