Rating Monkeys

Rating Monkeys are those who place too much faith/importance in ratings , you know who you are .  I have an experiment for you to do that might change your views a bit , but I won't hold my breath .  Lets use the recently completed Tata Steel tournament for this experiment . Make a list of the players in the A / Masters group and list them by rating 1- 14 , highest rated #1 through lowest rated #14 . We shall use their pre-tournament rating ofcourse .  Now make a list of how they actually finished the event and note that they certainly do NOT finish in the order of their pre-tournament rating !  This type of thing happens in the vast majority of tournaments , if not all of them . Ratings are not infallible , as this experiment shows !  

It's tough as a normal human that has an ego and pride to rise above ratings but I try my best! something someone told me once is that ratings should not be visible to us only the rating bracket that we are in so that we can be paired against similiar strenght oponnents, and I tend to agree I would prefer if all i new was that I am somewhere between say 1400-1700 strenght

The idea that players rated 2785, 2783, 2776 etc should finish in rating order in one single event is of course silly. Ratings don't work like that.

Allthough the highest rated player in the world did win the tournament which is not that a big suprise

Yeah, Who is the "Rating Monkey?"

#rebis

Reb! Call me next time you're in California and we'll grab a cold one!

Chess Players play chess and Masters play and play to win without hesitations.  Leave the Ratings to the Oprah Winfrey and Johnny Carson Show/s!  After all with Moe, Curly and Larry giving you a Triple Face Palm; simply because even the Three Stooges Can See That You Fail.  While it's not how many times you fail but; it's how many times you get back up to the Board.  Remember your losses and don't forget your wins because the hardest game to win in chess is a won game!

I have never been to Ca Ozzie  but if I ever do I might take you up on that !  

from your argument, a 1900 would always beat a 1899.

i have no idea what you're talking about but ratings are general probabilities of winning if people don't improve. if people improve, ratings change to show their new skill level.

in this case, the most probable outcome is people finishing in order of their ratings, but the problem is that there are too many different outcomes so even the chances of people finishing in order of thier ratings are less than 1%.

I am not the one who places so much faith in ratings ... I am addressing those who do in this thread . 

people who place faith in ratings have sound mathematical backgrounds who know about probability distributions.

people who don't believe in ratings can just believe that a 1300 has a reasonable chance to beat a 2700.

though rating is just a number that shows an estimated guess of your skill...

Ratings are a rough guide, they are NOT  absolute . 

Ratings indicate past performance. As is stated repeatedly in the investment world, "Past performance does not guarentee future results". 

However, ratings may still be one indicator of a likely outcome.

that how it shoulb be, but the ratings also give you rights, .. and money. 

my monkey is better than your monkey

I met one of my chessteachers in a rapidgame. He was rated ca 800 above, but I had white, and I told him that white is an advantage worth 750 ratingpoints. I crushed him, he was 1 move from resigning, but then I made a mistake, and he won in the end. I could expect that, because the whiteadvantage was only 750, not 801, not enough to fill the whole gap.