Are FIDE and USCF ratings honored by Chess.com?

I was curious when you sign up here, if you have an official rating from a legitimate sanctioning body for chess, is it honored by Chess.com and if so how?

In other words if they did, is your OTB rating counted as your live chess rating?

No I joined recently and I am on my second online slow game. They started me at 1200 even though I am uscf 2131. They said they don't recognize anything under 2200 uscf (NM)

No it isn't, although that would be a cool idea! The problem is that there's almost no way to verify that the person signing up as a 1800 is that 1800 in real life. Also, OTB, in my mind, correlates a little closer to online chess than live.

Since ratings aren't a measure of skill but of results against other players in that specific rating pool, it would be illogical to transfer any otb ratings onto chess.com. If you ARE a titled player like an NM or a CM or anything, then you get the title next to your name and, I believe, free diamond membership  but you still gotta start from the bottom!

That is true in terms of the really long time controls for OTB games, but they allow the use of book opening here in online games. I think it would be hard for Chess.com to justify the continued use of opening book in online games, if they were to make online chess here an equivilant to OTB chess by an official sanctioning chess body. I did finally notice a custom time control for live chess here, but I haven't tried to use it to see how long the length for it can be set at.

I wonder how big of a turn off it is to a titled player to make them start so low here?

I would think it would be no turnoff at all for a titled player.  They are going to win their first game against a ~1200 and be nearly 1400 since ratings change very fast in the first few games.  They are going to win their second game against a ~1400 and be nearly 1600.  Unless they lose to a player ranked below 1800, which they shouldn't if they really are an IM, then this is going to continue for 4 or 5 games, and they will already be over 2000.  Quite quickly they will be playing with the other IMs, and find out where they stand in chess.com ratings.  Why should this bother them?

Actually. it is a big turn off for players who have established a much higher rating--they for the most part want to play their peers.

If it takes say 10 straight wins to get to a rating you have elsewhere then that is 10 straight games wasted. And if it takes 15 straight games it is 15 straight games wasted.  And this is not reasonable to some high rated players. Why should they play on chess.com when they can play in other venues which are more realistic?

Also to have a rating of 1200 and play some unsuspecting person when your real strength is say 2200 that is unfair to your opponents.

There are more effective ways to do this than to start everyone at a rating of 1200.

Admittedly, it might be a turn off to some.  I guess it would be an individual thing.  If they wanted to, instead of challenging a random match, they could challenge only other IMs (who would likely recognize their name).  In that way, they could establish an IM strength rating in just a few games.  I think this even happened in one of the deathmatches...an IM with a new account won his first two games and suddenly had a rating over 3000.  Of course it came down after more games.  Anyway, I don't think it would bother me if it was me, but I admit it might bother some.

But why would an IM with a good establihed rating on chess.com want to play another IM who starts with only a 1200 rating?  

Higher rated players don't want to play lower rated players on this site. This seems to be true even if the difference is only ~100 rtg points.

When I started playing bullet here, I could only find other players rated ~1200 to play. When I started beating them, I was abused for choosing to play only lower rated players. It's not a pleasant set-up.

My bullet rating is more or less stable now, but I'm not sure I want to go through the same process with blitz ratings.

It would be my inclination, that most IMs on here, that have achieved their title in OTB chess (the real thing) would not be so concerned about their rating on an online site, and would be happy to play an IM with an initial rating to get a good game. Lets face it, ratings on here are pretty irrelevant in comparison with FIDE or national federation OTB ratings.

I meant they could challenge any of the IMs here who have established ratings if they wished to avoid the half dozen or so games it would take to go from 1200 to 2000+ by playing against randomly selected opponents.  It would obviously not be useful for two new IMs to play each other starting from 1200.  Again, I suppose some could find this process objectionable.  I've known masters happy to play against 8-year olds just for the joy of chess, and I've known masters who only play for money.  Of those, I know which are happier too.  But, to each his own choice.

Question: if someone rated 2500 in another venue and started at 1200 here and suspose he played an IM [rated 2300 at chess.com]  a two game match and each player won a game and lost a game--what would be the new rating for both players? [assuming they played no other games, of course]

Well, assuming the IM didn't lose a crazy amout of points, I would guess the IM would have a 2284 (if you play enough games,  16 points is most you can lose.) And I would guess the other would have about 1375

So , you have the player rated 2300 who drew a match with a player rated 2500 on another venue losing rating points in my senario.

You also have the player who is rated 2500 in another venue to draw a 2 game match with an IM and still be rated only 1375--does that sound fair?

A player who has worked very hard to establish a high rating in another more important venue is not going to want to start out at chess.com [a much less important venue] at 1200.

I believe both players would be around 2300 at the end of your scenario.  It might depend what order the wins/losses happened or whether both games were drawn.

RCMorea wrote:

Admittedly, it might be a turn off to some.  I guess it would be an individual thing.  If they wanted to, instead of challenging a random match, they could challenge only other IMs (who would likely recognize their name).  In that way, they could establish an IM strength rating in just a few games.  I think this even happened in one of the deathmatches...an IM with a new account won his first two games and suddenly had a rating over 3000.  Of course it came down after more games.  Anyway, I don't think it would bother me if it was me, but I admit it might bother some.

Most players wouldn't risk a loss to someone rated 1300 or more points less. They could lose several hundred ratiing points.

I'm pretty sure you have a capped loss of 16 if you are an established player.  But the new player could pick up hundreds.  Now, if this is untrue, then my thesis is wrong.

I have seen several different answers as to how the ratings work.

Does anyone know how the ratings work and also can explain?

One player says the most you can lose is 16 points per game and another player say something about a new player getting a 3000 rating after two games.......