Focus less on ratings

Is it just me or is it much better to grow by not worrying about your personal rating but develop your game? When running track in highschool my coach always say "Don't look back at what other people. When you look back, you slow down and mis oportunities. Improve YOUR race, and then run it!". One of my gamer friends said... "OMG, Just play the  ****ing game"

Okay, I'm biased. I've always had a lower rating on sites because the only people I ever play rated games against are >2000. I've beaten many and lost to many. Oustide of that I study games, books, and play friendly OTB games and work on puzzles.

I never care about my rating and as far as I'm concered the only ones who should care are Coaches and Bracket builders. My goal is to be the best at a game I enjoy, or at least better than I was before. If I get a GM title that's simply a bonus.

I'm a lot more interested in watching the people ahead of me. 

B.S.  You care a lot.  Work at it, improve, and you'll enjoy seeing the reflection in your rating.  I'm playing chess the hard way.  I've played thousand's of games of chess and gradually my ELO is improving overall (although today I haven't been playing so hot and I'm down about 50 ELO). I originally a difficult time breaking 1150 for long, now I can hover around 1250 or so for long stints).

Anyway, I'm not buying that you don't care.  I think caring is OK, just don't care so much that it paralyzes you.

Yes, ratings are overrated

Only if you get them at a lower rate

discounted ratings on the internet

Is that why I play mostly unrated games?

Where? On ELObay?

I just said I don't care lol. In all serious I PERSONALLY don't though. Like you said maybe if I actually had high rating I'd have much more preservation for it. However I look at it like money. When you have a little money you care more about the value of what you get from it. If you have a lot you'll know what it's like to experience that and will want more. I randomly play rated games against >2000 which I like because they play to perform and I play to perform so I get my time and moneys worth.

There is nothing wrong with wanting a high rating. To me however, it's a goal. Some people want to make money, some people want to win tourneys, some want to be famous etc... they're all goals and not everyone has the same goal. Again my goal is to "be the best" not "be rated as the best".

Ratings measure performance.  If you want to get better you'll also want to see your rating to go up.  But you're correct that rating progress is secondary.  Worry about what you learn and your rating will take care of itself.

Although it's a bit funny to make a public post about how you don't care about something hehe.  Thou doth protest too much methinks?

lol

Exactly.  He wants to be the best in a way that isn't berated.

Is that why you don't have any real rating here?

We have our own form of Dating Game on chess.com.  It's call the Rating Game

That's a very good point about having a measurable goal... If that is the point you are making. 

Though the post isn't about I don't care about ratings as much as it's about  whether the emphasis on it's focus is justified.

I'm afraid to be exposed lol.

In all seriousness. The whole point of me having a chess.com account is really just to read up on the forums and discuss ideas. I enjoy a good conversation and figured that this was a good site for that.

I don't care if it's berated. Doesn't matter as long as I can be the best.

Yeah that's part of it.  It's a bit like saying your goal is to lose weight, not see the number on the scale go down when you weigh yourself.

But to continue the analogy, and as you said, if you focus on the number it's not going to help your diet and exercise any.  So yeah it's secondary but if you're improving (or losing weight) that number will necessarily change too.

So if it's just about focus you're right.  Focus on what you can learn.  If you goals don't include your rating though you're fooling yourself about progress :p

Well, there are certainly plenty of conversations to be found around here...not sure how good they'll all be though.  

But then again on the analogy of losing weight the only way knowing whether or not you've actually lost weight is directly indicated by the scale.

What if my goal is to be a faster sprinter. I could achieve this by caring so much about how much I weigh... or I could achieve this by improving on my conditioning and let my weight be what it is. It will likely go down at least some. However, that's an entirely different goal.