Rating Spike

I often notice as I'm browsing around that on people's rating graphs there is a sudden spike in the rating, which usually is recovered. In some cases there are multiple spikes.

I'm guessing it's because either they quit for a while or couldn't be online and their games were timed out?

Originally posted by MoneyMaker7
I often notice as I'm browsing around that on people's rating graphs there is a sudden spike in the rating, which usually is recovered. In some cases there are multiple spikes.

I'm guessing it's because either they quit for a while or couldn't be online and their games were timed out?

Yes. Sometimes things come up and you can't respond in your games and you get timed out and your rating plumets.

or alternativly you play well for awhile and your rating shoots up. All of a sudden all the lost games that you've been draaaaaaging out come due and your rating crashes back down.

I'm quite proud that my graph is a steady climb. 🙂

I think another possibility is that some people use engines sometimes and this gives their rating a spike and then they stop using the engine and their rating falls.

I'm not here to make accusations... but I'm quite positive that people use engines on here... not everyone, just a few rotten apples.

and

Some days are really good and some days are really bad. Or...they could have not played many rated games in a while. My Playchess bullet chart starts out from 1600-1700, but then shoots to 1850-1950. There was about 2 months where I didn't play any rated games.