Play in tournaments instead and you'll face more basic members
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When I didn't become a membership, I was able to compete with players from 1000-1100elo on chess.com; But when I became a membership, I found that my chess ability could only be on par with players from 800-900 elo.
At first, I thought my skills had declined, but later I realized that the people I matched were all memberships (no matter they were Gold, Silver, or Diamond memberships). This creates a subjective gap: most of the players who can pay to become memberships of chess.com are old users or those who enjoy playing chess and have a foundation in it. Therefore, the vast majority of the players I match do not have a true level between 800-900 elo. I confirmed each opponent's homepage and found that most of their Rapid chess have a maximum elo between 1200 and 1400, and they have at least 2-3 years of account age, playing thousands of chess games. And during the period from their account creation until now, elo has presented an uneven waveform, with the highest possibly between 1400-1500 and the lowest possibly dropping to 600-700. This means that these "casual" players may play chess intermittently, exceeding 1200 elo when in good form, but also dropping to 700 elo when in poor form.
I strongly recommend that membership cancel this mechanism: membership will definitely match membership. Although this may increase the priority and speed of matching, the elo level reflected is not true. This is equivalent to two tracks, distinguishing between membership and normal accounts, and membership players will have a higher level of skill, making it more difficult to improve elo.
But all in all, I am very satisfied with the membership service on chess.com. It not only provides me with unlimited puzzles and video explanations, but also allows me to contact faster with supporters of chess.com. But they still not fix the time-wasting bug on bughouse : (