Here's my initial opinion: Have the rating cap if neccesary however make it possible to apply to reach 2400+ e.g. by allowing your games to be scrutinised by staff/computer etc. Cheaters who apply would be caught out immediately, genuine players could surpass the 2400 mark. Payment should be about the features you receive rather than them being additional in order to improve your rating.Reading previous comments it seems there are very few players above 2400 so there wouldnt be much additional workload.
Major Proposed Change: Ratings Cap Above 2400 for Unverified Players
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An artificial rating cap will lead to a deflation of rating points. This will also affect premium players. Although they it may be possible for them to achieve ratings of greater than 2400 it will be much harder for them to achieve.
Wow! I wasn't expecting my idea to get this much attention.
The simplest way to do this would be to grab stats for 2300+ players in tactics trainer, and when someone hits 2400 run them through a set of problems. It would be easy to use elementary statistics to compare the results and see if there is a sharp difference. Those people go on the short-list for investigation.
There are still many variables which make it too difficult to fully automate this process, but if you can cut down on the number of members to be investigated that's still going to save a bundle of time and money.
blake presumably you haven't read the full thread, as the following explanation has already been given several times. since this policy would be affecting the ratings of (example: online chess) about 100 people in a pool of 280 000, it would not have a meausrable deflationary effect.
also, as we've said, if the rating pool deflates, we monitor that, and we can nudge it up. similarly when it inflates, we can nudge it down. so that's not a source of concern for anyone.
May 19, 2011
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#186
again, thank you all for your input. let me clarify a few points:
1. we know how many people this will affect in each rating pool.
2. we know bullet is inflated, and we're working on figuring out how to fix that (either a one-time 200 point CHOP or slower deflation). the cap doesn't make sense for the current bullet pool.
3. we care TREMENDOUSLY about Chess.com and every member (well, not about cheaters). we are working this out to try and address all angles, needs, and ideas. we can't please everyone, but we're trying :) if we didn't care we'd just let the cheating go on and not go through all of this turmoil.
4. this idea is on hold until we can figure out the bullet rating pool and how to address the extremely small number of 2400+ players who are not titled and cannot afford a membership. (ideas include: personal evaluation, help them find a way to earn $29 (if they are 2400+ they could become a coach and earn the $? http://www.chess.com/coaches , or write an article and get paid, or some other kind of service to the website to earn a 1 year gold membership, or get photocopy of ID along with OTB rating even if it isn't "titled"). the point is there needs to be a barrier of SOME kind.
5. we are also working toward being able to detect cheating earlier and have found some promising ideas.
6. noted that our graphs don't reflect the same data as the list (bug entered into the sytem to be fixed - thanks guys!)
anyway, thank you all for your helpful feedback!
@erik: Not that I'm anywhere near the rating in question (2400), but I am not even a member of any chess organization (none exist in my area), and am extremely unlikely to ever have an official rating of any kind. So I would never be able to prove by external means that I'm legit. I am probably not alone in this situation.
TheMouse wrote:
TheMouse wrote:
If the ratings were kept as they are now, but with the restriction that all ratings over 2400 are viewed as 2400 by basic members, there would be no deflationary problem.
Did you consider this suggestion? It would do the same job as a rating cap, but without the drawbacks.
...um.
RainbowRising wrote:
TheMouse wrote:
TheMouse wrote:
If the ratings were kept as they are now, but with the restriction that all ratings over 2400 are viewed as 2400 by basic members, there would be no deflationary problem.
Did you consider this suggestion? It would do the same job as a rating cap, but without the drawbacks.
umm, what?
Mouse's saying that you would need to pay to see people's real ratings.
dpruess wrote:
blake presumably you haven't read the full thread, as the following explanation has already been given several times. since this policy would be affecting the ratings of (example: online chess) about 100 people in a pool of 280 000, it would not have a meausrable deflationary effect.
also, as we've said, if the rating pool deflates, we monitor that, and we can nudge it up. similarly when it inflates, we can nudge it down. so that's not a source of concern for anyone.
