Initial Rating in Matches

Hi there. I'm Penguincw. I'm an admin for many teams, and my teams play in matches for many leagues.

One thing I always fear is when unrated players join a match, because they may not understand how it works, or their rating might not be accurate.

Before, this wasn't a problem, as all unrated players have "unrated" next to them, but their rating started out as 1200 for calculation purposes. This meant they were unlikely to play, but if they were to play, then they would likely get paired against someone weaker.

Nowadays, I've noticed unrated players be anywhere from 800 to 1800. I'm not sure how chess.com decides these values, but my theory is that when a new player signs up, they have an option to choose whether they're a beginner, or immediate, or whatever, and that decides their rating accordingly.

Unfortunately, if that's right, then that means a total beginner could claim to be rated 1800, sign up for a match (and when signing up, the system ranks them as an 1800 player), and they get destroyed, and cost the team.

Now I'm not against players losing games in matches. As long as they tried their best, it's good enough for me. However, I am not fond of people who have inaccurate ratings, and signing up for matches. I tried using the "minimum games" parameters, but some leagues don't have any opinion on that.

With all that in mind, my 2 questions are:

1) Can someone choose their rating when signing up to chess.com?

2) How are unrated players ranked when signing up for a match?

Thanks in advance.

1, yes. When signing up on the app or current site, players can choose a strength level and that assigns a starting rating.

2, I'm pretty sure it uses the listed rating, even when based on zero games.

Hmm, that's not good, but thanks for the information.