Prominence of Rating

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buttonc

The "best win" rating is more important than your own in many respects.  Your own rate can be contrived by playing lower rated opponents. It might be a good idea to increase the prominence given to the best win.  It could be done as follows:

display the rate against name e.g. buttonc 1590 (1583)

and on your profile instead of:

Current:

1590

Highest:

1681 (3 Aug 2008)

Avg. Opp.:

1421

Best Win:

1583 (    name    )

 thus:

Current:

1590

Highest:

1681 (3 Aug 2008)

Avg. Opp.:

1421

Best Win:

1583 (    name    )

It might encourage players to go for the heavyweights.

Tom

I like your idea, but some best wins are from timed out games which I think should not be displayed because it isn't a true win.  I bet the boys upstairs could fix that.

ozzie_c_cobblepot

The timeouts or resignations where they don't count in the ratings (because they are under 2 moves or whatever) can easily be excluded. My best win is from such a game.

It is not a good idea to exclude all timeouts.

littleman
fzweb wrote:
Tom543 wrote:

I like your idea, but some best wins are from timed out games which I think should not be displayed because it isn't a true win.  I bet the boys upstairs could fix that.


But then what about if someone purposely timesout when they are losing?


 

Well if there already losing then it wont matter to you anyway will it.

I dont count in my mind a timeout as a genuine win in turn based games, but thats my personal concept anyway....Cool

artfizz
buttonc wrote:

.... It might be a good idea to increase the prominence given to the best win.  It could be done as follows:

 

 thus:

Current:

1590

Highest:

1681 (3 Aug 2008)

Avg. Opp.:

1421

Best Win:

1583 (    name    )

It might encourage players to go for the heavyweights.


As the 1583 in focus, I'm not sure I would welcome this level of prominence! I have lined up some heavyweights to give buttonc a trouncing!

Sharukin
rich wrote:

I say include every win, if you won then that's all that counts too me. I don't care how I won I still count it.


It would certainly be a good idea to exclude some wins. Until recently my best win was against a high rated player who was banned. In fact, I only "won" because said player's games were automagically resigned after the ban!

joly

i don't really think i am at a level of chess i should care, but if the goal is to make the ratings reflective and undertandable at a glance, perhaps it could list, say, the 5/10 best wins rather than just the single highest (if this is visually messy, perhaps a link to click on 'best wins' which would expand).

'average opponent' can be misleading. the top player on this site could be kind enough, for my benefit, to play and thrash me a hundred times - his/her average opponent rating would drop massively, but he/she wouldn't be any worse a chess player (unless simply being exposed to my rubbish can rub off by osmosis - not entirely impossible, perhaps we are all lessened by it). so if ppl care about ratings and the overall opponent rating is privileged, top players lose simply by playing the lower rated players (win or lose, we bring that stat down for them).

'highest win' (singular) can also be misleading - my best 'win' is a time out. maybe u take what u can get day to day, but for someone else just trying to quickly assess if i might pose them an interesting chess game, it overinflates and it doesn't really assist.

if it listed the 5/10 best wins, the chance remains somebody might have got a whole collection of great wins simply by timeout, but it becomes a lot less likely than if only one is listed.

meanwhile, timeouts which are less than 2/3 moves simply shouldn't be counted towards anything.

MM78

regarding this time out thing I can see the point if player A is winning and times out, but I have had several opponents who didn't have the manners to hit the resign button but just let their lost position time out.  I know they did this as they were online and moving in other games at the time.  So to me a time out is a win.  I suppose in their minds they think that people look at the loss and say "Oh MM only won on time"...assuming perhaps that people either won't look at the position or not realise it was a lost position.

Joly regarding the average opponent stat, it is true of high rated play lower rated that stat comes down.  But the person's rating still goes up as long as he/she wins.  So if a 2200 plays a 1200 they get one point for a win.  Indeed it's probably easier for a 2200 to mow down 20 x 1300 raters than beat one 2200 and less risky. 

