Chess.com "Rating-Based" Pairing Arenas Are Broken

Last week, I was playing online chess literally 24/7, attempting to reach Legend League. I finally did it! Hurrah! I am so exhausted that I may never play online chess again lol.

On my path to Legend League, I had been playing a lot of public bullet and blitz arenas since they give you nearly double the amount of trophies as a regular rated online bullet or blitz game (it's kinda OP... anyone else hoping to get into Legend League should try it). These arenas for the most part have been great due to the amount of trophies I receive from them, but there was one recurring issue I found in these arenas that I have decided to share.

You see, the majority of these arenas have a little feature called "Rating-Based Pairings".

What this means is that when you start a game in the arena, you will be matched up with an opponent who is around your ELO/skill level.

However, many times last week in these arenas I was paired with an opponent who was nowhere near my rating.

For example, at one point in a 1-minute bullet arena, I was paired with a 2090-rated player -- more than 500 ELO points above me.

Then, at one point in a 3|2 blitz arena, I was paired with a 936-rated player -- more than 450 ELO points below me.

I would be fine with this, but the problem is that I lose a small amount of ELO for being crushed by a 2090 and hardly get any ELO for crushing a 936. These games, in my opinion, are pointless. I would much rather play someone close to my level and get some balanced competition!

And it's not that these arenas just didn't have enough players for even competition; most of them had hundreds of players at a time.

Then again, it can sometimes be a useful tool as well. At one point, in a 1-minute bullet arena, I was paired with a 1869-rated player -- more than 350 ELO points above me.

Somehow, I managed to pull off an upset and gained a whole bunch of rating points. So in that case, it was helpful to be paired with someone so much higher rated than me. But most of the time, it is just really annoying.

This is a real issue that Chess.com should look into fixing.

I doubt it. If I somehow do, I have no idea how that happened...

It's alright, it's just sorta annoying

Good tip! Just did

Honestly I think the site should just scrap this ‘Rating-Based Pairing’ stuff. I’ve seen tournaments where 500 rated players are ahead of 2500 rated players, that should never happen (and would never happen with a normal pairing system).

That's another very great point. I too have seen 200s win these arenas since they're just playing other 200s...