Online chess ratings here have correlation, as some players (like me) need to make moves on average of 2 seconds, basically moving on pure instinct, since it is common for me to have 80+ moves at once. So their online chess is far below their OTB. Even the blitz and bullet are just for fun and fooling around in the opening. However, they do correlate better, but only with the BLITZ Otb ratings. Standard slow is a totally different thing. A USCF sanctioned slow tournament game is quite different from any online game. It is "official" too, so all players do their very best, and cheating is non-existant at the smaller tournaments (risk vs reward). Yeah here there is cheating. I crushed a player (will keep anon) after he made some blunders in the first match. After a small while, he challenged me and his playing was totally different. Strong and forceful moves were made without any traces of weakness. He launched a successful kingside attack and won very convincingly (but not quickly). His moves were not only almost perfect, but even the most obvious recaptures took him some time. Suggests that he was inputting the moves into a comp. Anyways, almost certain about that one since his playing style and strength was totally different from the first game(and from his <1400 rating too).
Ratings compared to real life
I learned there is nothing as an obvious recapture in chess and if you think you are winning it is very important to take your time to see if you think you are winning or not and not to reverse move order.
I have been playing otb against players even if they could only move their king to one square they spent more than 2 minutes.
I learned there is nothing as an obvious recapture in chess and if you think you are winning it is very important to take your time to see if you think you are winning or not and not to reverse move order.
I have been playing otb against players even if they could only move their king to one square they spent more than 2 minutes.
That's obviously a poor use of time. If a player has one legal move, and they are sure (should take a few secs at most) then simply they can play it. NM Heisman recommends exactly this. In blitz, there is absolutely no time to "see if you think youre winning". We only want to play the best move we can find in a small period of time. Looking for complicated ideas in simple positions is the best way to lose @ blitz/bullet; even I know that.
Sure, there are some positions where there's no obvious recap, but the vast majority of the time it is simply a recap. In the game I was forced to exchange sac and he took 5 seconds to take my rook. In fact, almost every move in that game took about that much time....
Chess.com ratings are said to be a little higher than OTB ratings.
Everyone that I know in person who has a USCF rating is lower in Live Chess on Chess.com than their USCF, except for the man who bills himself as the site's "best-selling chess coach." His USCF is lower.
Most of them, however, have higher Online ratings on Chess.com.
Chess.com ratings are said to be a little higher than OTB ratings.
Everyone that I know in person who has a USCF rating is lower in Live Chess on Chess.com than their USCF, except for the man who bills himself as the site's "best-selling chess coach." His USCF is lower.
Most of them, however, have higher Online ratings on Chess.com.
Could't agree more. Of course those 2700+ live player are the exception.
There may be inflation at the extremes--top and bottom. But, for players active both on Chess.com and OTB, I suspect that the overwhelming majority have live ratings well-below their OTB ratings.
The reason is simple. My paltry blitz rating here puts me in the to 95% on this site, while my USCF 200+ higher has me several percentiles lower. While the number of strong players on this site is impressive, they are a tiny percentage of all members. To increase their ratings, they must be nearly perfect against a multitude of patzers.
Online ratings are as "real" life as any others. They measure past performance and predict outcomes in a game that exists wholly in the mind, although there are tables* containing pieces both in the material and virtual worlds.
I think that the difference is that many/most people don't take online chess as seriously as when they play an "official" OTB tournament. I know that I often play many of my games with all sorts of distractions -- kids yelling, TV in the background, phone calls -- and as a result make blunders that I would not make in an OTB game. (Of course, I make plenty of blunders in an OTB game even without distractions.)
Despite all the distractions, I think my chess.com rating is much higher than my "real life" USCF rating.
*See Socrates concerning the "real" table, and hence the "real" game of chess.