Chess.com or Lichess?

The chess.com blitz rating is as close as you're going to get as far as a real rating goes. You want to think the inflated rating of another website is accurate but you couldn't be more wrong. Go play real chess in real tournaments and you'll see. I imagine you are roughly 1300 USCF and once you see that you will quit.

All online ratings are inflated. A typical 1200 Fide rated player can easily get a 2000 rating online.

That's a bit of a stretch, but agreed that they are inflated.

Well, a lot of people started playing after the Queen's Gambit, so no wonder the ratings are skewed.

One more point. I bet one of you will say "if there are cheats, why are they only in the 1500 range and not 2400?". That is a logical argument, but here is my guess.

I think there are many players using "opening explorers" and that is how they ace the openings. These explorers cant offer moves after people exit the main line. 

I also think there are people who will play their best, and get angry if they make a stupid blunder, and just turn on their engines. They dont use it all the time, because they know they will get banned. 

That is just my guess, based on 10,000+ games on here over 10 years.

It is nor just a difference in playing level on the Blitz. As I said, I am happy to lose to a creative player, or a guy who knows his openings. But I think there is a very weird robotic playing style. Real players learn a few openings and stick to them- it is called a repertoire. If you were to look at my games, every game I play e4 (aim for kings gambit) and as black I always go with the Pirc or Kings Indian.

With some of the guys I face, I bet you would find different openings and defences played every single game, and all with the same high accuracy. And they never go for gambits- ask yourself why? Because a computer (or grand master database) doesn't recommend gambits

The days of white playing the kings gambit and winning are over. That ended 100 years ago. White just blunders a pawn. Your choice of the pirc and kings Indian is also to blame.

You are playing the most theoretical and risky openings ever existed. You can blame yourself. I suspect you enjoyed beating up on bums and when you played real chess players you hit a wall and accuse them of cheating because they know opening theory like you? You're lost and confused.

...at GRANDMASTER level, yeah.

For a club player (in fact any player below 2200), it is a very fun way to play. Especially at Blitz where players supposedly dont have much time to think.

And you blame the Pirc and Kings Indian? Are you for real?

I was referring to rapid ratings and longer time control.  The chess.com blitz ratings are actually very accurate right now. 

Above is a picture of my Blitz rating over 10 years and thousands of games, As you can see, I worked hard to improve and from looking at it, I reached my best in 2017 and then deteriorated. But that is not true- I actually improved in all other time ratings and had taken lessons on here, which certainly do help. That is one thing I do rate highly on chess.com.

So it wasn't me that got worse. Either everyone suddenly got better or they messed up the rating levels.

Another thing that is weird is that it says my current 1520 rating means I am in the top 93% of players. That makes no sense at all. It is widely known that a 1500 rating is around the half way mark.

You don't need to be a master to learn opening theory and get a good position.  A man who played for 20 years but never got good can memorize opening theory easily.  You keep making the dumb argument that ONLY YOU should know opening theory...🙄

I dont make that argument.

I make the argument that 1500 rated players really shouldn't know all the openings. That is why they are middle of the pack.

But, as my above post shows, chess.com does consider me (a 1520 rated player) to be in the top 93%, so maybe it is actually true that I am playing at a high level, and so are my opponents, and it is just the rating numbers that are totally messed up.

The percentage thingy is you compared to everyone else on the site. No big deal...a lot of people suck at chess. A lot of newbies lately.

My advice? Play your own game. Stop playing openings that can be memorized by both players.

I've started playing chess again after a very long absence, and have joined both sites. I am more of a cautious, positional player who likes to defend and counter-attack and to have a sharp eye for opportunistic tactical play, but my observations are that the blitz players on here have a considerably more attacking style than the ones on lichess. I am rated around 1400 here in blitz (I usually get to around 1450 and get beat down to 1360 and then I climb back up). But I know that I could do significantly better if I worked on being more cool & composed and also gaining more experience.

