Chess.com is rigged.

Yeah, some even go so far as to say most of the accounts aren't human, and chess.com changes their names and ratings and blah blah blah. It's really silly.

I have thought long about the OP's attitude, and I have a theory. 

Video games are not an intrinsic game.  A level 1 Pikachu is no match for a level 100 Pikachu, and you get the same performance from a that 100 level Pikachu every game.  You get better Pokemon by just playing long enough.

Chess is an intrinsic game.  No matter how long you play, the pieces are always the same. Magnus Carlsen plays with the same exact pieces as a complete newbie on day one.  The only way to get better is that YOU have to get better.  The game is heavily affected by you, and how much you know about the current position. 

People who are accustom to video games and their mechanics get all offended that chess doesn't work the same way, even if it is technically a video game on chess.com.

And of course, a poor craftsman blames his tools, rather than admitting they are just a bad craftsman.  

I mean its true that Chess.com has done scuzzy stuff for money. It's not that big a leap from "let's advertise chess NFTs to children" to "let's use the same highly successful algorithmic strategy as Facebook and Youtube to boost engagement on our site."
To be clear, I don't think Chess.com is actually doing that. Chess generates its own engagement. But if you treat a website that should be a transparent, open community as a profit-making enterprise (note that nobody has these conspiracy theories about Lichess) you're going to get these conspiracy theories constantly. 

And this is as true in the rest of society as it is on chess dot com.

Yeah, I get the same impression. That it's kids who play a lot of video games and think that leveling up is automatic.

This OP mentions overwatch...

Human vs human games are different. If you suck, then you'll stay bad for as long as you suck. That can be 1 month or 100 years. If you want to improve you have to change the way you play.

I must not understand. You think different players with different levels, openings and play styles make .com a fraud? 

Yes. They have to play the same way every time.

If he beat one 1300 with a trick, then that same trick should work against every 1300 every time.

the chess magician from rigged

I wonder why clustering was referred to as an illusion? It's definitely the case and it's also the case that there are those who like to refer to anything they don't accept as other people's illusion. Psychic experiences, for instance. That's a good example of a division in the way people think.

"It can't happen, therefore it doesn't happen, therefore those who think it happens are deluded" kind of reaction. And they don't realise that they're describing themselves and that they misunderstand the nature of evidence and inference.

The burden of proof is usually on those who claim something controversial to be true. You can't just say a unicorn exists and tell people to find proof that it doesn't. This is why even in science we always use the most straightforward explanation first unless it is disproved - in this case the OP is simply bad in chess.

The most straightforward explanation turns out to be psychic stuff is real, though, so it is scientific. Otherwise one would have to explain incredible series of coincidence which defy all rationality. Ultimately, those who believe it impossible ALWAYS end up putting it down to wishful thinking or some kind of cognitive bias because to them, other people being mad is always preferable to having their beliefs overturned.

Transferring that to this question about chess, you seem to be right. I haven't noticed any kind of conspiracy .... just a few rather strange runs of similarities and then a change to another type.

You can compare it with the argument against determinism. The most straightforward explanation for quantum phenomena is that randomness is real, rather than it being some elaborate hoax, designed for who knows what purpose by a mischievous universe. Therefore, randomness is accepted as scientifically correct. Psychic stuff isn't accepted because the tests are always run by people who don't know how to design a proper experiment. It would take years and cost a fortune to design proper experiments for psychic phenomena, that are capable of clocking it but also capable of allowing it to happen. That last factor is the problem. I once costed it, probably 15 years ago and the cost then ran into millions of £ sterling and a minimum of three years to set up the experiment, to train the observers and to carry it out.

One thing that is so great about chess is that it is a pure information game. There is no luck factor or rigging the game in one person's favor. If you analyze your games you will see that your opponents are playing far from perfectly. Chess.com has a pretty good cheating detection system, and if someone is literally playing perfectly every game they will be exposed eventually.

I have a sneaky feeling that you're being deliberately provocative there. This was discussed extensively in another thread and the conclusion, which cannot be refuted, was that chess does not allow full information, because that could only occur if chess were first solved, which itself is impossible. And that luck occurs in the game of chess because luck occurs in real life and chess cannot be seperated from real life!

I don't know.....sometimes I feel like "That guy played a perfect game and crushed me. He's rated 100 points lower than me....what's going on? Is he cheating?"

Then I review the game and see that his accuracy was maybe 70% and he made 4 mistakes and 2 blunders....but still didn't play quite as badly as I did. 

I think the people who created and manage this site understand that their success depends on giving chess players an honest experience, so that's what I believe they do. 

These are very simple and very big blunders which cost the game.

The game was easy for Black simply because white played all the wrong moves.

Damn too much words for me

This isn't fifa bro.. The better chess player will win

What I don't understand in the OP's conspiracy theory is basically everything. What is the connection between chess.com "rigging" the matchmaking and chess.com getting more money?

Game review will often change your mind about a game/player. I've been crushed, and the review showed I simply played bad. Works the other way too.

If you think the player cheated you can always report them, which is as far as you need to go. 

There's no reason to check if players are cheating. the obvious ones -- at least -- will be caught by the system. In fact, if you look in my games, you will find someone was very recently banned. Their page will be a prime example of an obvious cheater. all wins, all accuracy ratings of 96 or higher... They'd obviously never heard of anti-cheating protocol. 

The less obvious ones won't be visible to you, so there's no point in checking. 

In any case, there's not much of a gain to concerning yourself with it. It's not costing you money, just play chess, analyze your games and enjoy yourself. 

People defending the platform is just ridiculous. In a fair matchmaking situation streaks would be far less often. Usually you do climb until you reach a point where you've reached your skill level. Then it would be 50/50. Some streaks occur naturally, I won't deny that. But here it's quite obviously. I've started to counter odd and new openings by playing weird counters as well. You'll just get a feeling for it. You'll win against a few people that constantly blunder and make easy mistakes and all of a sudden people outplay you within a rating of 50? That' just pure nonsense. 

So why would a platform like chess.com push you to buy their sub? 

It's quite simple. 

There's data about your openings and how you perform against others. Statistically you'll have a better winrate on some openings. So whenever you have a winning streak and "think" you got better, the algorithm pairs you with (for yourself) new and harder openings. So the chances are higher, that you'll lose to these. It pushes you to get the feeling of "damn I need to study more to get better, maybe I should buy the sub and analyze all of my games".  Hence you're more likely to be a subscriber in the future which means a higher income for this site.

It's narrow minded to think that a platform like this doesn't use those algorithms.

Other games do as well collect data to stretch players activity or have odd matchmaking algorithms to get player to buy their stuff, why not chess.com?

Everyone who played games like FIFA before should know that's not a conspiracy theory.

I'm not saying I should be always winning, because yet I make dumb mistakes and am probably where I do belong, but it's just my experience and I know some of the tricks of the gaming industry.

It's all about attention and activity. The more activity, the more success you'll have with your site. 

Funny thing is, whenever I get those easier games, I can blunder like crazy and still win the game.