I will try not to be too critical on the players in this list. However, any list consisting of a player's strengths/weaknesses are bound to result in some players getting upset at me. I have only rated players whom I have played with, or that I have seen play on many occasions. Right now this list consists of only players in the United States, mostly around the New England area.
For certain criteria, such as "Tactical Ability" or "Positional Play", I use a + or - system. For instance, if a player's USCF rating is 2100 and his tactical ability is +200, this means his tactical ability is at the 2300 level. In this case, other categories would probably include negative ratings since there is a reason he is 2100 and not 2300.
For some other categories I use a simple 1-10 rating scale. These 1-10 scales are level dependent. For instance a 2600 could have a lower consistency rating than a 2000, but that doesn't mean he is weaker. All it means is that the 2000 player plays at his 2000 level more often than the 2600 player plays at the 2600 level.
Criteria:
- USCF Rating:
- Openings : How well a player knows his openings.
- Tactical Ability :
- Positional Ability :
- Endgame Technique :
- Speed Chess : This includes time pressure situations.
- Consistency :
- Tenacity : How hard they fight in a bad position.
- Overall Aggressiveness :
- Against Strong Players :
- Against Weak Players :
Many categories are correlated or reverse correlated. For instance if a player has a very risky style that gets him lots of wins over better opponents, that same player probably loses a lot of games to lower rateds too. Another example is a player who has a high tenacity rating will probably score lower in the opening rating, since most players learn this skill by getting bad positions out of the opening time after time.
Reason for this song choice:
Most of the players listed here have won many tournaments, and are the champions of chess in the United States.