Is this Fair Play? (It's not cheating, but... is it ethical?)

that could be counted as cheating idk 

As for aborting games when you get a stronger opponent, I certainly don't like that, but as for your calculation, there is a problem with it.

The problem with your calculation is that you will not be able to win 99/100 of those games at regular basis. You will not be able to do it even for people 400 points lower than yourself. The expected result for 400 point difference is 90% (accounting wins and draws), and if you win 90% you will stay around the same rating. If you are able to win 99 games out of 100 against  opponents only 200 points below you, then you are underrated not overrated.

For instance, I like to play unrated games from time to time with lower rated people than myself (much lower rated than you stated compared to myself). I am perfectly capable of losing such games from time to time. On the other hand, I have won points against people rated near or over 2 000 before as well. 

The rating system was designed by some very good mathematicians and it is tested through the years. It is designed to account for people who plays against lower rated people.  

If you count every one of thoese wins as +1 elo and every lsos as -15 elo then they lost 3 games out of 47 wins. that means they gained 2 elo. that's all. just 2.

I'm not sure I understand your point. In reality, his ELO has gone up 413 points in 14 days.

In reality, also, he does play at about what I would consider 1550-1600 USCF so the rating itself does seem fairly accurate. It is really the path to the rating that I am troubled by.

If 1600 USCF is his real rating, he can probably go to 1 800 if he takes his games seriously. A little bit over 1 600 here is in most cases somewhat weaker than 1 600 USCF. 

Again, we aren't talking about probability of an event occurring, we are talking about the possibility of an event occurring. The original argument given was It's not unethical to play only significantly lower rated players continuously as the rating system prevents manipulation in such cases and no matter who or how you play, it all equals out in the end relative to participants performances in chess. Nowhere has this been established outside of probabilities that someone can't continuously win many games in a row and inflate their ratings while doing so. There is nothing in the mathematical equations of the rating system(s) that will say "well you won 90 games; you must now lose 2". No rating system can prevent extreme performances from occurring, they can only reward based on performances as much or as little as determined appropriate based on the rating formulas. 

All I have to prove is that the rating system can't prevent someone from winning 100/100 games in a row and inflating their rating to refute the argument given, I don't need to prove that it's statistically very probable- it just has to be statistically possible. Unless you can demonstrate it's impossible, then I argue that Glicko rating system does not absolve players from their ethical obligations to play fairly and not abuse the rating system by trying to inflate their ratings from only playing known weaker skilled chess players and trying to "beat the odds" that they can create an extreme win to loss ratio where their ratings go up significantly. I've seen this happen in several other games over the years, so I know not only it's possible, but it also happens fairly regularly- people tend to want to look good at the things they do and "win", and some go to extreme lengths to achieve this, at least perception.

I believe it's unethical to manipulate the rating system to try and artificially inflate it from the premise of playing significantly weaker players only. Whether achieved or not, the act itself shows they are not trying to play fairly. I believe it is possible to create extreme win to loss ratios, and no one here has established it's impossible- low probability doesn't make the action impossible.

-Jordan

The way the rating system works here is, when you join:

- you are seeded at 400, 800, or 1200 based on how you describe your experience level

- you get a starting rating after 5 games

- for the next 20 games or so, wins and losses are "worth" a decreasing amount of points, such that you might be getting or losing 50 points for a win/loss for your sixth game, working its way down to 20-30, and that's when playing opponents with the same rating

- after those first 25 games, your games are rated normally

So for a person to gain 413 points in - was it 90 games? - is not unusual at all.

Sorry, didn't want to quote the whole message.

If a player is 400 points higher rated than his opponents, he would expect to lose 9.09 games/points out of 100 games, if I understand the percentages correctly.  So a person who does go 100 for 100 should be gaining points, as he has significantly outperformed expectations.

I don't get how that should be considered gaming the system.

One other thing, again I might be wrong, is that Chess.com will only let you play rated games against people outside +- 400 points of your rating in tournaments.  So again, I think OP's friend is probably an AH, but not necessarily violating the Fair Play rules.

The most interesting question is: how anyone can believe that this is a reasonable strategy? Very weird.

Is the nature of the Elo-system this confusing and mysterious? Well yeah, it probably is.

