Why fake a low rating to win ??

Don't forget the two from march!

/I can has more fun trolling the nice men, plz?
//work is boring, I can has flame war

funny how my forum keeps switching from "why fake a low rating to win" to "lets all talk about Rael".........LOL, you've certainly made for an interesting and provocative discussion Rael.....but I guess that's what you were going for all along.......good on ya !!

Ever thought of getting into politics ?

In the spirit of threadjacking, why doesn't Game Explorer work correctly?

If you enter this set of moves:

1. e4 Nc6

2. Nf3 -- it says that 1,648 times black has played ...e5

But if you play e4 e5 Nf3, it says that 245,471 times black has played ...Nc6

Apparently it figures the positions to be different, I'm not kidding here, because the 50 move rule has a different counter. How ridiculous is that?

I'm sorry, I hang out on too many websites that approve of such lulzy antics and it spills over into here. Threadjacking, fishing for bites, all that jazz. Internet metagames.

Well, I'm off to go resign a whole bunch of games and find myself a tournament to enter. I'm gonna go for >900 this time I think. Mwahahaha you cannot stop me!

See, this is enough for me. This entire argument comes down to whether you believe this or not.

I see no reason not to believe it, so that's that. Everything else is just philosophical debate that doesn't really apply to this incident. It's an interesting debate to be sure (I had no idea people cared this much about their ratings on chess.com, and that is a good thing to know to avoid upsetting anyone accidentally), but doesn't have anything to do with this unless you don't believe what Rael has said.

Nice!

(cue the dramatic music as the trial resumes...)

Let's find out if Rael really did have something of a personal breakdown or if it is all part of a plot to win a meaningless tournament!

For my first witness I call Cobalt_T, the tournament director of the "BBB...Breaking Boredoms Back" tournament, and ask if he sent an invite of his own free volition!

Then we'll bring artfizz to the stand and ask him to recall whether or not he remembers the existence of a "Burnout" thread.

For our grand finale we'll bring Erik himself to the stand and ask if he and Rael ever exchanged messages about closing Rael's account!

/oooh the drama
//*streeeetch*... still got it

Rael is ok.    I have spoken!

  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

                                         .

Wow!  I had no idea so many people took this game so seriously.  Is it a game or a lifestyle?  I read every previous comment (this is the first time I have ever opened a "forum" topic) and am fascinated at the high level of analysis put into them.  Unfortunately it took a lot of time and my wife is wondering why I am not splitting wood for the fireplace or sweeping the leaves off our pool deck.  I must admit that I too cheat.  I put up a good fight when playing against my grandkids but make sure they win a good share of the games we play.  Once they are giving me a real challenge and winning some of the game legitimately I stop cheating and try to win.  I get no pleasure out of winning over someone who has "let me win", someone who is just learning and not anywhere my skill level, or someone who is not really trying.  I love to legitimately beat a good player.  If it is no challenge, it is no fun.  Those who win by cheating have won nothing.  They cannot even feel good about themselves.  Too bad there are people like that in our world.  I wonder who helped develop their set of standards and ethics in the first place......parents who cheat?  Slimcheffy....don't waste a moment of your time with them.  They are destroying themselves.  Here's to challenging, fun, honest chess!

As of 10/30/08: (* in rated games)

Users - 1, Non-Users -0

Possibly this person doesn't much care for her rating in the short term (which can be fixed later), but the goal is climbing up the tournament points ladder. Or as somebody else has suggested, a flaw in her character requires winning against less able opponents. How would someone like that feel about themselves when reading what everybody here has to say about them?

Best thing to do to avoid it...create your own tournament and opt for 'invite only'. Yes it will be time consuming for you, but you'll be able to check each potential entrant's profile before inviting them to join; saving you a lot of frustration a week later.

Manipulating your own rating is a matter that should be taken serious! A lot of people don't play to get a good rating, but for the fun of the game! Think about how to make chess for them a good game on Chess.com. However, in order to have good games one usually wants to play against people who are of an equal strength, or just slightly stronger. Players who intentionally manipulate their ratings to get "easy games" and who enjoy to "bash" players with less experience in the game will ultimately lead to an decrease in interest in this platform.

I would not like to play continuously on a platform where I always get smashed in a tournament because someone fakes his rating, only to ameliorate his tournament statistics! That's not what the ratings are for!

I therefor would appreciate it, if there was an official statement of a staffmember from Chess.com concerning this issue.

Thanks,

Arcueid

*golf clap*

 I know, eh? Bravo, hondoham, bravo.

Unfortunatley Rael, I believe you.

You can try to hide behind your "philosopher-drama queen" mask as long as you like, but......... at the end of the day anyone who purposely tanks their rating in order to enter a tournament and beat up on a group of lesser ability players is truely a LOSER.

Well said Stannus !

Just to add to that, what this is really about is FAIR PLAY, INTEGRITY and GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP.......these virtues seem to have been somehow missed on a few people...............it's nice to see an intelligent comment such as yours on this subject : " Those who win by cheating have won nothing".......bravo Stannus !

 Bravo hondoham!  This is the most honest post I have seen on xhess.com. 

 You're right, Arcueid. Let's make a few rule changes;

From now on you're not allowed to resign unless you recieve staff approval that you're actually down enough material to warrant it. 7 or 8 points down in material minimum. The resign button will be changed to a "submit resignation" button, pending staff approval. If we notice people resigning when it could be said there is still potential play in the game this will be a reportable offense and the player will be punished by having his or her rating raised back to the level of their "real" rating, which will be easily assessable by forcing people to play at least 10 initial games against trained site members. Playing these initial assessment games while drunk will be considered cheating, as it is playing below one's real level. If it is discovered that the person's "site" rating differs any more than 50 points from their "real" rating, this will be a reportable offense. We will implement detection methods to discover whether or not a player is playing to the full skill of their real rating - if it is found that anyone over the rating of 1350 has dropped their Queen in a game for no compensation, this will be a reportable offense and the staff will have to review whether this was a genuine blunder or someone intentionally trying to throw the match. Playing anyone rated more than 300 points of rating differentiation away from your own will be automatically unrated. Black market "account trading" (whereby a player creates an account, goes through our assessment process but then gives the account password to another player whose rating is secretly higher) will be investigated and punished.

These are just a few good ideas I think will help.

Hey, why don't you start a new forum called "my off topic rantings", then just read them over and over to yourself while looking in the mirror.........

You may as well seeing as you keep skirting around the issue here

That one's on topic, right?