Friday 17 May 2013

Fast, slow, what do you know?

While working on my tactical training, I've come across two sorts scoring systems. The first is to rate your results on the accuracy of your solutions, while the second is to take the speed of your solutions into account. While I can see the merit in the second system, I've always felt that to 'reward' fast solutions also encourages mistakes. The temptation to try the first plausible move can be dangerous, and may prevent you from correctly analysing real game positions.
As a follow up to this, I wondered whether there is a direct correlation between chess strength and solving speed. I suspect there is, but what form this correlation takes was, up until now, a little unclear. But someone was thinking about this topic before me, and has produced a short discussion post on the topic.
Have a look at this post at the AoxomoxoA Wondering blog, where the author uses his own experiences to try and answer the question. I wouldn't say it is a comprehensive answer to the initial question, but it is at least a start.

1 comment:

AoxomoxoA wondering said...

Speed, Time, Rating and Score are related. I was maybe the first thinking/bloging about that, but others did come to similar results. Uri Blass ( a famous computerchess specialist ) did solve non duplicates ( = firsttimers = problems he did not have seen before) with incresing time per problem. If i remember correct he was gaining about 130?? Elopoints per doubeling thinkingtime. Munich (and me ) did raise his Non-times rating at CT to Masterlevel by spending realy much time at each problem.
A friend of mine is rated 16xx and had a Standardraing of 24xx at CT-Standard by thinking 1-2 hours at each problem.
The Standardrating of CT of a problem is much lower than the blitz rating of the same problem; in standardmode the tactician is using much more time for it than in Blitzmode, so the same problem is "easier" in standard-mode .
Empirical Rabbit made intense research about the "k". "k" tells us how many elopoints you gain if you think twice as long. He did analyse chesstournaments with timehandicaps for better players and other examples.

But i dont think stronger players are thinking quicker, i think they know what to look for. This is saving time.