I'm following up from a previous post of mine, where I shared some observations I made in regard to ratings here at chess.com. I'm going to basically repeat the things I said in the previous post. I'll provide some additional information to substantiate the claim I'll be making.
I began playing here at chess.com in 2016. I used my facebook account to create my membership, and closed it a little while ago, and had to create a new account with an email address. So, the profile you see now isn't the one I started with, though that doesn't matter.
By the first part of 2017 my ratings averaged in the 1100s and 1200s. I played a lot and got them into the 1300s and 1400s. At my peak I was averaging in the 1400s with occasional visits into the 1500s. Then, my ratings began to decline, though my game was getting better.
At the time I made my initial post on this matter my ratings had dropped back into the 1100s and 1200s, though there's no doubt that my game was getting better. My opponents were getting better as well.
Since my initial post my ratings have actually dropped into the 1000s, though once again there's no doubt that my game is getting better, and so are my opponents'. Since I made that post I've gotten really serious about chess and have really improved, especially in regard to openings.
So it's like, the better my chess game gets the better my opponents get (which is to be expected) but the lower my rating goes.
Yesterday I decided to create an account elsewhere to see if there would be any difference in ratings. After completing the provisional games I wound up with a rating in the 1600s for 10-minute games. Today I began playing 15+15 games for the first time (I've always just played 10-minute games) and wound up with a rating of 1901 after 12 games. Clearly I do better at the longer games, but that's not the point.
The point is that there's something really fishy with the way chess.com pools certain players together. It appears to me that there's a certain group of players who are pooled into a subset of all players. The problem with this, as I mentioned in my previous post, is that it doesn't produce accurate ratings.
I mentioned this as an example in my previous post, but if you were to, for example, pool all 2000+ players together, you'd wind up with 1200 players, even 900 players because of the way the rating system works. You could potentially see masters with ratings of 1200, again if they weren't in a pool of players representing all skill levels.
This is in no way to suggest that I'm a master--obviously I'm not. The point is, once again, that something fishy is going on. The tremendous discrepancy between my ratings elsewhere and here make that very obvious to me.
Last time I posted I received a slough of comments, with many people suggesting I keep playing to get better. Again, it's not about my skill level; it's about the fact that, the better my chess game gets, the lower my ratings become. It's about the fact that once again, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Also, as I mentioned, this appears to only be happening to a small number of players. So, just because this isn't happening to you doesn't mean this isn't happening. But if you've had similar experiences, know that you're not going crazy.
I won't be responding to bone-headed comments from other members, like I got in my previous post. I'm addressing this primarily to the moderators. If any of them are interested in looking into this matter, I'll be happy to provide them with more information. I'll be happy to share my other profile with you, and even play some games to prove to you that my skill level is well above what my rating here suggests.
I'll conclude by saying that until I've been notified that the issue I've described is at the least been examined, I won't be playing here anymore. Chess isn't all about ratings for me, but I find it very discouraging to see my ratings continually decrease as my game improves.
Thanks, and again I won't be responding to comments from other members. If any moderators are interested in looking into this please let me know, and once again I'll be happy to provide you with more information.
Yes, ratings at other sites are generally reported to be higher. That doesn't mean their players are better. It just means they set their starting ratings differently.
The point of ratings is mainly to allow good matches. It looks like you win about 50% of your games. To me, it seems like you have been fairly matched.
Your rating was only at 1500 here for one game, right after you joined. It appears to have fluctuated between 1150 and 1300 since then. That kind of fluctuation is normal.
I'm following up from a previous post of mine, where I shared some observations I made in regard to ratings here at chess.com. I'm going to basically repeat the things I said in the previous post. I'll provide some additional information to substantiate the claim I'll be making.
I began playing here at chess.com in 2016. I used my facebook account to create my membership, and closed it a little while ago, and had to create a new account with an email address. So, the profile you see now isn't the one I started with, though that doesn't matter.
By the first part of 2017 my ratings averaged in the 1100s and 1200s. I played a lot and got them into the 1300s and 1400s. At my peak I was averaging in the 1400s with occasional visits into the 1500s. Then, my ratings began to decline, though my game was getting better.
At the time I made my initial post on this matter my ratings had dropped back into the 1100s and 1200s, though there's no doubt that my game was getting better. My opponents were getting better as well.
Since my initial post my ratings have actually dropped into the 1000s, though once again there's no doubt that my game is getting better, and so are my opponents'. Since I made that post I've gotten really serious about chess and have really improved, especially in regard to openings.
So it's like, the better my chess game gets the better my opponents get (which is to be expected) but the lower my rating goes.
Yesterday I decided to create an account elsewhere to see if there would be any difference in ratings. After completing the provisional games I wound up with a rating in the 1600s for 10-minute games. Today I began playing 15+15 games for the first time (I've always just played 10-minute games) and wound up with a rating of 1901 after 12 games. Clearly I do better at the longer games, but that's not the point.
The point is that there's something really fishy with the way chess.com pools certain players together. It appears to me that there's a certain group of players who are pooled into a subset of all players. The problem with this, as I mentioned in my previous post, is that it doesn't produce accurate ratings.
I mentioned this as an example in my previous post, but if you were to, for example, pool all 2000+ players together, you'd wind up with 1200 players, even 900 players because of the way the rating system works. You could potentially see masters with ratings of 1200, again if they weren't in a pool of players representing all skill levels.
This is in no way to suggest that I'm a master--obviously I'm not. The point is, once again, that something fishy is going on. The tremendous discrepancy between my ratings elsewhere and here make that very obvious to me.
Last time I posted I received a slough of comments, with many people suggesting I keep playing to get better. Again, it's not about my skill level; it's about the fact that, the better my chess game gets, the lower my ratings become. It's about the fact that once again, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Also, as I mentioned, this appears to only be happening to a small number of players. So, just because this isn't happening to you doesn't mean this isn't happening. But if you've had similar experiences, know that you're not going crazy.
I won't be responding to bone-headed comments from other members, like I got in my previous post. I'm addressing this primarily to the moderators. If any of them are interested in looking into this matter, I'll be happy to provide them with more information. I'll be happy to share my other profile with you, and even play some games to prove to you that my skill level is well above what my rating here suggests.
I'll conclude by saying that until I've been notified that the issue I've described is at the least been examined, I won't be playing here anymore. Chess isn't all about ratings for me, but I find it very discouraging to see my ratings continually decrease as my game improves.
Thanks, and again I won't be responding to comments from other members. If any moderators are interested in looking into this please let me know, and once again I'll be happy to provide you with more information.