here's the equation according to Bobby Fischer:
1200 + wins - losses /games played = new rating. Therefore, if you're 1200 and you win 5 games but lose 6, your new rating is 1200 + (5) - (6) / 11 = 109
Hmm, intresting equation indeed.
What about if you're a 2045 rated player? Let's say you lose a game, what will your rating then be?
OP (original post) asserts that your rating falls by more when you lose than it gains when you win. This statement is not complete enough to be deemed accurate or not. Let's take an example. If one takes the simple case of never having played a single game, defeating a 1200 rated player with a firmly entrenched rating and compares it to the same scenario but losing that game, the ratings adjustments will be identical. However, those two scenarios can never happen to a single player: once you've played, all things are different from then on - and it's likely that ratings adjustments will bounce around rather mysteriously unless very closely examined.
chess.com uses the Glicko Rating system (read more here). This system is a bit more complicated than the more straightforward pure ELO system. Ratings adjustments depend not only on game outcome, but on both players ratings and both players frequency of play (embodied in the RD factor). Thus two players with identical ratings could play each other and the points lost by one would NOT equal the points gained by the other. The RD (ratings deviation) factor accounts for frequency of play ... if you play a lot of games often and have played a lot of games so far, your RD is lower and ratings adjustments for YOU will be smaller. If you have just started play and/or play very infrequently, then the adjustments - win or lose - are larger.
It's quite complicated, as I have mentioned.
Better might be to work on one's quality of play, and then one's rating will increase (over the long haul) as a result.
Best wishes.
Chess ratings start at 1200. Once you win, you gain LITTLE score, but losing, you lose about FIVE times the winning score.
What's that all about? You should lose 2 times more at MOST, but losing about 5 times the points you'd get if you win is just silly.
The system goes like this : You play chess for a year, you win a thousand chess games, bolster your rating, and then get back where you started just because you lost 2 games.
Please, explain why losing takes away so many points.