Ratings Difference

Hi there,

Something I've been wondering (perhaps because I've never been on a chess club or a real chess tournament): my rating in Standard Chess is 1200-ish, my rating in Online chess is 1300-ish and my rating is Tatics Trainer is jig-sawing from 1400-ish to 1550-ish. Chess Mentor shows 1650-ish.

I suppose that Chess Mentor's rating is really something not to take into account, and Tatics Trainer's rating is probably not so meaningful as well. But what about the other ratings? Are they somewhat close to "real life chess" ratings? Could some of you guys give me an example of your real rating and your chess.com rating?

1730 Online, 1500 blitz, 1200 standard (haven't played standard at all really), 1350 bullet, 2000 TT (peaked at 2200), 1850 CM, 1550 USCF, unrated FIDE (not enough games).

Blitz and standard are generally closer to your real rating, online is usually higher, and TT is usually even higher. Just my opinion.

Regardless of the time control, it's the pool of players that make your rating what it is.  If you played tournament time controls with poor players, you'd have a 3000 rating and it wouldn't mean much.

My experience is also that blitz is closer than the other ratings, and that turn-based is usually higher.  Still it's hard to compare so it's reasonable to expect one or two hundred points of difference, higher or lower, depending on the person.

Interesting that you guys mention Blitz; I for one detest rapid chess, and I normally play 30|15 games here in chess.com, but I'm growing a taste for online chess - even longer!

If I understood correctly from wikipedia, tournaments usually have a much longer time, no?

The objective strength of your game would be closest to tournament play when the time controls are similar.  However ratings aren't a measurement like length or weight, they're relative to the pool of players. 

So he asking if he's in the 50th percentile in _____ online play, what percentile can he expect to be in OTB tournament play, which is a reasonable question that has nothing to do with the time control and everything to do with the strength of the pool.

There is some correlation of course estragon.  Not perfect but it's there.  Strong OTB players will tend to be in the top % of online chess here while beginners will be in the bottom.

It may have been awhile, but I've looked at some ~1700 online chess games before and they weren't that good compared to what I think of as 1900 blitz.  It's surprising you can have a 1900 blitz rating and only manage 1700 online.  Maybe your style in blitz focuses on speed and tactics?  But I see your bullet is lower than your blitz...

Maybe you just don't try very hard on your online games?  I guess I haven't played here in awhile, maybe the ratings have changed.

I see CC games primarily as a tool for improvement. It's like practicing in slo-mo for the real thing. If you take as long as you want to maximize the effectiveness of your calculations and planning, the idea is that you can work towards doing the same thing faster under shorter time controls.

On another note, there's a large difference between friendly pixels on a screen and a smelly opponent glaring at you from across a leather chessboard. The psychological battle is a significant part of playing OTB, whereas the anonymity of the internet allows for a purer man-versus-position situation.

I'm sure it is a long discussion though! I know that many people do not consider blitz chess as "real chess"!

I'd consider OTB as the only "real chess". By the same token, blitz games could be taken as speed-practice for OTB.

As for computers, what's the problem with playing against them, if you're playing against a chess position, anyway? I mean, if somebody else is going to donate their precious time to input moves from a computer to challenge me, so be it!

Because around 400 points stronger the opposition isn't really worthwhile to lose to because you wont know when or why you lost, just that your position was never quite good.

Well, at least at my level, I don't think I meet many bots, since I can clearly see some obvious blunders even when I lose (what, I blunder a lot too).

My blitz and standart are about 300 points lower than my otb rating my online rating is 200 points higher.

That's normally my feeling - online tends to be a bit higher. Someone else has already mentioned the same thing.

Also alexlaw, thank you for remarking my question.  I think that everybody but Estragon understood that I'm not looking for a mathematical formula, just a vague idea.

I do think that with live I'm a bit "underrated". Partly because I take it less seriously then my online rating, because I don't play it often (the rating is still the same then when my online rating was 300 points lower than it is now) and because I'm not used to fast games (3 days games and 2 hour otb games).

If you want to know what your OTB level is => go play OTB !

There's no direct comparison : it's not the same pool of players, not the same calculation system, not the same playing conditions, not the same time control...

If you don't want to try OTB, then you'll have to live with the idea that you don't know what your OTB level is (which is perfectly fine too)

I try to play my online games like otb. So I generally think about 30 sec up to 5 minutes per move. The difference however IS between this and blitz that I do  have the time to look if my opponent can capture one of my pieces, if my opponent has a fork or other tactic. With blitz I don't. I get stuck between two plans and play a piece to a square where it can be directly captured etc.

I do think that if I would play blitz more seriously, play it more often, take more care with my moves and get used to the time control I should be able to get my rating up with 200 points (which would make it 100 points lower than my otb rating) in 1-2 months.

I'm not a fast thinker .  Luckily otb is 2 hours per person, so it is not a problem .

The impression I had with blitz is that it is much more about patterns recognition. What really annoys me in blitz is that players (at least in my level) are counting with the stupidness of the oponent (e4 Qh5, really?) and silly traps that would be easily detected & prevented (& laughteable) in standard chess. Many things are about memorization these sequences and patterns = not fun or even interesting for me.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I suppose that blitz and standard games are two different worlds, and I am not even considering to compare rapid chess with standard OTB (reason why I've mentioned only standard and online ratings on my original post)