Should you care about your rating

What I am saying is, if you are 1700 and your playing a 2000 for example should you automatically thin he is better then you?

He probably is, but that shouldn't deter you. HE's the one with a reputation to lose here!

i agree. having a high rating means one thing. you have beat people with ratings lower than that. it doesn't mean he can beat anyone under that rating. i'm 1500 and i've lost to a 1000ish player. i'm not that made. i knew he was better than me even if his rating didn't say so.

Absolutely not. Maybe he/she just won ONE game and the rating jumped up. Or maybe you just LOST one game and your rating went down. Rating is something to be aware of, but I wouldn't call it a deciding factor.

vs a much higher rated player I really push the limits of what I can check for tactically.  I simply wont waste the time to do this vs someone a few hundred points below me.  Many sacrificial lines whose compensation is positional for example... like a bind, or to get a lasting initiative.

I certainly try to play everyone equally tough, but I wonder how many of us really do this?  And if we do is it worth it?  I'm certainly not wasting many minutes per move vs an underdog to check some deep tactical line.

Now psyching yourself out, or playing out of character (e.g. choosing a very safe or very tactical line you wouldn't ever play otherwise) is not good.

If you are playing a higher rated player then he should be better than you, or he wouldn't have a higher rating.

My answer to "Should you care about your rating?" is yes. The higher your rating, the more respect you will earn, and the more people will listen to you on chessic matters. Rating is a good way to compare the strength of different chess players, and they are accurate enough. I would guess that they are usually accurate within 50 points for online chess.

 I've had situations where I underestimated a much lower rated opponent. He played the whole game with only a single significant mistake. I suspected cheating but I would never accuse someone of this unless I was 99% certain. I've also played an much lower rated opponent that was actually severely sandbagging. He was at least 700 points underrated. The way he played he could have been a computer.

My "friends" are avoiding play with me because have recently lost many games and rating  due accidentally sandbagged... so they know there is sting in the tale still !! 

I've hanged a queen in a game with my 6 year old daughter recently ...

Nope, she didn't take it ...

don't do as I did in one game. I was up against a higher rated opponent and because he was so high rated I avoided playing the Caro Kann because I know he knew it.
so I tried playing an opening line I did not know any theory on and did not know anything about. Play the same moves / opponings as if your opponent was rated the same as you. this is my experience. Don't try to play moves early to avoid opening theory you might play into another opening system without knowing it.

You don't get a 300 point difference by winning/losing one game. It's almost certain the 2000 player is better than the 1700.

I don't think online ratings mean much.  OTB ratings are a strong indication of how good a player is.   In a OTB rated game, both players are usually taking the game seriously.    In an online game, one player may be taking the game seriously while the other is amusing himself while surfing the inter-net.