I recently answered a post regarding cheating and it opened up a question I have.  Areratings that important that a 1200 rating will only play to their own level for fear of losing and rating drops. Beat up the kids in the candy store, but not in the school yard. You learn from those who are better... RATINGS mean NOTHING...IMPROVEMENT is everything.

i agree 100% .......but i only just joined and i finding it hard to get a game with any one over 1300.....i put the seeks out but no replay

Some people like bringing their ratings up.  It's not all that important to me, but I also don't think that improvement is the most important thing.  Unless one plans to make chess a profession, having fun should top the list of priorities.  For some people this means improving.  For others it means playing games they're likely to win.  For others it means watching their ratings rise.  I like to balance the three.  I play opponents stronger than I am.  I play opponents weaker than I am.  I play opponents of my approximate ability.  Nobody wants to lose every game.  Few people want to win every game.  Everyone likes having fun.  

hay i played u youmaycallmeGOD hahahaha. But i know what you mean. This has been brought up before my friends. The truth is players of lower ratings dont on average play as well as the higher ones, and the higher the difference to less fun it is for the higher players. ratings unfortunatly do matter to some extent because they give refference to your level of skill. Try not to play anyone more then 200 points higher to start with ok just build it up gradually. New players rating are hard to to track because they go up fast and  go down fast. Not to mention that u dont know if they are masters or beginners.So if a master player who is starting is 1200 and they play say someone of 1800 and win, then the 1800 could expect to lose upto 80 points just like that which is somewhat unfair on them since it might have taken time to get back the points again....

never thort of thing thimg like that befor and thay are all fine points.i play for selfimprovement

chiefster> RATINGS mean NOTHING...IMPROVEMENT is everything.

Hmm... while there are exceptions, established ratings are fairly indicative of how well you play. And some people play chess for fun rather than improvement. :)

Some of us have aspirations of making it into the professional chess world, even if only the bottom end.  Being able to track your intellectual progress from study, books and practice is definitely valuable and gratifying, as it is a way of self-validation that you haven't wasted time studying, that you truly let some of those studies sink in.  The rating is simply a means of tracking said progress.

For me personally, I strive to play people at or above my level when given the choice, however if you play a lot of tournaments here, you'll find you're matched up with quite a variety of different skill levels.

As one other post said above, it's very difficult to know where a 1200 rated player will end up, so there's little value in playing them at higher levels, as you either gain a fragment of points (and were bored in the process of obtaining them), or you surprisingly have a very difficult match on your hands and take an abnormal hit against your rating you've potentially worked so hard to maintain if you lose.

youmaycallmeGOD wrote: i agree 100% .......but i only just joined and i finding it hard to get a game with any one over 1300.....i put the seeks out but no replay

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 I agree also, and you can play me any time you want youmaycallmeGOD.

My rating matters to me because it is the best indication I have of how good I am and wether or not I am improving. Learning by being beaten by strong players is trial and error and can be very tedious, time-consuming and discouraging. On the other hand - beating low rated players is not very challenging or even satisfying. I try to play people who are somewhat close to my own rating - within 150 or so points above or below. I believe I learn more from books and study than from playing - but they go hand in hand. My rating has improved slowly but steadily. I play (and strive to improve) for fun. And I'm the best chess player at my workplace... (since Bruce got fired)

likesforests wrote:

chiefster> RATINGS mean NOTHING...IMPROVEMENT is everything.

Hmm... while there are exceptions, established ratings are fairly indicative of how well you play. And some people play chess for fun rather than improvement. :)

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I agree to you. It's not very important, the rating, but though something to look at. When you're always 1300, and then 950, then there is something, I think.

*(And I talk out of experience...)

For me, my rating doesn't mean much. That is more because increasing my rating is 3rd in priority to me (1) To somehow make a competitive and fun game for both me and my opponent, regardless of their rating 2) to learn something). I completely understand that ratings are very important to some, but I choose to gauge my progress in other ways.