Oh for sure. Same thing in rapid too. I'm not sure about how ratings were back then bc I only started playing chess 2-3 years ago. But I agree. The hanging pieces chomper guy, despite him being annoying AF has some truth. But still ppl still find the rating impressive (most ppl at least) so idrc
Blitz ratings gone crazy.
Sort:
strong players complaining about inflation just let me enjoy my rating lol 😭
I see a lot of decent play at 900, I play at about 1350 rapid, 950 blitz.
Aug 9, 2025
0
#5
sicilianswiftie wrote:
TitledNotTilted wrote:
Oh for sure. Same thing in rapid too. I'm not sure about how ratings were back then bc I only started playing chess 2-3 years ago. But I agree. The hanging pieces chomper guy, despite him being annoying AF has some truth. But still ppl still find the rating impressive (most ppl at least) so idrc
Nah, I hate this. I was state champion at 11 yet i had only 1700 rapid, which was super hard in my time. Now, the rapid pool has been destroyed, and i quit blitz pretty much.
Didn't you close ur account??
I've been on this site a long time, I have very, very modest chess ability myself. But that's not supposed to be the point. As long as you're having fun and doing something resembling the way the game should be played, that's meant to be (and is) what matters. But people do like to check their rating.
One nice thing about this site was that compared to other websites the blitz ratings were really hard to get. Other sites would bs you and be like you have a 2000 rating, well done, or back even before that I think yahoo chess used to be a thing and had plenty of people on 3000 ratings.
People would report blitz ratings here as matching their real life standard ratings, there was a big survey about it that went around confirming it. Even 1800s would be pretty solid, like they wouldn't randomly hang pieces. To be 2000 blitz here was really something, everything had to be really tight.
Hikaru used to be in the 2800s, now Levy is in the 2800s - that should tell you something.
So I said ok I may as well try to get a high myself, and something has gotten so strange about how people are playing now. I've been playing kids, I've been playing king's indian after king's indian, and 90% just londons and exchange slav nonsense. In the past you would notice a huge increase in semi-slavs and proper playing at higher ratings. I claimed recently there's some inflation but 2100s are still good and no they're not, they're terrible. I can just feel they're not doing anything while they're playing - no plans.
In my last two games, I played two 2100s, one guy played the literal bowdler and the next guy hangs mate in one. I straight up hung a piece clean, I was about to resign, but I've seen so much ludicrous play recently, I said I would play on just because why not.
And he literally just hangs mate in 1. No disrespect but how is that even possible, I mean this is like 700 elo stuff you see on GothamChess. HangingPiecesChomper says to just chomp on hanging pieces to get to 2400, and that is only a slight exaggeration, and this is the way things are headed.
As I say I'm not much of a player myself, all the weaknesses and shocking visualizations and lack of theory I have - but the ratings meant something, now it's just a joke.