Hey, just a quick head's up that will make online chess life a lot easier for a lot of people.

You know how you can go to your settings and select the "rating spread" of players you will challenge and allow to be challenged?

There's many who evidently don't know this feature exists or how to use it.

So what happens is, the system will set the match and then the higher rated player looks and sees there's not many points to win playing the lower rated player and just waits and waits and waits and finally aborts the game.

This is irritating.

No matter what someone's current rating is, their time is just as valuable as someone else's if not more.

The Solution:

If you "can't be bothered" to play someone with a lower rating than you, that's your choice and it's great...

simply go to your ratings setting and set the settings to the ratings that you will play and that you do like.

This way, the system won't waste your time or the other person's time with a game of lower rated players because you have removed that option from being a possibility in the system.

Thank you for your kind consideration of what I believe to be an important issue in that it will save people time.

In before, "I don't care, I'm not going to correct mine, You're stupid, I'm negative, You think you're Tal, the world's out to get you, proclamation from on high, etc."

The world is out to get you, isn't it?

No. Not if it knows what's good for it. By the way, what are you hoping to accomplish with that wisecrack?

Definitely not polite, relevant or helpful bud. You can do better.

Are you inviting comments this time? or just making another proclamation, from on high?

You trolling again or got the thread confused with your usual fire hydrant?

Thanks.

I'm saying, you make a OK point, why the final sentence?

That's pretty good, for you. Bravo.

p.s. I couldn't help noticing that you didn't answer my question. Is it a secret?

I guess but I sometimes do a game against a higher rated person because I have nothing to lose, If I pull off a win my rating goes up several points, if I lose it will drop like one, and even if I draw I go up.

I'm all for discussion and relevant, polite and helpful comments.

And not the kind of "helpful" where it's like, "Maybe it would help you if you weren't an idiot" or some other excuse to troll.

The plague of commenters who can't offer anything affirming, courteous, helpful or otherwise intelligent seem to have what they think is intelligence confused with just being a jerk.

In my experience, jerks aren't intelligent. It takes true intelligence to make a genuine difference in someone's life with kindness.

Yes, the benefits of playing higher rated players are many.

All I'm asking and suggesting is that we set our settings to play higher rated then if that's all you want to play so that the lower rated ones don't have to sit there and wait for you to abort.

Make sense?

I already tried kindness with you, didn't work. You reap what you sow, Sunshine.

Thanks for that. The final sentence is because I interpreted "the world is out to get you" as implying some sort of paranoia or victim mentality or something. lol. That's not the case with me so I don't think the personal attack attempt is relevant to making sure your rating settings are correct.

You didn't try any kindness with me. "Proclamation from on high" and other insults are defintely not seeds of kindness but clearly feeble attempts at personal attack. And not sure where you're going with "sunshine" but we agree you reap what you sow. The great part is, it's the same for all of us, all across the board. No one is exempt no matter how much they think they are.

I meant your final sentence in the first post of this thread, I think it shows a victim mentality, you're complaining before the first reply.

Nope, just doing the preemptive to make sure anyone who thinks they're being clever by trifling knows it's not the case.

"The worlds most interesting man" lol.....he once played Bobby Fischer blindfolded...

@learn: great suggestion, but I doubt whether many will listen.

learningthemoves, the antagonism you've experienced from a number of people on this thread suggests your approach to communication may not be effective for discussion topics.

Perhaps some prospective opponents are dissuaded not by rating but by annoying personality traits?

In chess, to be accepted as a diva you must either be very strong or an attractive female. Ofer 2.

intersting topic.worth saying. as for the thread !!!!!!!! it seems trying to preempt critics simply goads them. Or maybe the author understands this and is being mischevious,even a troll provocateur. Good work if this is true.