Questions to Ask Myself

Originally posted by Mark Adkins
I think you're jumping the gun: according to your record, you've played just ten games here, only four of which were with players who are (now) above 1300. Everyone here starts out at 1200, and provisional ratings fluctuate notoriously.

So, you really don't have a large enough statistical sample of opponents here to make generalizations about the level of play of RHP participants.

I've looked over many more games here than I've actually played, so the sample is much larger than you've assumed it to be.

Originally posted by zebano
I do move quickly here. However if everyone takes there time, there won't be overall inflation. Think about it: If taking your time makes you better, all that happens is your 1500 here is a little bit stronger than a 1500 on a site where they don't, everyone's rating can't be higher.

Actually, I think that players who move slowly here might well be rated higher than they would in OTB play. And not only do they spend more time on their moves, but they also have access to opening databases. But that isn't ratings inflation, because you can't compare apples to oranges. Most people have a higher rating at regular time-controls in OTB chess than they do in Blitz OTB, but one wouldn't say that their OTB rating in regular chess is inflated, just that it measures performance under different time controls.

Mad Rook, however, seems to be saying that he has seen some really crappy play by some of his opponents in the 1200-1600 rating range. But he has only finished ten games, and so far as I can tell only four of those involved opponents with ratings over 1300. (I use this, rather than 1200, as a cut-off point, since everyone starts out with a provisional base rating of 1200.) If he had just joined the USCF from FIDE, and played four games with USCF opponents, some of which failed to impress him, would he conclude that USCF ratings are inflated?

Originally posted by Mad Rook
I've looked over many more games here than I've actually played, so the sample is much larger than you've assumed it to be.

There are close to 18,500 active players here. Just how many games have you looked over?

Originally posted by Mark Adkins
There are close to 18,500 active players here. Just how many games have you looked over?

I didn't keep a running tally of the games I've looked over, since I didn't expect to get picayune questions later on. If I had to guess, maybe 150 to 250 games within that rating band to which I referred.

And if you plan on telling me that that sample is too small for the total player population, don't waste your breath. (Although I took one statistics course in college, I'm not a statistician. If you are a statistician, that's great, but I don't really care.) My opinion is a subjective one, based upon my recollection of the games I've seen here in the past and compared to my recollection of the games that I've either played or watched in USCF tournaments. If you want to argue with me, go ahead, but I'm tired of you guys sniping just for argument's sake. I only made the comment in the context of helping out SilentSpic (remember him, he's the guy that started this thread with a fairly simple question), and I doubt if he really cares much about this side argument.

I've given my opinion. Feel free to either agree or disagree, and argue and opine as much as you want. But for me, I'm tired of this pointless argument, and I won't waste any more of my time with it. If you ask me any more questions, they will go unanswered. (Nothing against you, but I'm just tired of the subject.) I hope that I gave SilentSpic some decent advice, and that's all I care about.

Originally posted by Mad Rook
I didn't keep a running tally of the games I've looked over, since I didn't expect to get picayune questions later on. If I had to guess, maybe 150 to 250 games within that rating band to which I referred.

You made a general claim about the level of play of RHP players (within the range of 1200-1600. The question as to how many games you had played to get that impression is scarcely picayune: it's highly relevant in assessing your claim. You've played just four games with RHP players (currently) rated over 1300. Now, in the face of "picayune" questions about this, you claim that you've actually studied 150 to 250 RHP games in which you didn't participate. Pardon me for remaining skeptical.

Originally posted by Kepler
Really? Go on then, name me ten GMs Rybka has beaten consistently while running on a single processor PC bought off the shelf in PC World without any fancy additions or upgrades. You will also need to provide some evidence that your list of ten is actually true and that the PC involved was an average PC.

Check out the engine called 'Moonshot' on ICC. It runs Rybka on standard hardware (2.5GHz Pentium 4). The only GM I've watched it play is de Firmian, but he was getting beaten pretty soundly (unfortunately you can only see the last 20 games in the history).

In fact, casually looking at the list of GMs currently logged on, about half of them have lower blitz ratings than Moonshot. There's another engine, Moonbeam, running Crafty on similar hardware, that's even higher rated (I suspect because it only plays rated games against humans, not other engines).

You can argue that it will do a little worse at standard time controls, which may be true, but on the other hand, a 2.5GHz Pentium 4 isn't that fast a machine anymore, either.

I think you're a little behind the times on this one. We're definitely at the point where standard hardware is competitive with GMs.

Originally posted by Mad Rook
(from comments to zebano)
Edit 2 - I just noticed that your profile mentions that you will usually be moving quickly on RHP. Is it possible that you may be moving faster than the average player on RHP? If so, that might be a reason why your RHP rating isn't inflated.

Zebano stated that his USCF correspondence rating is 1764 whereas his RHP rating has a longstanding trend of hovering just above 1600. Such a trend predates more recent comments added to his bio about not accepting any new games and about playing currently existing games faster than before to get through them.

As an aside, I also note that there are no RHP players above the 2400s. That in itself would tend to suggest that RHP ratings are not inflated relative to USCF; otherwise, against a pool of (relative) weaklings, there ought to be more higher rated players. In fact, out of roughly 18,500 active RHP players, only 132 have a correspondence chess rating greater than 2000.