I'm not sure if this is a chess.com glitch or if it's the way it should be, so let's consider this a generic chess question for now:

 

I recently concluded a game with a new (unrated) player. Before starting, I had a total of four games, and a rating of 1353. After the game, I'm still 1353 and he was still 1200.

 

I really don't care that much about the ratings that much, unless I plan to enter a tournament at some time, but I'm wondering if this is right. Even on a first game, shouldn't your rating change? Or is it because the opponent is unrated that neither rating changed?

If this isn't correct, then I suppose I should turn this into a bug report

Was it an unrated game?  I think if it was a rated game your ratings should have changed.  Ratings never change in an unrated game; however.

If you're refering to your most recent game, where your opponent timed out after 1 move, it doesn't count. I think something like 4 moves have to be played in order for a timeout win to count towards ratings.

 

--Fromper 

Fromper is correct.  four moves per player is needed to count towards a rating change. 

No, it wasn't a timed out game after 2 moves. It was a game where I won by checkmate - but I think I now understand

 

Next to my opponent's name in the Seek list, there was "(unrated) " - I thought that meant that my opponent was unrated. Did I misunderstand, then - does it, instead, mean that the game will not be rated?

 

Thanks for helping to clarify. 

The "unrated" next to the name means that the game is unrated. Every player has a rating, even if they haven't played a rated game. It just starts at 1200.

 

--Fromper