Major Proposed Change: Ratings Cap Above 2400 for Unverified Players

Even though I'm a premium member, I don't like the idea of capping non-premium members at 2400. Membership status here doesn't have anything to do with anyone's playing strength or rating. Cap everyone, or cap no one. If there is going to be a cap at 2400 it's time to stop using the bogus rating system here that is hyper-inflated compared to USCF ratings, and start using the USCF or FIDE rating system instead - even though that would result in a drastic drop in the rating of yours truly :(

exactly

Fezzik, you have been displaying an annoying habit of trying to provoke and attack people without caring about properly and thoroughly checking your facts.

As of today, I count 528 players with an Online Chess rating >2400.

Thus, I confirm David's carefully rounded-up number.

Using a rating cap almost equates to a declaration that CC players cannot be strong without being strong OTB as well. But there have always been ICCF grandmasters ranked well above their OTB ratings (eg. Jonathan Berry, who never made IM) since pre-competent-program times when cheating simply wasn't possible (except through consultation I suppose, but when you're one of a small group of leading-edge theorists, who do you ask for help? And who would admit they wanted help?).

But I still fall back on the reason I'm here: I want to play against solid opposition, regardless of what number is beside their names. If the proposed anti-cheating methods don't hinder my play here, I will remain a chess.com user. And hey, when the UI gets cleaned up, I'll be a paying chess.com user.

you'd have to compare those numbers to percentages of players/games in each catergory right?  also, i think it's worth considering that it is far easier to cheat at CC than the others.

This is nothing, there are sub 1800 players here rated over 2700, 2800 !  

Yes and for exactly that reason you cannot blame people for going over 2400 - the opposition they face in order to reach that level consists of class C players.

Yes, C players using a very strong engine ! 

I believe the ratings graph includes many players already banned. I think that includes the 1 or 2 that went over 3000 as well as all those who broke 2900 but am not certain. I believe everyone over 2800 to be using engines too, titled or not..  

To reach 2400 here? I doubt it. All you have to do is win against other class C players, right? Like from what I hear, Fezzik is 1600 there and 2200+ here in bullet. He doesn't play stronger - it's same person, same computer, same openings, same pieces, same chess board; the only difference is that his 1600 opponents are assigned 2200 ratings here.

If a 2600 GM such as Julio Becerra cant maintain a 2800 rating here I do NOT believe any non titled player can either....... paying or not paying . Fezzik is an A class player otb and has been over 2100 OTB so for him to break 2400 doesnt seem suspicious to me. an online rating of +300 compared to one's otb isnt alarming but when it becomes +500 and more its very suspicious/alarming and +1000 and more is a clear/flagrant cheat...... 

The graph and the table are not consistent.  Using the graph, there are approximately 1000 players above 2400.  Using the table, there are approximately 525.

Once upon a time I was an OTB expert. I went from 1200 to 2200 in less than 40 games here, which I think is too fast. Many of my wins were time losses, and my (currently incorrect) average opponent rating couldn't be above 1700. To date I have finished play against 2 (only 2!) strong opponents, one of whom was later kicked off for cheating. I don't think the chess.com rating system is at fault, though I'm no Glicko fan; I think it's the character of the online population. I really should have collided with some tough opponents before now. I finally have, recently, so it seems they don't appear with any frequency until 2200 or 2300. And at this moment I can't tell if this posting argues for or against the 2400 cap :).

I don't like the rating cap. There's got to be a tidier way to address the problem.

I believe the table is more accurate because the graph includes banned players ... 

Another problem that's going to occur is this:

Suppose player X can play chess at a 2600 level (not hugely improbably for an untitled player, especially in bullet chess). Because he/she isn't concerned about ratings (hence no title), player X is content to let his/her rating ride up to 2400 and stay there.

However, suppose player Y, who is a paying titled member with a 2500 rating, plays player X. If player X loses, then player Y's rating will be affected in the same way as if he/she had lost to a 2400 player.

So what would soon happen is you'd have many/most players on either side of the 2400-rating divide that refuse to play each other. People who are legitimately 2200-2400 or so (which is a lot of players) would constantly be getting beaten by the cheater-infested ~2400 pool. And even if the 2200-2400 players paid for memberships, the prejudice against them from the 2400+ crowd would remain. So you'd have a very difficult time improving your rating, for the simple fact that you'd have trouble finding higher-rated opponents willing to play you.

Therefore, it seems to me that you wouldn't have solved anything by using a rating cap, just moved the problem a couple hundred points lower on your graph, where you'd be irritating more members than before - both paying and non-paying.

My average opponent rating was in the 1600's, then disappeared for a while, then reappeared as 2100. Overall the 1600-ish number is correct. The 2100 can only be correct if it reflects a recent time window.

I drew the kicked-off player as Black, won as White. The first game left me suspicious because he never seemed to have a 'plan', but the second was puzzling because no competent program should wander into an opening line that's known to be weak. So I wasn't fully convinced there was a computer involved.

I think it's a little sloppy that a graph and a table representing thew same thing are so different, this should be fixed....

I think what the cap will achieve is that the real best players will top the rating lists here. Maybe that encourages OTB titled players to join, I don't know.

But the titled players under 2400 will still remain hidden below the cap. I don't know whether or not I like this.....

Do you consider this only true for highly rated players here? I'm ~700 point higher in correspondence here than my OTB rating. While I can point to a number of contributing factors for that, cheating isn't one of them