Why do we win/lose so many points per game?

We all gain SO MANY points per victory and lose SO MANY points per loss that very few players on chess.com have an accurate rating.  The fluctuating ratings are my biggest complaint about this site.  How often have you won or lost a game against someone whose current rating was 1600, but you know based on the moves they played they are actually a much stronger player?  Sometimes, this is due to too many timeouts, but other times it is simply that they have lost a few games in a row which has dropped them 200 points.  Imagine playing poorly one day (making moves that day which lead to eventual losses) and losing four games to lower rated players and watching your rating go from 1800 to 1600!  If I had one wish it would be that each game did not cause a rating increase/decrease of 30 to 50 points!

That isn't happening to me. I've only been on for 1 month and already my rating has stabilised to the point where it never leaves the range 1750-1820. If you look at my game record you'll see that I usually either win or lose a lot of games in a row.

 Given that you've already played 85 games, your Ratings Deviation or RD is low and therefore a loss or win won't affect you nearly as much as most.  I know that if I don't want to lose/gain 30-50 points per game, then I have to play more games to get my RD lower, but I don't want to have to play 85 games in one month!

play more games.

Exactly how does the rating deviation work? I mean it shouldn't react on the density of games, just how many games one have played, is it different than that?

I'm frustrated mine can't go up, but thats because i think i don't study enough XP. I'm generally around 1000-1050. My rating never goes up or down by more than 10. And for beginning players, it's not fair to start out at 1200 and drop 300 pts ur first day (like me). There's also a discrepency in skill at around 1100-1200, and 1400-1600?

I think over time as you win more frequently and against higher opponents, your rating will increase faster. Lose alot and against lower opponents and it goes down faster?

Bullrock,

When I started out here I lost my first 2 games.  my rating dropped to ~ 1050.  Then I won a few more, and I was around 1400.  Each game, I would lose or gain 20-30 points.  Now 20-30 points is a rarity for me.  Yes, it will take a few months, but it will eventually even out.  Now, 500 games later, my average is ~5 points/game.  Just have patience, and it will stop fluctuating as much.

Yes, I agree about RD.  My complaint is the number of games you are required to play such that your wins/losses don't earn/lose you 30-50 points per game!  I've played over 200 games since July of last year and still my RD is not such that my wins/losses are only 10-20 points. 

RD's based more strongly on how many games you've played recently. If you don't play games for a while, your RD goes back up to reflect the newly created inaccuracy in your rating (your rating will therefore will change more quickly to reflect the possible change in your rating during your absence). It's a system designed to try and reflect your current skill level under any conditions.

If you play for the ratings, your chess will suffer.

To truly consider how much one is rated, you must take into account the # of games and the avg. competition.

A player ( who in a real world maybe 1400) can reach 2400 if he plays 200 games against 1100-1700 players and wins apx 98% of the games.  It may take years.  What does that tell you?

My advice, pay attention what's on the board, try to enjoy the game, try to improve your play and don't worry about the rating.

I don't know what part of what I've said made you feel I was worried about my ratings.  I stated that this website's rating system is so variable that very few of its members have accurate ratings.  I believe this website should reduce the number of games per time period needed to get one's RD to a level such that each win/loss doesn't move the players rating 30-50 points.

Even harder than impossible now. There was a 2009 01 14 change to "remove 1 point mininum rating increase".

Bullrock, I don't see a problem with rating here at all, you start out with a provisional rating. Which means if you win a game you are going to jump up depending on who your playing. Chances are if you lose your first few games to players rated 1000 that's what your skill level is. If you win your first few games against 1600's then it's pretty fair to say your on that level. As long as these games weren't caused by disco's or abandonment, I feel that the rating system is about as accurate as it can be on the internet. I think you just feel that you are higher rated than what it shows.

First thing to keep in mind, this isn't Chess.com's system. By that, I mean, we didn't come up with it. It's a system that's used on other sites as well. Bullrock, I think the problem is, as others have mentioned, RD is effected as much by how many games you've played as by how recently you've played them. If you have long breaks between your games, your RD will be higher, and your rating will fluctuate more. The thinking behind that is that your actual chess rating (which can never truly be known, only estimated, which is what the Glicko system tries to do), can fluctuate a lot in a month. For example, maybe you spent a good portion of that month reading chess books, and not playing, your true rating probably went up some in that month, so your RD will expand to try to include that increase.

Here is a description of the formula, and a bit more information into why it was chosen: http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-ratings---how-they-work .

This link is in the article, but for the sake of clarity, I'll post it here too, its writen by the man who the formula is named after: http://math.bu.edu/people/mg/glicko/glicko.doc/glicko.html .

 No, I am MOST DEFINITELY overrated.  I am not complaining about my rating!  I am complaining about the number of games per time period one must play in order to not have each game result in a  30-50 point increase/decrease.

 Yes. I know. But, chess.com's requirement for how many games per given time period must be played in order to achieve a certain RD is what this thread is about.  Other sites that use the Glicko have a MUCH lower requirement for the number of games played recently to achieve a stable RD.  Chess.com's  calculation of RD is very differnt than that of, say, FICS.  Why is that?

Anyone?

I don't know why they do it that way but I also feel that the rating adjustment when I win/lose a game vs a player close to my own rating is really excessive. I think of chess.com mostly as a place to learn and share. I play most of my games at other sites for various reasons and one of those reasons is that the rating adjustment is not as great and I suppose that is due to the RD factor. Some of them also have a better chessboard interface. But it has seemed to me that chess.com's general policies favors blitz type play and players. They seem to have a disdainful attitude toward slow CC type players; for example, the tactics trainer does not provide ratings for untimed puzzle solving. I think that's rediculous. So I use a tactics trainer at another site.