I think the ultra-aggressive play here can be off-putting to me, especially  when I want to practice certain lines. I want to play open Sicilian as Black so badly, yet White constantly go into Bowdler attack with 2. Bc4. So many times, the opponents seem to whip up their bishop onto c4 and their Queen on f3, trying to checkmate me ASAP, so they can score rating points and get a dopamine kick from the won game & move on to the next one right away. I am also a sucker for a dopamine kick from blitz, so I am not faulting them as much, but I feel like going into an attack 100% of the time when the position doesn't allow for it can easily backfire. But the intimidation factor does count far more in blitz than in rapid or classical, simply b/c there's so much less time to think. So I think this over-aggressive unimaginative play gets rewarded due to the nature of fast time control games, and a lot of folks adopt this coffeehouse style of play where they memorize certain patterns and press on, even though they'd get crushed playing like that in an OTB tournament game with slower time controls. But then again, we only live once, and I can't really blame them. I wonder, however, if this highly trappy mode of play is still prevalent at around 1700-1800 rating points.

At a real tournament...(YOU)...I'm going to win! I Memorized everything!! Only I can do that!! (Me)...Yes I know those openings too! (You)...He's cheating!!

...and the only real ratings are real FIDE tournaments over the board.

Elo is the predecessor. 

Chess.com uses Glicko-1.

Lichess uses Glicko-2.

You are close to 1 900 in rapid. People at that level will know a bit about openings.

Now I think that you are exaggerating when you mention 25 moves of opening theory. I am looking at your games and you've won many games where opponent has less than 60 accuracy and so on. So that is certainly not a GM level of play. 

As for let's call it "fishy" play in online chess... I am playing long games pretty much exclusively (45|45 and 60|0 most of the time). People believe that in such games they will encounter fishy play in every game, and the truth is that I rarely encounter such opponents (perhaps every 20, 30 games someone is banned). I generally rarely feel that I am playing against someone who is not playing fairly. Many people avoid long games because they fear they will be cheated, and the irony lies in the fact that it is most likely a bigger problem on higher levels in blitz games.

Because of this fear, people around 1 600 rapid rating are the highest rated people (apart form a few exceptions)  who plays 45|45 and 1 hour per side. As a result, I mostly play in a smaller pool, and people like me may have unreliable ratings. We can either be accurately rated, overrated or somewhat underrated. 

I am sure you will encounter fishy play as well, probably in a slightly bigger amount compared to me, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. There are people who cheat on every site, and you should just report it. I believe their detection level is pretty good. In fact, I think there were never a case where I was sure 100% that the opponent is cheating and that opponent wasn't caught soon enough. 

As for gambits, I never play them for instance. I feel there are just better openings at my disposal so I never bothered. I mean there are some sound ones (Smith Morra is fine and I encounter it from time to time), Benko is a legit opening as far as I know, but I am not 1.d4 player, but there are too many bad gambits, and those are rarely played in longer games I play. It is understandable that most people your level will rarely play unsound gambit lines. They wish to defeat you after all. Of course, in blitz chess, it is more logical to play gambits from time to time, I mean you might flag your opponent as well...

You can switch to other site, and you will encounter gambits, but when you get your rating to comparable value (roughly + 200-300 points compared to here), you will probably not feel a difference.

If you really wish to experience playing weaker people, you can always play 1 or 2 unrated games against slightly weaker people. As for your rating which is not what it used to be, that is normal as well. A lot of people has seen their rating diminished since Covid and Queens gambit series. So many people have created an account and there are many people who had their highest ratings a few years ago and now their ratings are 200 points weaker. 

I have started playing myself last february (I did play when I was a kid, but haven't played for 20+ years), and there were many games where I defeated players that were let's say 1 600 or 1 700 a few years ago and now they are 1 400. And their level of play is just not up to standard for someone who is 1 700 today. 

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to address many things you've mentioned.