Chess rating system

chess.com is fully awesome, but i don't get how de ratings CHANGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The game is rated when it ends. The anticipated rating change at the start of the game reflects current ratings, but these may and often do change during the course of the game.

Something similar takes place in OTB events. Pairings and expected gain/loss are generally based upon latest published ratings. If a player plays multiple events between rating updates (four times per year in FIDE; monthly for USCF players), these predictions will be off.

As an example, in a recent local tournament I was #2 seed based on published ratings, but when the event was rated, I was #3. One of my opponent's had gone up due to results in an intervening event between the rating publication and our event.

once you play a game in that section it will never come back 1200

can anyone have a rating below zero, that would be crazy.

 NO its because he'd beat the bejesus out of you on the chessboard! lol

You will know about how much you are rated once you

a) get your average opponent rating close to yours

b) get about and even number of wins and losses

example:

Rating

Games

Anyone know the statistical distribution of ratings? I read that 400 points is a standard deviation in ratings, which the article claimed meant that between two players with a 400 pt difference, the higher rated player was 91.1% to win. I am wondering if ratings follow a normal distribution.  if 1200 is average, that would mean that 95% of rated players are below 1984 (1.96x400).  If this isn't how ratings work, could some stat savvy person inform me how ratings are distributed?

 Yep, that's about right!

yay im above average!

lastwarrior,

I have probably come to realize that after playing 250 games at long, I am exactly even, and my rating goes back and forth from 1210 - 1260.  I guess that is a good estimate of my rating ability.  However, my goal is that I can get eventually over 1300, which to me is an above average chess player, if you compare it with the population of all people who know how to play chess.  And because I'm competitive I think I should always establish some sort of goal for myself.

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Well I'm still pretty new to this and my rating has sky rocketed I'm almost in the 1600 the semi-pro range.

 LOL!!!

All the servers do that.

Okay, quick question. I am rated 1852 so far, and just won a game against a new player rated 1200. Only 1 move was made, and then he let his clock run down. My rating did not change. Not even +1. Is this not the same as saying that I had a 100% chance of defeating that player? This seems strange to me, because he might really be a 2500+ player, but rated only 1200 on this site because he has never played any matches on this site before. To make things even stranger, I started this game during my first day on chess.com, when I was also rated 1200, with no previous wins, loses, or draws. Would that not mean that I had a 50-50 chance to win, statistically? I hope that I've explained myself clearly enough. Anyway, can someone tell me why this happens?

My only thought, is that this is a security feature of Chess.com. Because, without this feature, someone could create numerous accounts, and then win against himself over and over again to drive up the rating of one account. So, to counter this, you have set things up so that no one can gain points by defeating new players. I'm not even sure if what I just typed makes sense. Hopefully you all understand me. Can someone please explain?

Also, I'm sorry if this has already been addressed, I didn't have time to read the entire thread before I posted.

It is a simple explanation.

In order for a game to be rated, there must be a minimum number of moves played. Check out the following link.

http://support.chess.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=24

Oh, thanks. I looks like I was over-thinking it a bit.

Edit:

Okay, well in that case, the game shouldn't be counted at all! This game, which has no effect on my rating, is still recorded, and brings down the average rating of my opponents from 1504 to 1454.

Maybe Eric should consider changing Chess.com so that these games are totally removed from the players records, instead of counting them towards some statistics, but not towards others?