Kasparov says there IS ratings inflation...

...let the discussion commence ;).

(This was during commentary during the Sinquefield Cup, when Yasser brought up the 5 2800+ players participating)

What if he's a hater? All older folk say " Back in my day it was harder ..."

Inflation only makes sense if you think of ratings as absolute values.  They aren't.  They are relative values and only relative to other players in the pool at the same time.  It doesn't matter in the slightest that the numbers are bigger now than they used to be unless you are trying to compare numbers to things they aren't intended to be compared to.

This discussion is 100% pointless and any chess player that pays attention to ratings should absolutely understand this.

Depends on your definition of rating inflation :

- more players at the upper extremity of the rating scale ? Marginally yes

- average rating rises in the population ? No, it's actually the opposite

- higher rating with the same skill set than 5-10 years ago ? I doubt that : I think players are constantly improving, if only by accumulated knowledge over generations

I actually agree with this !  Whats the world coming to ? !  

I don't.  If they were that good they'd simply get invites to those elite tournaments.  

Fiveofswords only said that the actual result if they played a match would be better for the 2400 than the rating difference suggests. This means that although he would not win the match, the 2400 would draw a few games, maybe win one.

Regardless, playing against people in a insular ratings bubble means that the ups and downs are "muted"/softened.  For the players at the very top, their "ups" are already muted by the ELO mechanics...ergo, only the "downs" get smoothed out in this case, which is a benefit for the top players that balances against being up against the ceiling of the ratings pool.

Thanks NM Reb....I always luv Walking Man Frustrated........

When you are at the top of the pool, you gain less and less ratings points because there is nobody at your ratings to gain points from = not many ups...and when you draw, you usually lose rating, etc. so even treading water is not as easy.

Well, if you're truly better than the rest of the pack, you will continue to get enough wins against the top players to keep moving up. If you can't win consistently enough, you won't move up much, and for good reason: it suggests you're not that much better than them anyway, so why expect a much higher rating.

Treading water is just as easy. You lose more points for drawing and losing, but your chances of winning/not losing are also higher. The math makes it so that one factor compensates for the other.

People often say that the top players have an artificially high rating thanks to not playing more opens and weaker opposition, but when they do they tend to gain points. Just look at how the top rated players have done in Qatar the last years, how Nakamura has been doing in opens, etc.

If chess were a game with 3 equally likely outcomes, that might be true, but it's easier to draw in chess because of the fact that one player can be up to 2 knights up in material and still not be able to force mate.  That's not even counting perpetual checks.  So, the players at the very top will draw, even in games where they arguably played better, just not "better" enough.

Yeah but the better players will win more often, still, in the long run. There might be strings of draws, but they will still get more wins in between them.

Interesting. Btickler made this point to me recently and I'm still thinking about it.

Whatever Kasparov says, ratings are a slippery business. I'd like to think that more players are reaching K's level at his prime, just as lots of track stars run sub-four-minute miles these days, but who knows.

Unless we manage to use computers to establish objective standards for play, I don't see any resolution to this question.

Who cares was Kasparov thinks about ratings. This is statistics, not a Najdorf.

what use to be elite is now more accessible to the public.

This seems a bit contrived. There are also positions where material is equal, but the position is so crushing one of the players resigns.

The players understand which endgames are drawn and the effect of perpetual check and plan their moves accordingly.

Draws are more likely though. If I were to blame some of this on the players it would be for not taking risks. But this is difficult in the RR format when you have chances to win with +2 or +3 and the rest draws.

Yes, and while Karpov was the champion, the GOAT was Fischer, but after Kasparov defeating him, Karpov would have beaten Bobby. I realize the statements are not necessarily contradictorious, but still...

When I was last stopped playing over-the-board in 1973 doing well against 2400+ rated players was considered a great achievement.

What has happened since 1973?  The population of the earth has almost doubled. [approximately 3.85 billion to approximately 7.2 billion].

We have this wonderful new invention called the internet. With the internet comes knowledge including chess knowledge.  Now we can easily go on line and watch games of grandmasters. Or we can go on line and watch someone explaining an opening or part of an opening in depth. Or how to play certain endings...or middle game concepts....

We can go on chess.com and get a Diamond Membership for a relatively low price with all the chess help one can imagine.

We have thousands of books on chess. The information about chess has expanded greatly. The number of players has expanded.

Of course, we now have players rated 2800  who are actually better than the highest Bobby ever achieved in his day. I am not disparging Bobby, what he did--was without all the benefit of the chess knowledge today.

I could be wrong but do not think chess ratings have expanded much if any--the players are simply better.