I'll tell you about this guy I went to elementary school with. His name was Adam and he was pretty popular. In any case, he came up with this thing he called "ID codes" - they were imaginary points that he alone could allocate to the people in our group of friends. At lunch time he'd say "I'll give you 50 id codes for that granola bar" or what have you. Hilariously enough it worked. Oh, and he'd take id codes away also. I was just reminded of that a little.
It is interesting to reflect on the illusory nature of rating points. I mean, people in "the real world" or what have you run all in a tizzy over money, which, the spiritual teachers tell us is ultimately folly - yet money has real world applications, practical exchange value.
For the slightest moment let's remember all that is at stake here. Once upon a time someone made an amazing game with wooden pieces that people could play. Later people devised a point system to use to go about assessing relative skill amongst these players.
Right now we have a pool of virtual points and a .gif image of a trophy at stake. Mwahaha, in my villainous brilliance I devised a cunning plan to grab them all. "Miiiine!" I shrieked into the night, "it will be alll miiiine!"
Whether or not such and such an abstract a-hole exists isn't at issue here, because whatever judgement you'd like to make about them is immaterial.
What's actually interesting is observing how people act when they percieve that they've been slighted. Threads like this are created because someone cries out
"Look, unfair! I've been slighted! Someone took something from me that was rightfully mine! If only they hadn't acted in such and such a way I'd be better off!"
And then they clamour around and comiserate and pass their value judgements. "People who do such and such are horrible, awful, jerks! Phew, I'm glad I got that out of my system!" Having concluded that they're in the right they feel a little better.
How many threads on this site begin because someone feels slighted, deprived, or that they've suffered some kind of injustice.
Well, let me throw myself on this little grenade for a moment because I'm "guilty" of this very thing.
My rating has wildly fluctuated during my time here because at times I became depressed or what have you and have been known to resign absolutely every game I had at the time.
So my rating was hovering around 1000 and I recieved an invite from a tournament director advertising a 1100 and below tournament. I knew I had to go about recovering my rating at some point, and I agreed to enter.
I haven't lost a game thus far, and yes, in fact, it has actually been fun absolutely thrashing some of these players. I don't feel like I'm deriving them of fun, it's odd, you know - when compared against the other threads which complain of people not getting the opportunity to play against better players.
I don't think I've done anything "wrong". I've risen back to my normalish rating now, but I'm still happy to be playing these games. Not all are easy wins. I honestly don't know how you can really feel slighted by this persons genuine ability being greater than her rating reflected at the time - how else was she to raise her rating to where it ought to be?
Sounds like sour grapes to me. Are you currently second place in the tourney?
I honestly enjoy playing around the 1200~ rating range. More casual. I might sandbag in the future, who knows. At the end of the day I want chess to be enjoyable.
Haha I can't believe you actually feel slighted, slimcheffy.
Absolutely agree.
First there was this cheat-whining spam-threads [who called 'cheat' 'cheater' for good measure, the retards that they are], and now thread like this. This site is degrading faster than I thought.