Rating Comparison

Hello all,

As I spend more time on this site I start to take pride in my rating--as I think we all do. Then the other day I started to wonder how a given rating on this site compares to an over-the-board rating? Is a 1500 on this site as good as a 1500 USCF/FIDE (everything else being equal--assuming the player is equally good at correspondence chess as he/she is at over-the-board chess)?
If anyone has experience with over-the-board ratings, I'm curious to see what you think. Are your two different ratings similiar? If not, is the discrepancy a result of the different style of chess or personal time commitment as opposed to the validity of the rating systems? Have you found one rating system easier to succeed in than the other (considering aforementioned variables)?

My guess would be that they are pretty consistent, but I dont have an over-the-board rating so it's hard for me to say.

Originally posted by 1992
Hello all,

As I spend more time on this site I start to take pride in my rating--as I think we all do. Then the other day I started to wonder how a given rating on this site compares to an over-the-board rating? Is a 1500 on this site as good as a 1500 USCF/FIDE (everything else being equal--assuming the player is equally good at correspondence chess as h ...[text shortened]... ey are pretty consistent, but I dont have an over-the-board rating so it's hard for me to say.

Ratings depend on the player pool,I don't think you can compare them.For example,official Belgian ratings are +-100 points higher than Dutch ratings (a Belgian 1700 = a Dutch 1600) because overall the dutch players are stronger.

Online ratings are rubbish anyway.Some play real correspondence chess using all the legal resources,others use some of the resources some of the time and still others play as they would OTB.Some people use online chess to experiment with lines they don't dare use OTB and then,once in a while,you'll be playing an engine.How can you compare that with a real life tournament setting?

Having said all that there are people whose OTB rating matches their various online ratings.I think that's just a coincedence though.

Well, I have a rating of barely 1500 here, while I am 1720 OTB. I play on this site to relax, I move really fast (never think longer than 1 min per move) and never use analyze board or other correspondence features. So it really depends on the way you use this site, if you set up the pieces and spend hours each move, you could well have a higher rating than you OTB rating. Remember, this is correspondence chess, it is, as americans say, a whole different ball game.

Originally posted by Garnoth
Well, I have a rating of barely 1500 here, while I am 1720 OTB. I play on this site to relax, I move really fast (never think longer than 1 min per move) and never use analyze board or other correspondence features. So it really depends on the way you use this site, if you set up the pieces and spend hours each move, you could well have a higher rating than ...[text shortened]... g. Remember, this is correspondence chess, it is, as americans say, a whole different ball game.

I have to agree with this post. I rarely play too seriously online, and my rating is about 1600 here, and almost 1900 USCF. Also, players who are improving rapidly but not subscribers here will have a lag in their RHP rating, since it will take a while for them to win enough games to increase their rating to there true strength. Remember though, the formula here is not the same, the playing the pool is not the same, the playing conditions are not the same etc., so the accuracy of the comparison is tenuous at best.

it's kind of like comparing tennis on a hard court (a fast surface) to tennis on clay (a slow surface) -- some players are much better on clay -- others are much better on a hard court -- but most of the best players on one surface are also among the best on the other - and most of the really bad players on one are really bad on the other

someone who plays almost nothing but correspondence games will probably have a RHP rating that's much better than OTB -- and someone who plays mainly OTB will probably exceed their RHP rating

it would be interesting to survey people who play BOTH a lot of serious OTB and a lot of serious RHP games and compare their OTB & RHP ratings - and see what the average difference is.