hi popskirk,
Ratings will go up and down less when you have played more games, depending on your opponent's rating and some fun math formulas. Everyone starts at 1200 here so if your rating is actually better than 1200 it will go up quickly as you win games against higher rated opponents. Here's a good place to read up on it, and see the fun math: http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-ratings---how-they-work
That just happened to me. I played my first game, lost and went right to a 1030 rating.
It's a little unfair in the other way sometimes, being rated higher than 1200 and then losing to a new player who is clearly much stronger than the default rating.
It can drop you like 10 points.
Also, wow eight moth old thread.
I guess that's part of starting new. I know (I think) I'm a better player than the first two games I played, but getting used to everything, I didn't play good. I'm not that much better, but I'm not that bad either. So my ratings are going to affect not only me, but others until I get an average going.
This has happened to me several times. I get an opponent who shows a rather nice rating....for instance, today I had an opponent whose rating was 1200. I ended up winning the game, and my opponent's rating dropped to 1030. Mine went up about 9 points. This has happened several times. Does a player have the ability to "mask" their rating? How does a player lose 170 points from their rating, but their opponent only gets 9 points? It's not that the ratings mean much....but I'm trying to understand how this works..