Taking Advantage?

Sort:
JFK-Ramsey

This is a little embarrassing but I have never won a game of turn-based chess with anyone rated higher than my current rating. Maybe I am taking advantage of lower rated players? I have left my new game request rating range at the 300 plus or minus. Maybe I should raise it to 300 plus and 200 minus? It seems that my rating has simply gotten higher than my actual skill.

Any ideas?

Shivsky

It really comes down to two things:

1) What is "fun" for you? Everyone has a line between fun and torture and it varies from person to person.

 For some, it's beating up on weaker players on bullet/blitz and avoiding slow + serious games like the plague.  They only want to see their rating climb up 1 single point at a time and couldn't come to terms with radical ideas like "learning from your losses" :)

Others prefer to get "free chess lessons" by getting their a##es kicked by a strong player regularly and ENJOY post-mortem reviewing the games (alone, with their friend or coach).  

For most of us, it's somewhere in between.

2) A good metric is ask what your %age of wins are. A good thumbrule is that if it is above 60-65%, you're having it a little too easy and you should consider facing more stronger opposition in your games. Likewise, if your win %age gets too low (< 35%), find players closer to your level.

mrguy888

I was having the same problem. I put my seeks from 200+- to 100- 200+. I took a big rating hit but as I improved my rating started restoring and I was sporting a higher average opponent number. What really matters is that you improve your skill so don't worry too much about your rating.