Stats ???

[old409]

   I have some questions and I hope they don't get me laughed off the site. I'm just starting to play chess . I'm to the point where I know the pieces and how they move. My tatics and strategy are lacking, that's why I come on here and play through the problems. Now here is my question(s). I don't know how to interpret the stats page. Could somebody please run through the different stats and tell me what each stands for?

[richard]

Hi old409,

I think you're a silver member so I'll describe the stats page from the premium members point of view.

The first text display indicates that you haven't done any problems in standard mode yet.

Stats for standard
Rating: 1500 (RD: 0)
Active Rank: Not Active/479
Problems Done: 0
Percentage correct: n/a

The next is your blitz problem stats:
Stats for blitz
Rating: 953.4 (RD: 34.7) (Best Active Rating: 976 Worst Active Rating: 873)
Active Rank: 488/488 ( Better than:0% Best Active: 314 Worst Active: 489)
Problems Done: 493 (Correct: 260 Failed: 233)
Percentage correct: 52.74%

Rating is obviously your current rating, RD is a technical term from the glicko rating system and measures how much variability there is in your rating, another way of putting it is that it is a measure of how reliable your rating is.  The lower the number the more reliable (or less variability) there is in your rating, RD goes down as you do more problems and goes up over periods of time when you are not doing problems. The best and worst rating should be obvious, they are you best ever and worst ever ratings (while you are active - active is defined as having an RD < 80).

Active rank is a measure of where you are amongst all other active problem solvers, unfortunately you are current last (488 out of 488 users currently active for blitz). You are currently better than 0% of the active blitz users, this percentile value gives an indication of where sit on the spectrum of users. The best active and worst active show your best and worst rank during the time you have been an active user.

Problems done is the number of blitz problems you have done. How many you got right and wrong are also shown along with the % of all problems you get right (i.e. an accuracy percentage).

The next display is the calendar view which shows how many problems you have done for each done of the month and the % accuracy you achieved on that day.  At the top of month you see your monthly number of problems and your % accuracy for the month.  You can click back to see performance for previous months.

Below the calendar view is your problem history, as a silver member you can see up to 10000 problems here. The columns in the table are:
   
#  : The index into your history 1 = most recent, 2 = second most recent etc.

Time : The time you did the problem, this should be in the same timezone as your computer is currently configured.
   
ProblemId : The unique ID of the problem you did.
   
Rating: Rating of the problem before it was given to you.
   
Type: The type or problem set of the problem, for non-premium users this is either blitz or standard, for premium users this may be one of the other extended problem sets, e.g. Mate in 1 or it may be the name of a custom problem set you have created.
   
Av Secs: The average length of time people took to solve the problem (only account for successful solutions).
   
Seconds: The length of time you took to solve the problem.
   
After First: The number of seconds you took after the first move, this is used in blitz mode to punish users who don't understand the problem before doing their first move and try to solve the problem incrementally.  Seconds used after the first move are punished twice as much as seconds used before the first move.
   
User Rating: Your rating after completing the problem (and the rating increase/decrease you received)

The blitz/standard rating graphs are the next item in the stats page and they show how your rating has fluctuated over time (rating on y-axis, time on x-axis). As a silver premium user this shows up to your last 10000 attempts (free users get to see their last 1000).

The problem rating distribution is a histogram that shows the number of problems you were given at particular rating ranges, note that the rating on x-axis is the centre of the reach, if you see a bar labelled 1030 with 200 problems above it , that doesn't mean you received 200 problems rated 1030 but that you received 200 problems around 1030.

The rated tactical motif performance shows your performance on a per tactical motif basis the columns of this table are:
Name: The tactical motif
Av Rating (Blitz/Std): The average rating of problems you did with the current motif (for blitz and standard)
Correct: How many you problems you did and how many you got right.
Accuracy: % of problems you got correct with the current tag.
Blitz Perf & Std Perf: These columns indicates your relative performance against this type of tactical motif, taking into account the rating of the problems you came up against, for example you might have a rating of 1400 but against say Pins your performance rating may be 1600 because you are better at seeing these than other problems. This is calculated by a formula (suggested by drahaickfm) used in tournaments to estimate your performance during a tournment based on the strength of the people you played and how well you did against them.

There is one final table that isn't shown in your stats as you haven't done any extended problem set or custom problem set problems yet.  It gives you per problem set performance data for the non-rated (extended and custom) problem sets.

I hope this makes things a bit clearer for you.

Regards,
Richard.

