The policy and rules playing at live chess

Life ain't fair and people don't act right. 

@polishny  You are being philosophical today.  Interesting.  I've decided not to debate with you.  Have you talked with staff here at chess.com about your ideas?

Hmm.  It's a bizarre train of thought where you dismissed my original question for being "impossible" but then spend half a paragraph explaining what happens if you win or lose 9,804 games in a row.  I guess I wasn't clear enough when I addressed the question to "you".  When I said "you", I mean "you" as in, the human being responsible for the account "polisny", not some imaginary 1500.  The "polisny" with an established rating.  Yes, you.

Anywho, you've had a few posts to answer a yes or no question and for some reason have failed to do so.  I'll simplify the question for you;

You (the human being responsible for the chess.com account "polisny") are offered 2 matches of 1000 games.  You (polisny) have a bullet rating of 1904.  You (polisny) must choose between a 1000 rated opponent and a 2000 rated opponent.  What will your (polisny's) rating be at the end of the match?

I accept your resignation, thegreat_patzer. 

Ah, you see, in English when the second person plural or singular is used (you) it can (in the singular case) refer to all people, not just me. Nonetheless, I didn't have any confusion regarding that point. I understand you were using it as an impersonal pronoun, not actually talking about me specifically. Even if you were, I accepted your nine-thousand games. However, I never said that such games would be played one-after-the-other, in-a-row. I only conceded that such a match could be played, whereas one million matches is absurd and cannot happen. :)

Now for your question, which as you see was not clear, I'd much rather play a 2000 rated player, assuming that his/her rating is genuine. If I played the player 9000 (plus) times, and if both our ratings were accurate reflections of our strenghts and weaknesses as players when we started playing, my rating would change as a result of losing more than winning and our relative strengths and weaknesses could also change, considerably, depending on our intentions in playing each other. If we played with the intention to enjoy or hate or whatever else, I think our strenghts and weaknesses would remain relatively constant. However, if we played to learn, I think that in that hypothetical, the results could change considerably and therefore that my rating could also change significantly from what it would have otherwise been after either only losing, only winning, or a combination of both to differing degrees.

In any case and in short, would my rating (as determined by this system here on chess.com) be different after playing the nine thousand games? Yes, of course it would. But if I always won or always lost, it could only change so much within that nine thousand games. :) 

ok

But I did ask a question.... Have you talked to chess.com staff?

Ah, sorry, no I haven't. I thought that such was what the forum was for. That's why there is no convenient way to contact the staff. If there were, I think the forum would be about a fingernail as big as it is.  

I've looked all through your post and couldn't find the answer - what will your rating be at the end of either match?  Will the 2 ratings be different?

Ah, sorry, MrDodgy, there you got me, I did not answer that. What will my rating be after I play the person with 1000 points and what will it be after I play the person with 2000 points? Well, if I lose to the person with 1000 points and I originally had 1924 as a rating, then my rating will fall, considerably. I think 30 points. That means I'll have a rating of about 1894. If I lost to the person with 2000 points, my rating would also decrease but only by about 7 points, I imagine, maybe more. Maybe closer to 12 points. I imagine you can do the math as well as I can. That's just one game, of course. So, if both matches consist of 9000 games, I already explained that they will also be different ratings. I don't know what they will be though as there are too many variables and even if we assume that I lose every match or win every match... It's still hard to say without calculating. 

They could be the same or they could be different after 9000 games with both rated players. 

Maybe you should just explain your point? 

I could explain my point but then you'll only eat for a day...

Okay, so you've already played over 9000 games here.  Your average opposition is 1836 and you've won 47%  (let's not overcomplicate the issue with glicko RD).  Do you think your rating would be different if your average opposition was 1636, 1736, 1936, or 2036?

well, not true.

there are (at least 2) other ways to reach staff.

you can, for example, pm prominent individuals;  Eric (the CEO of chess.com)- but that is discouraged and you might be quickly dismissed.

the other way to do it, is to create a "ticket"  which is a message to staff. this is normally done to get help fixing a bug or report unacceptable posts, etc online.   It takes about 2 days, and sometimes more for staff to see the ticket.  but they should get and get back to you by email.

one thing STILL confuses me.

can't you set the rating of your opponents when you want to get a game.  Please don't insult me again.  I admit it, sometimes I'm slow.  have you heard ELI5?  it means "Explain like I'm 5"

so... why can't you change you seek settings to only play higher rated people?

You can.

Well, actually, now you're changing your original question and you've changed it already. All I'd like to do is understand why it is you think I don't "genuinely" understand what rating is and what it is for. So, please, elaborate. What is your point? I've been patient and tried to understand the point of your questions, but I still don't. I understand that you're trying to probe so as to see what it is I understand exactly, but you don't seem exactly skilled in eliciting the necessary answers that would apparently allow me to understand taht I don't get what it is you're trying to say. So, instead of continuing to elicit, just tell me your point please. I won't "eat at it" for a day. If I think it is right, I will simply say, "ah, I didn't know that," and if I think it is wrong, I will say so and I will provide reasons for my position. First, however, you might do well to establish what I think a rating is and what it is for, if to start from your original premises. 

As far as I have undrstood until this point, rating is intended to be a reflection of one's skills in chess, which can be defined by focusing on different aspects of play. What it is for: there are many functions, but I'd say it's primary fonction is to act as a system that allows its users to know who is the closest competitor and who is not. Without it, for example, I might have to play complete beginners before realizing that it is a waste of both player's time to challenge one another. 

If you'd like to use those two definitions as premises in your inference, be my guest.  

I did not insult you so far that I am aware. As regards the question, "why can't you change the settings to only get players who are higher than you" well, even if you can do this, often the waiting time just freezes. You end up waiting endlessly even though there are a ton of players around your rating who are also playing. How to know such? Easy, try both ways and you'll see that with a greater range put in place you'll play much more frequently both players who are lower and higher, whereas if you wait only for higher-rated players, you end up waiting and waiting and waiting. I believe this happens to players (who, for example, enable play with higher-rated players only) so that they don't set their pay range to higher-rated players only but rather so that they play both higher and lower-rated players. I've set the play range to include higher-rated players only and often it just sits there as though it is looking for higher-rated players when in fact it is not. It's just not allowing you to play. Try it and see :) And, when I say try it and see, I mean try it for a few months. :) 

Multiple accounts are against Chess.com policy, and they will close any that they find as well as warn the originator. They have some tools to identify them, but reports from the community help as well - although this should be done via the Support link rather than just posting in the open forums.

As kingofshedninjas has pointed out on the very first page, you can change the rating range of your Live Chess seeks so it complies with your definition of "fairness": I'm pretty sure Chess.com is happy with the default of +400 and -400.

You missed my point, which I stated consistely regarding multiple accounts, both on the very first page, and then on consecutive pages therein. Thank you. 

Your definition of faireness, as stated in the outset, is the problem. Unless you regularly enjoy playing people four-hundred points beneath you, I'd suggest that you adopt higher standards too.

All the best and thanks for reading past my point.  

As far as I can tell, your point is that you'd like Chess.com to change their default settings to conform to your definition of fairness.

Given that they have provided you with a mechanism to apply your definition to your won games, I see little reason for them to impose your definition on everyone else by default; they might consider it if enough people started requesting it, but even judging by the responses to this thread here, there's not exactly a pent up demand just waiting to be unleashed.