If you detonated a 10 megaton bomb in the Pacific Ocean it wouldn't have a measurable effect, but that would be little consolation to anyone at ground zero. The further one's rating is from 2400 the less would be the ripple effect, but at the rarefied atmosphere of 2400+ it probably would have a measurable effect. Certainly it would have a measurable effect on any individual (whose strenght is 2400) who has to play a 2700 strength player capped at 2400. It will be tougher for premium members to break the 2400 barier.
I like the "show me some ID and your rating" idea. Wouldn't work for guys like me, of course, but it should work for a lot of people.
May 19, 2011
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#192
Bumping for bookmark purposes;
I think this change is a terrific initiative, capping at 2400 chess.com unless master grade which would indicate 2000+ otb for the introductory titles candidate / national.
This will increase the credibility of chess.com and net chess generally.
Maybe in future it will be applied to all here.
>:)
erik wrote:
3. we care TREMENDOUSLY about Chess.com and every member (well, not about cheaters). we are working this out to try and address all angles, needs, and ideas. we can't please everyone, but we're trying :) if we didn't care we'd just let the cheating go on and not go through all of this turmoil.
May I ask a very simple question? You care tremendously about cheating, but I know one example of a player who has been cheating here for two years. Obvious cheating, Rybka for each and every move. Of course, high rating, always around the top 10 players. For two years, I repeat. He is premium member, so the measure discussed here does not affect him in any way.
Can you explain the paradox?
May 19, 2011
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#194
RoseQueen1985 wrote:
^ lol, my greeter is a 1300 who is going 15 moves deep in theory in the two knights. I finally broke out of book and he is playing VERY strongly.
Actually, you are still in database (in Game Explorer). Just check the Explore option on the game.
No - they are comparable to the skills of other bullet players rated 2500 on chess.com
I wish this wasn't true. :P My goal was to hit 2500, but now I can't get there. I guess people will quit after getting to 2400. But then again, it is hard to get there. I'm far... very far. :) I think that if you play like 1000+ games, you should be able to go as high as the sky.
May 19, 2011
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#199
ReasonableDoubt wrote:
How will it "increase the credibility of chess.com" to say that if you don't give them money you can't be accurately rated if you're a strong but untitled player?
Regrettably, I am not aware of a single example. Please reference your post.
>:)
I think the 2400 rating cap for non-members is a great idea. In fact, I say we use the rating cap for non-members, and INFLATE all of the ratings.
That way, the 2400-rated players won't feel special (since more people will reach 2400), and the non-cheaters will be more motivated to remove the rating cap by purchasing a lovely chess.com membership.
Win-win, right? You can thank me later. 
I'm still waiting to hear a single reasonable criticism of why tactics training using only problems that can be solved in seconds is not a reasonable way of detecting cheaters -- or at least identifying people who are extremely likely to be cheaters.
I can see the argument for blitz/bullet ratings, but players who rarely enter the speed world shouldn't be tested in that way. It demands they be good at something they don't practice.
It doesn't require practice. You just can't improve at chess without improving your tactical ability, and as your tactical ability improves, the tactics that leap out at you instantly and require no thought to notice (because they are patterns that you recognize) increases.
I strongly disagree. If you pit a pool of blitz-seasoned experts against a pool of never-blitzed masters, overall the experts will win in a landslide. I say this because I've seen it again and again and again.
True but irrelevant. The question is whether there are people rated 2400 and above who have the tactical ability of players rated 2000 and below for the class of problems that can be solved instantly. We're essentially talking about a pattern recognition test, and the question is whether somebody who plays blitz and is rated 2000 or below knows as many patterns as somebody who doesn't play blitz and is rated 2400 or above. There is definitely some variety, but I think on average, there are statistically significant differences in ability to instantly recognize standard patterns that still hold true regardless of how much blitz or bullet one plays.
Okay, I'll give you a 'maybe' :). Not having seen the tool myself, it might be testing something more intrinsic than pure blitz skill and perhaps it is applicable.