# of active games- effect on rating

I am curious to know if anyone else has identified the effect of the number of active games they have on their ratings.

I am sure this must vary from player to player.

For me, I seem to break 1900 when I have less than 30 games, but after I go over that, my play gets superficial, and I drop down to the low 1800's, which is roughly my OTB rating.

Paul

Yes I have!

When you play more games than the amount of years you've been on this planet then your rating will drop from there!

Originally posted by Paul Leggett
I am curious to know if anyone else has identified the effect of the number of active games they have on their ratings.

I am sure this must vary from player to player.

For me, I seem to break 1900 when I have less than 30 games, but after I go over that, my play gets superficial, and I drop down to the low 1800's, which is roughly my OTB rating.

Paul

I think it would be more accurate to do something like (# of games)/(time spent total) - I might spend an hour (to pick a random number) when I have 90 games going but I'm certainly not going to spend that same hour when I have 30 games going.

Originally posted by Paul Leggett
I am curious to know if anyone else has identified the effect of the number of active games they have on their ratings.

I am sure this must vary from player to player.

For me, I seem to break 1900 when I have less than 30 games, but after I go over that, my play gets superficial, and I drop down to the low 1800's, which is roughly my OTB rating.

Paul

Yes - I play rubbish when more than 20 games or so, but play much better when I have less. Somehow though I just can't keep the number down...

The number of games increases your blunder ratio.

And there are moods swings to consider, something you won't get OTB.

There are days when the last thing I want to do is look at a chessboard.
And yet nipping at the back of the mind are 10 games waiting on moves.
You leave it for a day and now it's 20 or 30.

(30 is the most I have handled - never again, thank God for opening traps
and players who moved instantly due to their game load.
This brought me to under 20 fairly quickly.)

So you drag yourself to the site and make any old legal move just to
get it out of the way. Sometimes you regret this later, most times, in my
experiance it appears your opponent has had the same feeling and I've
been tactically acute to spot a shot.

I recall this game during a heavy (for me) game load which has signs of me
jumping from one idea to another and simply plodding along.

Suddenly he leaves an unprotected Rook on d7.
So I walk into a self pin, check, check 0-1. (I'm Black).

I was not playing for it, I was tactically holding my b-pawn.
It just appeared and I saw it within seconds of logging on.
90% of you lot should see it instantly as well.
(check all checks!).

Unprotected pieces and the two move trick.

Master this and one day you will rule the world.

some people handle it better than others. but sooner or later everybody burns out under the constant pressure. roller coaster graphs, mass resignations, quitting chess - it gets fairly ugly.

Originally posted by wormwood
some people handle it better than others. but sooner or later everybody burns out under the constant pressure. roller coaster graphs, mass resignations, quitting chess - it gets fairly ugly.

...like heroine. 😞

Originally posted by greenpawn34
[b]The number of games increases your blunder ratio.

And there are moods swings to consider, something you won't get OTB.

There are days when the last thing I want to do is look at a chessboard.
And yet nipping at the back of the mind are 10 games waiting on moves.
You leave it for a day and now it's 20 or 30.

I've been fighting bronchitis the last 3 weeks (I am almost better now), and I almost considered raising the vacation flag, but I wasn't sure about the ethics of that.

There were days when I moved just to move, and I was "easy pickins" for some lucky players.

The others just beat me, and I don't think being healthy would have helped!

My view on this is the following - when i first joined RHP - i was crap on openings etc etc " i just played chess " - badly i hasten to add !! , then i decided either learn more or quit - now i know the correct responses to most openings and through practice and learning i recognise patterns and threats bettter i can cope with up to 30 games - but accept i will blunder

Over 30 and it all goes wrong and i feel pressured to just " make a move " , for me my ideal will be 15 - 20 games - which is where i feel most at ease and i will make less mistakes

Colin

When on, I give myself an hour to play. In an hour, I play better with 20 active games than 30 or more. I once was overloaded and dropped 15 games in a row. I'll never join a tournament where the group size is greater than 4. Getting 30 new games at once is a bit overwhelming.