Russian Chess Words Trivia Question

What are the words in Russian chess jargon for “Rated” and also the equivalent of “Patzer” and/or “Woodpusher”?

(Contemplating my signature change at end-of-month… :wink: )

The Russian term for “rating” is рейтинг – a straight transliteration, pronounced the same. If you’re talking about a game, your closest equivalent might be турнирная партия (“tournament game”) or матчевая партия (“match game”), as opposed to a лёгкая партия (“light game” – played for fun). If you’re talking about a player, maybe с рейтингом (“with rating”) or без рейтинга (“without rating”). (Actually, рейтинг being a loan word, I’m not 100 percent sure it would even be inflected – it might be simply с рейтинг and без рейтинг. A native speaker would know better.)

Since Russian, like English, borrows a number of chess terms from German, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that the Russian equivalent of “patzer” was пацер.

I was able to find the Spanish equivalent, however, which is pichón (“sweetheart” or “pigeon”). And the French term is mazette (comparable to “duffer”).

Thank you for the information! :wink:

It looks like the inflected form с рейтингом is used – see this page as an example.

I honestly do not recall ever hearing word “пацер” while leaving in Russia. I also found no mentioning of it in the Dal’s dictionary.

Another word : amature → “любитель” have been used to characterise someone not that good in chess.
Like “одноглазый любитель” should ring some bells for those who ever read “Twelve chairs”.

In other words : любитель is someone who loves the game, without necessary being good at it.
In modern Russian to can be used to carry negative meaning - weak player, but also positive one, like someone who cares about the game, visits tournaments, sponsors tournaments, chess teams etc.

I asked a Russian about the word for “Patzer”, and received the following response:

which I believe translates roughly to:

With thanks to all who contributed… now I have edited my signature. :smiley:

Has Russian, like English, borrowed the terms “zugzwang” and “zwischenzug”?

Bill Smythe

“Zugzwang,” yes (цугцванг).