How accurate are these Chess.com ratings?

I once saw people posting stats from Chess.com telling the average ratings for the different types of games you can play.

You could use these values to determine if you should just say "I'm OK", you migt be able to say "I suck" or "I KICK ASS!".

Telling them a rating number won't mean anything to "someone in real life" no matter where it comes from.

depends on how many games you've played and whether or not you cheated :P

the latest study I am aware of shows that internet ratings are usually within 50 points of across the board stats.

Please cite your source.  Your source is outdated and wrong, but please cite it nonetheless so we can discuss it.  Thanks in advance.

Ratings themselves are overrated if your constanly improving that is all that should really matter.

the source is from a study done by chess.com itself.

And where can one find this "study."  Now I really don't believe you.  Please produce the study or be called on the b.s.

lichess.org displays ratings in a more honest and useful way.  It calculates the error plus or minus based on your RD and all that complicated math involved in figuring ratings.  Take look at my lichess ratings:  http://en.lichess.org/@/sleepingcatinthesun and you’ll see what I mean.  My training rating of 1879 is unreliable and has a plus or minus of 422 points.  This is because of a small sample size of only two puzzles.  My slow chess rating of 1659 has a plus or minus of 129 and my standard USCF rating of 1714 falls in this margin.

Edit:  These numbers will probably change by the time you read this, I've got some beer and I'm going to play some chess.

I would suggest playing against a player with 500 points difference either side, and the perfect answer with regard to your level is there.

JackOfAllHobbies....Absolutely Love your username Bubule !........

Geeze. That's horrible.

You should use a tighter range if you really want to progress.

I suggest something like -50 to +200. This will get a range of users that will almost always give you a good challenge and a game that you can actually learn something from.

Ratings are quite a feature of chess. Other games don't have anything nearly the same.

Yes, they are accurate.

Whether they are a good idea is more of a question.

People like them so maybe they are a good idea.

But some, youngsters especially, focus on ratings to the exclusion of enjoying their game.

Well, clearly ratings aren't going away. So I guess the plan is to enjoy them. My current plan is to hit 2000 chess.com (correspondence chess). Wish me luck.

Maybe you could adopt the same aim? Or go for an intemediate figure first - say a rise of 100 in each of the next three months.

Or aim to keep your fall to no more than 100 each month.

Figures are very flexible. You can get them to do most things.

I've read through a lot of threads with this same discussion and the common theme seems to be that it is relatively accurate, but not as accurate as it is in real life OTB.