Chess rating system

what is a takeback game?

 It's a game in which you can "take back" your move.  Say, for instance, you hang a queen.  You would want to undo that!  Takeback is bascially letting you undo moves.

ratings do matter but chess.com isnt really your "real" rating. Your USCF rating is.

To answer Turtle: Taking peices isnt how you win. You win by attacking them.

To answer Mznor: Your rating should be unrated untill you have played 10 games. It shouldn't start at 1,200.

I think that ratings both matter and don't matter.  First and foremost, I think ratings are just basically a way to divide chess players into groups for tournaments and stuff.  It makes sense that somebody holding a USCF rating of 1200 wouldn't make it into a tournament with a bunch of players that are rated in the 2500's or more.  However, ratings do actually stand for something.  Somebody with a 1200 might not think their rating matter, but it's a certainty that Kasparov's 2700 or whatever it is ABSOLUTELY MEANS he's better than you.  Ratings are really the closest statistical representation of the skill of a chess player available, but like all other scientific calculations, it is not bulletproof.

Regardless, the point is that when it comes to the game of chess, play it with no regard for ratings.  It is the most beautiful game in the world, so pro or amateur, play!!

Its very close to 100 percent accurate. A rating does show how good you are (after your provisional stages).

But I agree with your last statement. You play for fun, not for a high rating.

EDIT: I am talking about your USCF rating. Chess.com rating isnt as accurate as USCF is (same with any other online chess site).

Ratings are fundamentally a statistic, meaning a measure of one parameter of a population, thus saying very little about the precise outcome of a single encounter other than the probabilities associated with that encounter. A 400 point rating advantage yields roughly a 1-in-10 probability of the lower player winning a single encounter (by Elo's reckoning). If I take 100,000 such encounters amongst thousands of players who have each played numerous games against numerous opponents, that roughly 1-in-10 probability will show up (at least within some prescribed interval).

As we start to move away from that usage (a population statistic with probability inferences), we begin to dilute the meaning and value of ratings. But, hey ... I still wish I were rated 2800 (but only if I could back it up).

Ratings are just ideas I can beat people high and i can also lose to people lower.

Then either they get lucky or you get unlucky. You may beat a person 150 points above you/lose to someone 150 points below you, but you wont be able to consistently beat someone 300 points above you.

I believe the queen is worth 9 points, but other than that, viswanathan is correct.

G

Why is this topic-question 22 pages long??!!?!?!?!

(here come the flamers to whine at me that by making this post, i'm just making it longer, blah blah blah)

yes

is there  a point at which a really highly rated player can lose points beating a really low rated player?

Geez, Devout_Monk, you're such a hypocrit! First you tell us that the thread is too long, but have obviously decided to ignore the fact that your post will inevitably increase both its length and its longevity!

Secondly, although not related to thread length, ??!!?!?!?! is NOT a recognised punctuation symbol.

I think my work here is done. 

The mistake was transposing the ? and the ! in the second and third positions.

No. At least not in a system such as that used by the USCF. If graphed out using ratings difference as the horizontal axis and points gained as the vertical, the curve approaches zero asymptotically. At a 600 point difference, the higher rated player would gain only one point with a win. At higher differences, it would be a fraction of a point, possibly not enough to affect the published value.

Is there a point at which a very highly rated player could lose points beating a player with a much lower rating?

No -- the awarding of rating points approaches zero asymptomatically the larger the disparity between the winner and the loser -- it never goes negative.

"...asymptomatically..." ???

Asymptotically (which I misspelled in my earlier and just edited post). From the root, asymptote.

Oops -- the combination of speed and spellcheck steered my wrong.

No!  Kasparov's rating is evidence he is better than you.  It is how we know he is better than you.  It is not why he is better than you.