Ratings Are Deceiving

              I don't know about ratings, but Women are deceiving.

true.. basically my point is that ratings impose too many psychological effects, that hinder a person's.. like what im saying is that the fact that a person is much higher rated than you does not mean u stand no chance. ive seen 1800s beats IMs, and even a 1330 draw with a 2150. having confidence and determination in any game will allow one to think and play his best. 

yes apparently they are, here's something incredibly strange I just ran across.

this guy had a bullet rating of 2303 or something and then randomly after a single a game, which he won, it goes to 1500 something?

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=858639452

here's the game he played just before the one above

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=858298329

and here's the one right after

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=858641417

you can check his game archives. it's all there. does anyone have an explanation for this? 

http://www.chess.com/members/view/Gainux#games

yes. they obviously can be used to psychologically manipulate a person. especially on the internet since here they are less likely to be accurate representations of the person's actual strength. in otb chess you can pretty much be assured that the person's rating is an accurate reflection of their strength, this is not true on the internet. and people even go to lengths to manipulate their rating in order to "surprise" people for the "lulz".

see my above post for something rather strange.

but really does anyone know what could have caused something like this? have a plausible deni..., uhhh, I mean explanation?

Can you delete your archive games? The explanation could be there.

no u cannot delete them :P..

and lol when i talked about ratings, i meant OTB ratings are deceiving.. 

for example, i had not played in a tournament in a long time, so i started this year with a rating of 1450 (USCF), while my actual playing strength was around 1600-1700

The ratings only show your results at the times you were playing. My OTB rating is only 1389.

true.. i was actually talking about tournament ratings haha

haha u do have a point.. see thats what i said haha, dont get affected by the fact that opponents have a lower rating and play ur best! if u do well against higher rated opponents, u definitely should against lower rated ones 

I believe the ratings should be calculated behind the scenes, and shouldn't be displayed when you face an opponent. Show final rating lists after the tournament, and do NOT display them during the tournaments. Obviously this is hard at high level play because their ratings are well known amongst chess players, but at amateur level I believe this would be a healthy idea.

Don't hate da playa. Hate da game.

Here is one way to create artificially high rating in almost any time control in live games: play an expert level Computer (~1800), if you are rated in 1300-1500, but always use the same openings. Usually Computer of that level in live chess has only 2 types of continuation for each standard openings. At first, you will be losing almost every game, but dont get discouraged, analyze the games using strong engine, and I can guarantee, these analyses will result in a seqence for each line that gives you a winning line all the way to checkmate. Memorize these winning lines (usually about 4 of them) and play the dumb Computer to the bone: now you will be winning every game, and your rating quickly will jump to over 1800. I am not sure if Computer ratings get adjusted the same way as real player's ratings do, but they always seem to be about the same every day, so no matter how many times you beat the Computer, its rating not going to change much from one day to the other, so you will be always beating an 1800 level opponent. But here is the catch: you real level will still be only 1300-1500.

This would never happen.

This is a very cumbersome and probably ineffective way of "solving" a problem that would be better solved through just learning to play your best no matter how high or low your opponent is rated.