Leechers of chess.com

this conversation is mostly ridiculous

There's lots of interesting viewpoints.

Didn't the rating systems get changed because of some guy in prison who became a grand master by Gaming the local rating pool in the prison and then doing something with correspondence?

I remember reading something like that. Interesting, and pretty funny.

Totally off topic, but if you aren't a Beta member, you might want to consider it. The new and improved Game Review is very nice, and playing against bots has suddenly taken on a whole new meaning (I hardly ever play bots, but I played about ten games with them today). 

Pretty cool.

I've only got an old gold membership so maybe I won't be qualified. How do you even do it?

It's in settings, right at the bottom.

That's pretty stupid, Murky. 

Well, I deleted this blog because it was misleading, and I found a rounding error that accounted for some of the results.

You can get a small boost to your rating if you only play a certain kind of opponent... but it's such a small boost (like, 10 points at most) and it's hard to explain (better to change your settings after every few games) AND the answer isn't either higher or lower, it's more complicated (lol).

So... not worth a long blog to explain all these details when the answer is it doesn't really matter in the end... but the bottom line is it's best to play opponents who are about 100-200 points higher than you, and the boost is worth ~5 points over baseline (lol).

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In the end, these are the results I came up with... I don't know why they aren't symmetrical. I tried the things I could think of and now I'm done with it. I suspect the numbers for lower rated opponents are an artifact of some rounding stuff, but I don't want to spend more hours on this. (Averaging over 10s of millions of games, using the actual Elo formula, which I checked vs chess.com games and ratings and verified to be a reliable estimate).

@125, thanks I'll check it out.

There's now been multiple times that you've said this and obviously you must be looking for a response. I actually typed one this morning but the site wiped it out and I really didn't care enough to retype anything.

As to me not being competitive, I'm probably one of the more obsessive people that you've ever come across. In my younger days I was willing to put lots of effort into competitive activities that had no return on investment. I just don't do that anymore. If I put in a huge amount of effort, it will be in my business or on one of my investment properties. It will not be in chess. I like to do things well, but I'm also a realist. I will make $0 playing chess. Exactly how much concern should I place on that activity then?

I went to my first tournament in around 40 years and I won the Under 1400 section while rated about 1100 online. I won enough money to pay approximately 1/3 of the cost of fuel to go there. Never mind the total cost of ownership of the vehicle. Now let's say I would like to improve my financial situation with my Recreation time activities. I'm better off asking my neighbor if he will give me $20 to mow his grass. At least with that I will net some money and it's a guaranteed thing. From what I have heard top players say, being in the top 10 in the world doesn't even make you a 1% earner in the United States. Seems like a lot of effort for not much return. And for the record, I won't be mowing the neighbor's grass anytime soon.

The fact that some of us do not agree with you that this rating selection is some existential threat to chess has nothing to do with competitiveness. And if you are so competitive, why aren't you a higher rated player? In my mind, competitiveness means you try to improve continuously and quickly.

@llama36

It stands to reason that by now they've come up with ways to make sure nobody can exploit the rating system, at least not to any meaningful amount. It's understandable that the math would have been kept simple back in the pre-computer era. But now that they have computers to do whatever math they want, it doesn't need to be so simple anymore.

The best mathematical trick to get a higher rating that I found is... play more games

Which is kinda obvious. If you flip a coin 1000 times you'll probably get a few amazing runs of heads or tails... but if you flip a coin one hundred millions times, well, you'll get something even more amazing.

There are so many other factors that are so much more meaningful... like @ironsteam1 mentions psychology, and the thing I like to focus on is physical aspects (playing when I've slept and ate enough during that day).

That's good to hear. I don't need to be right all the time (a good thing since I'm not) but there are some ideas that I don't like and one of them is that Glicko doesn't actually work. Chess is at least somewhat more fun because the games are rated and you want the ratings to be as accurate as possible, of course. Regarding my own rating, I'm still the king of blunders, but I like the game and I'm getting better, not that anyone should care. 

IDK, Glicko seems pretty freaking amazing sometimes.

In the resent Carlsen / Caruana speed chess championship match on chess.com, they played (IIRC) 16 blitz games... at the end of those 16 games their ratings were the exact same numbers as before the match, meaning the rating system perfectly predicted the results... can't get better than perfect!

import random

# Keeps track of players and their stats. You can add elements like best win, average rating, etc.
class Player:

    number_of_players = 0

    def __init__(self, skill, rating):
        self.rating = rating
        self.skill = skill
        self.game_history = []

        Player.number_of_players += 1

# This function changes two player's rating and game history. It decides who wins by using the Elo formula.
def play_game(player1, player2):

    player1_wins = False

    #real outcome is based on the player's skill
    real_outcome = 1/(1+10 ** ((player2.skill - player1.skill)/400))
    real_outcome = (real_outcome * 100)

    #expected outsome is based on the player's rating
    expected_outcome = 1/(1+10 ** ((player2.rating - player1.rating)/400))
    expected_outcome = (expected_outcome * 100) #multiply by 100, see note 1 below

    if(real_outcome >= random.randint(1, 100)):
        player1_wins = True
        print("Player one wins!")

    #The result of a game updates the rating, but never the skill
    if(player1_wins == True):
        player1.rating += (((100 - expected_outcome) / 5)) #divide by 5, see note 1 below.
        player2.rating -= (((100 - expected_outcome) / 5))

        #Keeps track of wins and losses as 1 and -1
        player1.game_history.append(1)
        player2.game_history.append(-1)

    elif(player1_wins == False):
        player1.rating -= ((expected_outcome / 5))
        player2.rating += ((expected_outcome / 5))
        player1.game_history.append(-1)
        player2.game_history.append(1)
        
        print("Player one lost!")

# End of function
# note 1:  multiple by 100 (line 26) and divide by 5 (line 34) is the same as multiply by 20. Thus the K factor here is 20.

player_list = []

player_list.append(Player(1200, 1200)) #Adds a new player. Player 0 is rated 1200 and has a skill of 1200
player_list.append(Player(1400, 1400)) #Adds a new player. Player 1 is rated 1400 and has a skill of 1400

play_game(player_list[0], player_list[1])

print("The player's new rating is " + str(int(player_list[0].rating)) + ".")

Example of python I used, FWIW.

You keep disagreeing with the part of my post that you didn't quote. I already said, it is not about the change in rating. Let me repeat: I don't care about it. I don't care if playing up gives a player a boost of +10 Elo, +5 Elo, or +0 Elo. Whether it did or didn't is not what I am basing my _immoral_ charge on.

But you seem to be quite hung up on whether or not a rating system is accurate, and can't let it go.

Chess ratings are fundamentally immoral. When chess players arrange a rated match, they are taking part in a  zero-sum game, which encourages aggression and trickery instead of cooperation. The unfairness of our economic system is then symbolically reproduced here, reminding us of the pervasive logic of capitalism and slowly making us believe in its inevitability.

However, chess could be different. It can be reformed, brought back to a purer state. We have to free our minds from the greed of elo that burns our souls. As long as we keep feeding that fire, there will be suffering, despair and sorrow. Be wary of the evil hidden behind ratings, divest yourself from the passion they inspire in your heart, and you will become free.

You too can join our movement, OP. Leechers are not our enemy, ratings are to blame. Reject Glicko. Embrace unrated games.

-100 to +100 should be the default setting implemented by the site