Yeah aborting even more than once is frowned upon.

You know, I think you should make your friend an official chess.com friend.  Not so that we can look him up and spam him with hate mail or anything....

Nothing is absolutely impossible, of course, I agree that one could play people with 400 less rating and win 100/100 games (the same for 200 less rating is still possible, but much less probable, as winning even 10 games in a row against such opponent is far less than 50%).

But by that logic I (or anyone else in same situation for that matter) should be punished because I had a good streak and went up around 100 points at one time while playing people of my level. You can have good streaks against your own level as well from time to time. 

And by the way, if I take my own example, I had 8 games against people 2 000+ rated (not accounting one cheater). I have 1 win, 2 losses and the rest are draws. So, I could actually say that playing against much higher rated opponents is the way to go to inflate your rating because, even a draw will earn you like 7-8 points. Of course, I will not say this because I am perfectly aware that the more I would play against such people, the results would be more in line with expected ones.

Actually, there was a real OTB example of player playing only people lower rated than himself. 

Sam Shankland got to I think around 2 740 or something, and he was in a kind of limbo... he was just not high enough to be invited to tournaments where the world's best were playing, and were too high enough for other tournaments, so for quite some time, he only played people lower rated than himself. 

The result was, that he got below 2 700, and on some stream he said that this was to be expected, as you only gain a little bit of points for a win, and you just have to win in order to keep your points, which is not easy.

I have my own example as well. I played until recently almost exclusively very long games. In that pool you rarely get someone over 1 700, and you generally have to wait for quite some time to get someone around your level, if you are 1 600+ rated. My best rating was a bit over 1 700.

By the logic where you can easily inflate your rating by playing weaker opponents, I should have flourished after playing 1 400 - 1 500 rated people, while in reality that is far from the truth. Since 45|45 time control is not a default time control anymore, my rating dropped by 40-50 points or so, and there are even less higher rated people now in that pool. 

So, as a conclusion, good streak is just that, a good streak. Of course it is possible, but it is possible to have a bad streak as well (and bad streak against lower rated people will hurt more point wise). Playing only weaker opponents will not as a rule allow you to inflate your rating.

Raindog "is this fair"

people "yep its fine"

raindog "no its not"

Should have just named the thread "I want to complain about seal clubbing" 

you think those win ratings are bad watch every hikaru stream ever he just goes 250-0 smurfing on noobs then makes a new account and he gets payed for the privilege.   

So as to your ethical question is seal clubbing ok? In this case I would say yes because you can yourself set it so you don't play higher rated players if you don't want to.  In fact some people prefer to play higher rated players and set it the opposite way.  So no you can't manipulate your rating playing this way and its fine because anyone who gets this unbalanced pairing choose to do so in the same menu the other guy did.  Allowing each player to set a tight only same rating low seal clubbing or high challenge is only a boon and freedom to each and every players preference with the only visible downside being those ignorant to the fact they can adjust this setting. Game aborts have their own punishments and is already covered.  If his ELO went up 413 in 2 weeks he was sandbagging or cheating with an engine and it has nothing to do with this strategy. 

You are definitely onto something… I agree 

1600 USCF? That’s about my USCF rating. That means they are probally around 1800 chess.com

Probability is exactly what we're talking about. Anomalies occur, but not just those that involve winning more than expected. So your argument could just as well be that having weaker opponents will lower your rating since it is possible that you will have an improbable losing streak. 

Playing only weak opponents isn't cheating but using an engine is. You need to report it.

Why are aborts even a thing on chess sites? Just play the game and if you have to forfeit one through emergency, its not going to hurt that much compared to the emergency. Introducing the abort function opens up a can of worms.

average accuracy:

GM @Hikaru (3200)                    90.49%
- your friend -                              90.22
GM @DanielNaroditsky (3100)   89.74
GM @GMHess (2700)                  88.16
GM @ChessBrah (3000)               87.75
GM @ChessQueen (2700)            87.38
IM  @GothamChess (2750)          86.93
IM  @DanielRensch (2478)           85.81
IM  @AnnaChess (2100)               81.08

The moment  I crossed 1500, I’ve been playing the 1500+ rated tournaments so I am guaranteed higher rated opponents. 

It’s a better path to improvement.