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What kind of FIDE ratings would the speed chess players have?

posted 9 years ago by jgroub
5 replies | jump to latest

I'm curious about the group of speed chess players they show. It seems like there's half a dozen of them, all in Washington Square Park. I haven't been there for awhile, but are there really that many there? Can they all support themselves playing chess for money? And are they really just playing for drug money? Or is it for regular money, meaning that they can actually make some kind of a living off of it?

Do these speed chess guys ever get rated/ranked? How well do you think they would do at regular chess? I know that they are almost like completely different games (speed vs. regular chess), but there has to be an incredible amount of skill in playing speed chess, too, right? And don't you think that most of that would transfer over into regular chess?

I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

[–] wordsatplaytoday 9 years ago

Good questions. I dunno since I'm not an expert on this.

Though they must not be very good because that's all they are playing instead of becoming world famous chess players on the circuit.
If those speed chess players are as good as they think they are, then why don't they try and become pro players?

[–] jgroub 8 years ago

Because it's a different kinda game. First of all, there isn't time for the deep consideration, planning 4 or 5 moves ahead that you get with "slow" chess. So, considering that you play literally hundreds more speed chess games than "slow" chess, you start to see patterns in the positions of the pieces and take advantage of that.

I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

[–] spookyrat1 8 years ago

... but there has to be an incredible amount of skill in playing speed chess ...

I don't recall it being mentioned, but I'd be interested to know how much time they put on their clocks. They all seemed to be moving so fast, they didn't actually appear to need the clocks anyway.🐭

[–] jgroub 8 years ago

It's usually just two minutes each, although it can be five each.

I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

[–] spookyrat1 8 years ago

Yes, I wouldn't have thought it was much more than 2 minutes.