A question of the rating

Yesterday, I played someone with 1 point more than me, 784. I was utterly outclassed and I wonder if it was wrong to disable the rating function? Having quickly dropped to 707, I now wonder if I might find my true and correct rating in the 500s or below?

No way do I have a chance in games without severe time pressure. Henceforth, I'm focusing on 3 and 5 minute games.

Q: Ratings - always on, always off or sporadically on. How do you guys handle this?

You are new here. Your rating is only based on a few games. (13 at this point.) 

With so few games, your rating is bound to be inaccurate.

If you find yourself usually losing to someone with a rating in the 700's , then what is wrong with letting the rating drift down to where your results are about 50/50?  The rating will eventually bottom out. Then with study and effort, after a few thousand games, your results may improve and you will find your rating improving.

With that and 50 cents, you still can't get a cup of coffee.

Hi kruchris1--just think of rated play as entering a tournament and unrated as a casual pickup game.  It's fine to mix the two, though rated games can of course be more humbling, nerve-wracking, and less prone to experimentation.  Ratings on here aren't necessarily accurate, nor relevant for much of anything, so take the site with a grain of salt and consider a local USCF event to find out your true ability.  I'm around 2200 and usually play rated on here with unrated against Chessmaster on a high level.  That way there's no concern when it inevitably thumps me.

its a hard auld station alright

its tough.

Obviously, if he puts hours of effort into studying and analyzing each game, it will take fewer games. But I don't think that just playing 20 to 30 games will bring very many people that kind of improvement.

That's just not true. Look at the ratings distribution for blitz (which is what we're talking about here).  It looks like almost a third of players fall at or below 850-950.  That would not be true if most totally new players played better than 900 (unless playing here somehow makes people worse.)

Cheers - I'll look into improving by playing slower games. Being the wrong side of 40, I felt that Blitz might be my niche...

My usual game ends in less than 15 moves, as I'm far outclassed by then, most of the time and lost all initiative :(

Am trying to learn the basics and discovered GM Igor Smirnov's videos on Youtube.

Thanks for your words of wisdom. It's been a reality check and "letting the rating drift down" makes sense. Although it hurts a little bit, seeing oneself outclassed in a dramatic fashion...

How do I handle it ? Its been quite a journey.

Chess.com uses the Glicko rating system which attempts to very quickly find your true rating range.  In the beginning your rating will have many points added or subtracted for each game.  After 50 or 100 games it settles down.  You can read more in any of these threads:

http://www.chess.com/forum/search?keyword=Glicko+RD