Should higher-rated players play down?

What do you think about higher-rated players (like yours truly) who avoid playing in open tnmts and otherwise hang onto their precious ratings pts by only playing opponents of about equal or higher-rating? Should higher-rated players at least occasionally put their ratings on the line vs lower-rated players? I generally prefer to avoid playing opponents rated several hundred pts below me because of the lack of competition, but at what pt do other players draw "the line?"

BTW I'm referring specifically to CC not OTB but I'm interested in reading whatever other players have to say here.

In OTB chess I have never given this much thought. In tournaments you must play against whoever they pair you against and it really doesnt bother me if they are lower rated. Ofcourse I prefer to play higher rated players even though it means I will lose/struggle more as this is the best way to learn/improve. 

Online chess is completely different since we have more control over whom we play. In online games I tend not to play ( regularly ) with players under 2000. In general I try to follow Lasker's advice in which he said that , if you want to improve, you shouldnt make a "habit" of playing with weaker players. 

I need to point out that I am referring to classic/standard/slow chess here because in blitz/bullet I play anyone of any rating. 

As somebody else said, the 200 point either side range is a fairly good limit for good playing if both players want a competitive game.

My personal preference is to try and avoid players 200 below me so that I can prioritise on higher rated players, but that's a preference only. Furthermore, I'd be happy to break the 200 point rule on the up as opposed to the down as it's nice to get crushed every once in a while (doing it often is not fun though) . So, put simply, I prefer playing higher rated players, but recommend others stick to a 200 limit marker around their rating for the most even games.

I always find this argument strange....

The reality is, if you play up, your opponent plays down. If you play down, your opponent plays up.

If everybody always insisted on playing up, nobody would play.

Hi NimzoRoy, the actual points themselves don't bother me much as they don't really mean much here, as in there's a tremendous variation and skew compared to FIDE OTB chess ratings at slow time.

And then again bullet, blitz, 960, slow and CC are all such different games I'd hesitate to call them all "chess", as I guess you know a good bullet strategy (playing solid positions and sacrificing for threats to game time on the clock) is worthless in CC or OTB, in 960 there's not much point investing much in opening theory, and so on.

In CC I'm more interested in learning openings by playing lines I'd never play OTB (like the Gruenfeld - argh!) and learning from stronger players in team vote games.

I don't mind playing someone rated much lower but it's a time-filler really as you don't learn much, if anything, and of course if you do it all the time you pick up bad habits like playing trappy moves and assuming there is no Evil Plan behind a seemingly innocuous move and getting trounced by the next strong player. 

At Bullet or Blitz I generally won't play someone <200 points less for more than 5 games in a row as I don't think either side is gaining anything. The reverse holds true, I don't expect more than 1-2 games from a 2500 player.

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful replies. As a result I'm going to eventually start playing in some team matches and/or open tnmts where I'll be paired vs lower-rated players to give them the same chances players like NM Reb and Estragon have given me.

Well NimzoRoy, I used to have my bullet filter set to >-150 but after your article and since the Bullet Chess Master group wanted to recruit players over 1800 I removed that a couple of weeks ago and my bullet rating has dropped by over 100 points. I used to have an average opponent rating of 2300, now it's down to 2257.

However, there used to be far more higher rated Bullet players here than there are this past few weeks and it's possible that is skewing the statistics. I've seen some of the higher rated ones from here at chesscube.com (probably because there is more passing trade, and an element of gambling) so my guess is they have moved there for bullet chess, although they stay here for CC and vote chess and lesson material.

It's interesting, though, your article has really made me think (repeatedly!)