My best win is over 2500, but there are plenty of better players and indeed higher rated players than I who have lower rated best wins.

joly
MM78 wrote:

...

Joly regarding the average opponent stat, it is true of high rated play lower rated that stat comes down.  But the person's rating still goes up as long as he/she wins.  So if a 2200 plays a 1200 they get one point for a win.  Indeed it's probably easier for a 2200 to mow down 20 x 1300 raters than beat one 2200 and less risky. 

...

 Thanks MM78, I am aware that the winner's overall rating must increase no matter who they win against (though it might go up by 1 or less if the difference is sufficient - kasparov would need to, and i suspect could if desperate enough, beat me several thousand times consecutively to receive an extra 10 ratings points).

my broad point was that player ratings are based on performance over time and never by a single game (this is, reasonably, considered more indicative) but best win is (by definition) determined by a single event. i was merely suggesting that 'best win' might be improved by becoming 'best wins' (since one best win, by time out, might be due to the other player's vicissitudes of life - stay behind for that big promotion, or quit your job and go finish your internet chess - but half a dozen good wins are less likely to be the result of this).

TheMoonwalker

This is pointless because you can just look at the AVERAGE OPPONENT and rating, then you will get an idea of how good a player is.

littleman

Thats not always the case either. U have to check there archives to see what kind of skill's they might have. Ratings and stats can be deceptive i believe...Cool

buttonc

How it is handled, including how to deal with time-outs, can be a secondary issue.  Do you think the basic proposal is worth persuing?  Any comment from staff?

artfizz

If this suggestion were added to the wishlist#3 request list ( http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/chesscom-feature-requests-and-wishlist-3), it could be considered alongside other candidates for interface enhancement.

Kupov

Ummm... why does my best win say n/a?

 

My best win was in blitz vs a 1375 rated player in a rated match, why does mine say n/a?

ozzie_c_cobblepot

The user should be able to decide what their best win is. Let's face it -- if your opponent times out after 1 move, it is not a best win. But, if your opponent times out after facing certain checkmate, then yes, it is a best win.

Isn't this something where it's difficult for the chess.com website to determine which is the best win? The user should be able to mark certain games as "do not qualify for best win". That would solve everything.

Except for the users which don't know about the new feature, I guess.

buttonc
Kupov wrote:

Ummm... why does my best win say n/a?

 

My best win was in blitz vs a 1375 rated player in a rated match, why does mine say n/a?


The best win on your profile is 1148 (K-STYLE)

ozzie_c_cobblepot

There's so much that goes into the "expected strength" of a potential opposing player. Here are some that I use.

Rating
W-L
Examine some games to get an idea for strength
Best win
Best "real" win

Kupov
buttonc wrote:
Kupov wrote:

Ummm... why does my best win say n/a?

 

My best win was in blitz vs a 1375 rated player in a rated match, why does mine say n/a?


The best win on your profile is 1148 (K-STYLE)


I mean my best win in blitz live chess

BillyIdle

      My rating is not that high but I play people here from 2000 - 2500.   I ask them first if they want to play unrated games.  I want to play chess and am more interested in pointers than points.  Want to see how strong one of your openings is, try playing someone rated 2400.  You will find out in a hurry. 

Little-Ninja

When your new to this site play whoever you want. You don't know how good u r yet so test yourself, soon enough u figure it out.

As for ratings; i play people around my level within say 200+ points no matter how many games they have played i do this, and I'm sure to get a good game most times. Sometimes i play players more then 200+ point so i make that unrated to challenge myself and allow them no risks if i do beat them. Other then these points i mentioned, don't take it to seriously, best win is just a once off great game and doesn't always reflect overall skill, where's average opponent stats is a little closer to showing u what they are capable of, once they have played 100+ games at least. Make sure you do examine their latest 5 games to gauge better how they are currently performing. That's my input anyway.