Rating is Relative?

Awhile back during one of Danya's streams, a viewer asked about rating.  Danya may have been jesting, but he stated that "rating is imaginary."  As a beginner with a very skewed rating, I am beginning to think there may be some truth to this in the untitled-novice-realm. 

Using many platforms, it has been my experience that my ratings are vastly different.  Wondering if this is the case with others. 

Perhaps, using one platform, you're underrated because you played rated games with opponents that were much higher rated and you lost a majority of the time.  Or maybe in an app, you simply played for fun and most of the opponents were far below your level, so you won most of the time.  Then, on another site, you played others who were similar in rating, so you had more balanced games.  All of which produced very different ELO's.

Would love to hear other's thoughts on this.  What do you think, is rating relative?

For the most part, I think rating is quite relative up until probably the CM rating band... (roughly centered around 2200 ELO FIDE). Now, relative is not the same as being imaginary as Naroditsky said, but his main point (hyperbole aside) may be that it is not the type of indicator of being better/worse at chess or possessing any more or less skill at the game overall. I can agree with that idea.

Rating is a number used to measure the "strenght" of a player, and diferente sites used different rating systems, thats why your rating is different in other sites.

so, your rating is a good way to match you with oponents with a similar level, but you cant compare the rating from  one site to another.

Different platforms - different ratings. I can't say names of the competitor sites, but in some of them you could get  for instance 1 500 rating at the start. Here you can start as low as 400 points. That theoretical competitor site have higher ratings than chess.com ratings around 200-300 points because  of that.

So yes, rating is relative to a point because it is not easy to compare ratings between 2 platforms. But that doesn't mean that if someone is around 2 000 rating here and the other person is 1 200 that the second person would be better than the first on some other platform.

If you want to know more about rating comparisons, check this out:

https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/


Take the results with a grain of salt. As I've said, it is not easy to compare FIDE and USCF ratings with online ratings, and there will surely be some odd cases here and there.

As well as different methods for calculating ratings, I think a rating is only true for a specific pool of players, though i don't quite understand the maths. So your chess.com rapid rating might be different to another sites rapid rating because those pools contain different players (though there might be overlap). Also, the pools might be defined differently, so chess.com includes 10 minute games in rapid, but if another site doesn't this will affect the makeup of the rapid pool and therefore the rating and comparison. Hopefully someone with more knowledge can explain it better and set me straight. The upshot is that it is difficult to make rating comparisons between sites etc.

Great insight!  Yes, "imaginary" and "relative" are not the same.  What Danya said simply inspired my thought process, so thanks again for explaining that better than I did   Agreed, I think once a player enters 2200 ELO FIDE the ratings are more accurate.

True.  I've tried averaging the ratings which seems to produce a more accurate measure of strength.  In a rated game, I feel it's important to be forthcoming about how closely both compare, that way no "sandbagging" occurs (like a pool shark is to pool ?).

Thank you for the link, I will check that out

You're welcome.

It all boils down to statistical probability.  But probability shifts over time, and varies by data set. For example someone rated 2000 would beat a person rated 2000 from 100 years ago at a higher rate.  Or someome rated 2000 by one governing body might beat one from another at a higher rate.  Really ratings are are just statistical probabilities that you would beat someone based on past performance.

My advice, regardless of any rating.  Play your best!  Some people are severely underrated.  Do not underestimate anyone!  

Thanks to all for your well thought out responses!😊

@Laurengoodkindchess I think that is wise advice, thanks.

Personally, like a chess player that hasn't played in soo long, I do want to say that rating is both not relative and relative. My reasoning being that if say someone was 1100, they could be both good or bad, but because of how some chess experts that have 1900 look at that rating and call them "bad" even if that player is actually really good.

That also leads to problems where if a 900 is matched against 1000, 1000 would be overconfident because of their higher rating, when the 900 could be a pro, who just hasn't played in 5 months. 

But then the reason that rating is relative is that for both higher and lower players, you can use your rating as intimidation against your opponent. Honestly, I don't see a use for the rating.

Ratings are even more complex than I thought.  In this case, the "pools of players" is related to a specific site https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/ (provided by nklristic).  Also, I read somewhere that there is rating "inflation" for example Bobby Fischer's rating would be higher in 2021 than it was 1971. 

@Chrisome19 Those are some good points.  Would it be accurate to say that unless you know the opponent personally, anyone who is not engaged in organized chess or does not have a Title, has a rating "to be determined"?  So, essentially, until you have a few games with the person, you will not know how "strong" of a player the person is.  Also, viewing a player as "bad" or "good" could be considered subjective and not specific to the current rating?

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: The way that chess IRL is played puts you in front of your opponent, from there you can tell if they're nervous, what their strategy is, and so forth the game is easier, and you don't really know their rating, adding more competitive-ness to the game. 

But alas, playing the game online is more... more.... difficult and... may I say, toxic. With this online variant of chess, you cant see someone's face, all you see... all that matters to you at the moment... is those 3-4 numbers. Those numbers are all someone needs to know if you suck at chess, or if they have to go absolutely try-hard (To a higher rating, but lower ratings too). 

So, to wrap it all up, you are absolutely right. Unless you know your opponent, can read your opponent, you don't need to know their rating. Adding 3-4 numbers to someone in chess is absolutely unnecessary, and only adds toxicity to a lower player. (It also makes you assume someone lower is toxic, like what I am doing right now)!