[newlook]

old409, you might want to use Standard mode instead of Blitz. From your stats, you are taking as much time as you need (which is a good idea, I think). Blitz will penalize you for taking a long time; Standard won't.

[richard]

old409: Newlook has a good suggestion, early on as your are learning the basics you probably don't need the extra time pressure placed on you by blitz.

I think reading some material on the different tactical motifs might also be useful.
I'm in the process of putting together a description of the different tactical motifs with visual examples of each but there is still a bit of work to be done before that is releasable.  In the mean time you might like to give the following site a visit:
http://www.chesstactics.org/

It's a great description of what you need to be looking for on the board and should make the problems here a bit easier for you.

Regards,
Richard.

[newlook]

The chesstactics.org online book is on the verbose side. I usually look at Wikipedia's section on tactics for quick reference.

[old409]

      Thank you for the much needed information. I'm new at chess and I'm amazed by the game. On one hand it seems so basic and simple and on the other so very complicated. I am new at this, although I'm 65 yrs. old.I have a bad back and neck and can't sleep some nights. I was playing a word game one early morning and there was an ad for chess, so, I gave it a try and was hooked.

       I've been reading the Seirawan books and have only played about 15 real games with my grandson. At first he could beat me easily, now I can take him easily. But, neither of us are very good. My grandaughter's boyfriend is a decent player and he has been giving me some lessons as we play. I have some things I have to get finished this Summer but I'm looking foreward to working on my game this Fall and Winter. Maybe then I can get myself up off the bottom of the rankings .

     This is a great site and I really believe it will help me develop. Thank you all for the help.

[angrypirate]

Hi Sir,

Welcome to the addiction!!!

I just wanted to recommend another site to be used in conjunction with this one:

www.chessclub.com

For a nominal fee (i think its about $5.00 US a month now) you have access to so many things, including playing games against other people all around the world...tracking a history of your games that you can examine with other players and study, a personal library to keep games of yours or other people's games you wish to study, the ability (day or night) to watch masters, international masters, and even grand masters play games....and various clubs and chat rooms (channels) to chat with folks on all aspects of chess. Also there are a number of reasonably priced instructors who can give you online lessons through their interface. It is a great resource for chess, at a BARGAIN price. There ARE other free places to play chess (like yahoo etc..) but none with as many features and benefits as the ICC (internet chess club / chessclub.com).

If you are serious about improving, the ICC is one of the best places you can go online to practice using the tactics you learn here in real game situations against other humans.

Again, welcome and I hope to see you here soon and on ICC!

[drahacikfm]

Also several hundred instructional videos by Grandmasters, free to ICC members.

[newlook]

I'm not sure of the full range of ICC offerings, but my sense is that most of the playing is live with fast time controls. I have been enjoying the online equivalent of correspondence chess on a Facebook app created by Chess.com. You and your opponent don't have to be online at the same time, but if you both are, you can play several moves in quick succession. More typically, you sign on, make a move, sign off, do other things, and then come back later to see your opponent's response. I like to have four games going at the same time; some people play dozens simultaneously. Players' stats include the average time they take for a move, so you can seek out those who will make several moves a day and avoid games that sit stagnant. Time controls range from 1 day per move to 10 days per move -- which sounds like a really long time, but you may have several games as well as other things to do. You don't have to choose between blitz chess and being stuck at the computer for hours to play a game at standard time controls. Besides Chess.com, correspondence-like sites include RedHotPawn.com and GameKnot.com, and many others. I don't have experience with all of them, but I thought I would throw out the option of this correspondence-like online chess.

[angrypirate]

You can play any time control you want on ICC....There is everything from 1 minute, to plenty of long games...Like a whole league of 45 45, and clubs which specialize in slower time controls...(Like the STC bunch). There are Tournaments for longer games weekly...as well as daily tournaments for medium length games.

Every single day (right now!!) there are 1000-3000 people logged in playing games of all lengths. You should have no problem finding games of any length.

I personally do not play correspondence, and enjoy the "live" aspect of games, as this is the closest thing you can get to a real OTB game, however I believe ICC also has correspondence games available.

[newlook]

Does ICC still use a command line interface? I played FICS years ago (which had more or less the same interface). I had to spend time just to learn the commands, and now I've forgotten most of them. In my opinion, true web interfaces (not just a web console for a command line system) are the way to go.

[angrypirate]

There are two graphical interfaces available (dasher and blitzin) as well as a number of third party interfaces...I think theres even purely JAVA web based ones available....The 'prettiest' one from what I understand and have seen is 'Dasher', which is a small download...You can get  a 7 day trial for free of dasher and ICC....Check it out and see for yourself.