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Topic: Ratings reach for the sky!...again
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| So it relies on how you conduct the game play here. Some play real corr chess, spend time analysing lines fully, try to move pieces, use opening book, etc. Some like togoychess, play each move as a training position for OTB play development. Some playing just for fun and leave. Some use their superb positional knowledges and intuition only each move, which takes a split of sec, like CampbellMarcell. Or some get help from chess program. So rating point here may be less meaningful, don't get it so serious. We're playing differently. |
Your statement, being realistic, is very great! Good job 
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People who think that their QA rating being different from their national OTB rating is evidence for inflation are completely missing the point. In fact, they're completely missing two points.
1) Inflation is the phenomenon by which ratings tend to drift upward over time. (*Not* the phenomenon of, `My QA rating is a bigger number than my OTB rating.') QA is particularly susceptible to inflation because of its very nature. It seems that a lot of people join, play a few games, lose interest and stop logging in. All the games they were playing end up being lost on time, which increases the ratings of the people they were playing against. As such, the ratings of active players will tend to drift upwards because they pick up points against people who've left the site (so are inactive). The rating system also has an inflationary tendency in that rated players can gain but not lose rating points by playing against provisionally-rated players. (Ordinarily, if you beat somebody, some of their rating points are transferred to you so the total number of rating points in the system doesn't change and, hence, the average rating per player doesn't change. However, in the case where one player has a provisional rating and the other has an established rating, the established player cannot lose points. So, if s/he loses, their opponent gains points and the total number of points in the system increases.)
2) There is absolutely no reason to expect your QA rating and your OTB rating should be the same number. Ratings are *not* measures of chess strength. They are measures of performance (i.e., how many games you've won and lost and what the ratings of your opponents were). In any one group of players, strength and performance are correlated. However, there's no reason to assume that a performance of 8/10 against 1800-rated players here means the same thing as a performance of 8/10 against people with, say, a USCF rating of 1800.
Indeed, Miguel could add 10000 to everybody's rating here tonight and it would make absolutely no difference to the rating system at all. Your rating in six weeks' time would just be 10000 more under this system than it will be under the system that's actually being used. But it would be ludicrous to claim that, since your rating is about 8000 higher than the world champion, you're a stronger player. That's just not what ratings mean.
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I think richerby has brought out more exactly what I wished to say when I pointed the infaltion out. You all remember some months ago the ratings were recalculated and then everyone's rating looked, we all generally agreed, more reasonable. True, but that apparently did not solve the problem.
My own rating has been VERY consistent here at around 2100; it has not varied much for MONTHS. It has very slowly drifted generally upwards, but only by about 25 points. Yet I find myself dropping back, back, back in the rankings. Now, this doesn't really bother me because I know my playing strength but something is going on. There are not SO many new players as to drop the existing players back. Many of the players who keep moving ahead have traditionally been much lower than they are now. Others ARE newcomers who have established ratings of 1900-2000-2100 based on only 25-35 games, many against B-class players.
In real life, I try to invest in gold. Gold is a standard measure around which fiat paper currencies move. Perhaps we need some sort of "gold standard" on QA so we can guage how serious this inflation is. The first seven pages of our member list now, again, contain players over 2000!
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What does USCF do for ratings? On QA I could play a steady diet of carefully-selected games against people that are playing quick games and thus win based on fewer blunders. Each win will increase my rating by about 12-15 points. True, I'll have to change my opponents a bit as my rating rises to keep being able to score points for winning. But it seems that this many points per win is high.
The real rating problem seems to be people who play slow games vs. blitz players. No disrespect to Campbell, but he *does* make many mistakes because of not having time to consider things. And I have wins in my pockets by playing people who have 200+ simultaneous games. So my own rating is inflated thereby. Can there be a track for "people serious about a rating" versus "I think chess is fun"? Or simply rank teams? Or play for money pool? (it seems that having money on the outcome tends to make people pay attention...).
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So much talk about ratings...in so much detail...seems like some people like to think... Oh, yea..this is chess, a thinking game, no wonder!
I certainly don't have to worry about it, being under 1400 and all. My OTB is even lower! LOL.
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