Turn off ratings?

Hi, I currently have a basic free account, but I want to sign up for a paid account so I can use more game analysis and do more of the training activities. But for me, ratings completely and utterly ruin the game. I appreciate that behind the scenes, ratings have to exist, so that the system can pick me opponents of an appropriate level. But I just don't want to see them. Ever. I just want to play chess for the fun of it, without these horrible, horrible, competitive "oh look how my rating has gone up!" sentiments floating around. I know this is my problem, and I could just try to close my psychological eyes to it, but those pernicious little numbers crop up all over the place; they're so hard to ignore. If I get the paid-up version, is there an option somewhere in the settings to turn the wretched things OFF so I can just get on and play, and learn, without my fun being spoiled? Many thanks for any help!

Yes, you can turn off rating if you play in Focus Mode and Theatre Mode.

By the way, let me give you my example. I play chess here, not to increase my rating, but to have fun. Neither do I become disappointed and check my rating when I lose a game, nor do I get excited to check how much my rating has increased when I win. It is automatic; if you're not interested in rating, you'll not check it frequently.

However, sometimes the rating becomes an important factor in the learning process. I generally play team matches, so many times I get a higher-rated opponent and many times a lower-rated opponent. Comparing ratings is important because I can take the liberty of taking risks, trying unusual openings, playing gambits, experimenting with our weak points/pieces, etc. while playing against a lower-rated player. And I need to take extra care and play safe while I'm playing against a higher-rated player.

If someone is making extreme and great moves, we can compare our rating with theirs, and if his rating is lower than how he is playing, we can report it to the site.

By the way, would you like to play a game against me?

Thanks so much! ! I didn't know those modes existed. Thank you also for your philosophy; you have a healthy attitude. Ad thanks for the offer of a game! I'll look out for you.

Something I've noticed that the site does very well is pairing guests of roughly equal ability. This is very clever. When I first played as a guest, I got some very shaky games with opponents varying between vastly too strong for me and vastly too weak, and often not very sportsmanlike. But nowadays I get a string of opponents who are prepared to play properly and play at almost exactly my level. I have no idea how the site does it, and it would answer my need for rating-free, good chess very well were it not for it messing up any chance to review the game afterwards. Ah well!

In case anyone else reads this thread, I've also just found the option of selecting a custom game, and unticking "rated". Delightfully, there do seem to be people out there who are up for unrated games, and selecting "unrated" also very happily suppresses any display of ratings until after the game is over, so it's possible to forget them.

I also found that I can play as a guest, then sign in and still analyse the game, so again it removes all rating comments.

How to shift to the theater and focus mode.