Ratings, how are they calculated

Could someone give me a quick guide as to how ratings are calculated.

Is it better to play people of only slightly higher ranking or much higher. Novice at the site. Still trying to get 5 games completed & wondering what is the best way to get my ranking up.

The best way is to win your games,of course😉
There is a thread in the 'help & ideas' forum,that explains the system.
I don't know how it's done,nor do I care much,but in short I think it's something like this: play a lower rate you can win a little and lose a lot,play an equal you can win more and lose less,play a higher rate you can win a lot and lose almost nothing.
Not much help,I know,but it's all I know about rating calculation 😳
Don't worry about it,just win many games and your rating will shoot right through the roof 😀

players with stable ratings offer the best way for you to find your own "true rating". Just click on their name and look at their green rating graph, see if they are stable. Play any stable players and you will go in the right direction.

To do it fast - make sure they are very active: only play players who have made a lot of moves this month, dont play that many games simultaneously, and play at your time of day.

Thanks 4 the info both of U.

Yes it certainly must help to win a lot SIR 😀

Now if only my opponents would move faster. 1 move a day x 30 moves or so and it will take over a month to get my first few games finished. 🙁 Changed my profile 2 let oponents know my times to play. New rules of only playing a max of 6 games simultaneously certanly makes things slow. First 2 games took 2 days now the rest are so slow.

Well,it is a form of correspondense chess.It is rather slow in nature 😴

😴 is more like it. Playing one game & my opponent is making 1 move every second day. Totally thrashing them but I may loose cas I set the timeout to three days & I will not be available Thurs till Mon so unless the opponent respects vacation settings I will loose.

So perhaps the single most important question when starting a new game should be to determine how often the prospective opponent intends to play and the times that they play.

Originally posted by miless
So perhaps the single most important question when starting a new game should be to determine how often the prospective opponent intends to play and the times that they play.