Chess.com ratings surprisingly meaningless
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Ever play against someone with a rating of more than 200 than you?
Oh yes, and it can be a similar thing. I have played players well in the 1900s when I was in the 1700s and not very good sometimes. It works both ways.
I also find these encounters, over the last week, when i'm back from the 1800-1900 rating, i find 2000 players as easy as the 1800 one's (1800's players are more agressive players than 2000 IMO.)Idk why.
And i remember back before the times when i was 1600 rated. I found the lower rated(1000-1400) to be hard than the rated ones similar to me.
Anyway, over my encounters at the site, there are many reasons why lower-rated players can be as tough as the difficulty of your same ratings.
1. Many Lower-rated players tend to be more solid, more focused and have more accurate moves when facing higher rated players.(Some players are lower-rated because they blunder most of the time, but when they focus, they blunder less and has a more chance of beating you.)
2. Higher-rated players sometimes, tend to underestimate there opponent because they are "lower".Meaning, more careless moves.
3. Higher-rated players blunder, even to the point of losing a queen on a winning position.
4. Sometimes, playstyle is the reason, that lower-rated player could've a great counter on your playstyle.
Those are just the 4 reasons, i've encountered when i was facing a lower/higher-rated player.
Seems like most lower rated players are better than higher rated players until they blunder. So just play careful and wait for them to blunder. If not then take the draw
The problem with taking the draw is if they are lower then you, you will loose up to 3 points.
Aug 28, 2017
0
#7
nchesses wrote:
2. Higher-rated players sometimes, tend to underestimate there opponent because they are "lower".Meaning, more careless moves.
For me this is the real reason.
When you start you can say how good you think you are and this changes your starting rating
This is 1 day Chess for me. It seems to happen less frequently in real life, not never. Leaving engine assistance aside it is quite easy to find a better player to give advice online without getting caught. This will be a lot harder in real life over the board Chess.
If someone weaker than you insists on playing for a draw you can still try and play for a win by unbalancing the position, still not out of the question with a symmetrical pawn structure. Take for example the exchange French. If White goes for Nf3 then maybe go for Ne7 setups, instead of the symmetrical Nf6. Your opponent being a weaker player should find this a lot harder to meet.
Have you ever played someone with a rating 500-700 less than yours and you find them so surprisingly difficult to beat? These players have sometimes played loads of games, so there is no question of the rating not being representative in that regard. This is just so unlikely to happen in real life over the board Chess, so it does beg a few questions.
Cheating doesn't have to be through Chess engine assistance, it can be from deliberately losing games previously and getting someone better than them to help them make better moves, or more than one person using the same account. There is definitely something going on that really shouldn't be in the background unless the rating system is flawed. I think the former is more likely myself.