Rating on chess.com

I think the rating calculations on chess.com needs some updating.

I lost my first standard game to a player rated 1300 and had my rating set to 400. I lost on time in the opening because I forgot to login on time. ok fine!

After that game I have played 14 games with no losses against players rated from 800 up to 1600. My current rating is around 1500. This is very strange to me. The site should not take so much consideration the that first game I think.  Freechess for instance has a better and more accurate way of calculating such things.

The site uses the Glicko rating system that includes a measure of rating uncertainty called the rating deviation (RD) value. A player's RD value is high at the beginning and games will have high rating changes. After more games get played the RD value drops as will the magnitude of rating changes.

Your initial loss had very little impact on your rating gain due to the way Glicko works and you would likely be in a similar position now even if you hadn't lost that first one.

I am not sure which rating system Freechess uses, but I feel it works differently. Perhaps the rating deviation is set higher there and with slower decrease so the uncertainty and changes are bigger for a longer time. I don´t care much about the rating so it´s not a big deal, just feel the system could be adjusted.

Here´s my way of reasoning.

First game - loss against a 1300-player = most likely my rating is lower. There´s a good chance I am equal and also a chance I am highter rated. Comp sets it to 400.

Second game - win against same opponent (1300) = most likely I am equal to this player. Comp should set rating to 1300! (but no the comp says 553?!)

Third game - win against a very low rated opponen, new rating 826

Fourth game - win against a 939-player. New rating 1080! (still not considered equal to the opponent in the first game)

Fifht game - win against 1257-opponent. New rating 1164.

After seven wins the comp says I am equal to my first opponent. This is very strange.

You must have chosen New To Chess when creating your account and started automatically with 400 because of that.

For Daily, your game wasn't long enough to be rated so you didn't lose any rating there and your second game was an unrated one so you didn't get rating on that.

• +153 first rated game
• +273 second rated game
• +254 third rated game
• +84 fourth rated game
• +94 fifth rated game

Your first rated game was against a really lower rated member, that probably hurt you the most from a rating standpoint, but overall, not that much.