"Best Win" statistic system is flawed

Why is it when you beat someone for your Best Win, your personal statistics page only reflects their rating after you beat them, not what it was when you challenged them? Your highest win should reflect their rating when you played the game, not afterwards.

 If I beat a 1700 player, I don't want my best game win to show that the player I won against was rated 1680 (or whatever their new rating is after I beat them).

I suppose you could illogically argue that the person you beat is not as good as their rating reflects if they lost to you...but a rating is supposed to reflect how good you are..not how good you are not.

Lets say you beat a person rated right at Master level 2200 but after you win their rating drops 50 points...does that mean you did not beat a Master rated player?

Please fix the stats page so it truly reflects your Best Win and not postgame standings...otherwise why bother posting it? Whenever you play someone you have no idea what your best win will be until after the game is over...this makes no sense and would be easy enough to fix with a few lines of code.

Absolutely, at the moment you won, the new ratings are the best and most up to date measure available.

Hmmm, I actually agree with the OP. The rating at the beginnining of the game should be taken.

The start rating is the criteria used for the table matchup, or eligibilty for a tournament, or whatever.

It's like saying no boxer ever beat a world champion, because the moment he won the other guy wasn't champion anymore. So you can just beat ex-champs????

And what happens when you challenge an 1800, and during the course of your game, he drops to 1600 by losing a bunch of games? If your game lasts, say, 6 months, and he's 1600 for the last 5 months of that, can you really argue that your best win should read 1800?

Rating at the end is most accurate.

In an environment where games take place in a relatively short amount of time and, don't have other games taking place concurrently there's really not that much of a difference, although the rating after the game really is the best representation of your opponent's level of play, taking into account the game they've just finished against you.

For correspondence chess here, however, games can take months, and your opponent will likely complete many other games over the course of the game he's playing with you causing his rating to fluctuate, sometimes drastically over the course of your game.  Because of this, it should become pretty clear that the most accurate and up to date measure, in fact the only rating that should even be considered, is the rating at the end of the game.

I posted this in Live Chess as I don't play correspondence chess so months long games are of no consideration to me or my complaint. I play blitz on here as I enjoy playing people as its likely at some point you are playing someone else's computer program. I can play Fritz or Rybka offline, thank you very much.  :^)

I appreciate the responses thus far, but unless you address the salient points of the discussion it gets us nowhere. They are:

1.) A rating is supposed to reflect how good you are at the start of the game, not how good you are after you lose the game. If you are 2200 and I beat you then I should be able to say I beat a 2200 rated player, not whatever your adjusted score may be.

2.) Rooperi's point from above which I thought was very was well made 

"The start rating is the criteria used for the table matchup, or eligibilty for a tournament, or whatever.

It's like saying no boxer ever beat a world champion, because the moment he won the other guy wasn't champion anymore. So you can just beat ex-champs????"

i think the comments already presented address your issue.

1.) A rating is supposed to reflect how good you are at the start of the game, not how good you are after you lose the game.

this is incorrect. a rating is supposed to reflect how good you are compared to your opponents as accurately as it can. that means the more games you play, the closer to your actual rating you will become. hence, after a game reflects a more accurate rating. also, it is worth noting that a chess rating is not static, it is in constant flux.

If you are 2200 and I beat you then I should be able to say I beat a 2200 rated player, not whatever your adjusted score may be.

you still can say you beat a 2200 player if you wanted. after all, he was 2200 for a time so you can argue that he is at least around the 2200 rating (again showing the notion of the rating being in constant flux). i do find it strange that your issue would seem to focus on bragging about the rating of the opponent you beat, and that beating a 2180 opponent (an example rating after the 2200 player lost to you) is such a big difference than saying you beat a 2200 rated player.

It's like saying no boxer ever beat a world champion, because the moment he won the other guy wasn't champion anymore. So you can just beat ex-champs????

this definitely seems like equivocating here. technically, once the champ loses, he isn't the champ anymore obviously. however, we all obviously say that you beat the champ. the difference is that a world championship title is static. it's not like someone is kind of a world champ at varying degrees and is constantly searching for the most accurate title. chess ratings, however, are doing that and therein lies the difference.

It becomes even more obvious what the correct approach is when you look at in the context of the "Worst Loss" statistic instead of the "Best Win".  What happens when someone opens a brand new account, automatically gets a rating of 1200 and then beats a player rated 1800?  His rating might jump to, say, 1500 or so, but should the 1800 rated player's worst loss now read 1200?

How are the rating points calculated? When I play an opponent who is rated much higher than I am, I can win -let's say - about 12 points and lose about 3 points. However, sometimes I see that some opponents win about 70 or 80 or even more points, when they win a game. Could somebody explain this to me?

Cheeta2,

My understanding is that you are playing someone who is new to the site. These large jumps in rating are due to the lack of games played by the new user. When a player has not played many games, his rating is less accurate and more easily swayed by new results. This will all level out in time as he plays more games and his rating becomes more accurate. Hope this helps.

It should show an adjusted rating. The values pertaining to when you started the game, and the values pertaining to the rating adjustment after the win.

@ drs_1000: thank you for your explanation. I'm only playing a few months on this site, so not everything is clear to me, that's why my asking.