What up with the new rating categories on the live chess tournaments chess.com?  1200-1599??!!

In what universe is that actually fair?

palabra!

Seems there are not enough players joining. A larger range makes it possible to fill a tournament.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/livechess/live-tournaments3

The site could increase the number of tournaments basic members can join. Depends if live tournaments users are meant to pay for the resources they use.

1200-1600 isn't totally unfair, as 1200 is a "starter" rating so a lot of players who haven't played many games here will have ratings under 1600. Besides, with a rating of 1435 that puts you just about in the middle of the your category what's wrong with that? As for the 1200 - 1300 players they have everything to gain and nothing or very little to lose in "playing up" all or most of the time, It's the +1500 players who have a lot to lose and little and little to gain in "playing down" vs lower-rated opponents. 

However as far as I know almost all class tnmts only have a spread of 200 pts, not 400

well... you are wrong.  straight up yo!   my live rating jumps between 1200 -1400 depending on how much i feel like concentrtaing.  my online rating is low 1400's.  If you look at the online ratings of players with a live rating of 1500+ you will see they are much higher than those who play at the 1200-1300 live ratings... making it a joke. 

I can hold my own becuase i jump around but others who are just starting and have that low rating will just be demolished, then they quit the tournament and that just hurts eveyone involved..

I can hold my own becuase i jump around but others who are just starting and have that low rating will just be demolished, then they quit the tournament and that just hurts eveyone involved..  SATOM  This is your opinion not a fact.