Your true online rating

Originally posted by @deepthought
My online rating is FAKE NEWS!

My Ratings vary with the sites...So my ICCF Rating is higher than my Rating here.

Thsi could stem fro the fact that I put more effort in fewer games there and always Play as a member fo a Team.

I am quite likely to the occasional seriously dumb move.
I will time out games only in clan and tournament matches or after having waited for a year...

Opponent average rating is a useful corrective to some inflated or artificially deflated ratings. I would certainly look at it before accepting a clan challenge game, partly because ratings can be easily manipulated.

Originally posted by @moonbus
Opponent average rating is a useful corrective to some inflated or artificially deflated ratings. I would certainly look at it before accepting a clan challenge game, partly because ratings can be easily manipulated.

That's just as true off-line. The Soviets were masters of it.

Originally posted by @knightstalker47
The stronger players isn't always guaranteed the win. With about a 524-719 rating difference the stronger player gets 1 point and risks losing 31. As long as one of those 31 guys can put together a decent game it's not worth it. I actually tried to play only 1200-1300 rated plays back in 2011 when I was rated 1800. My rating didn't change much, I lo ...[text shortened]... less than about 1500.

Strong players make big mistakes sometimes they're just less frequent.

It will help if your chess if you stop using an engine at difficult points.. 😉

Originally posted by @nevare
Your true online rating is your "opponent average rating"... look in your profile and you might be surprised. Their are some highly rated chess players who play much weaker opponents. I will try to keep mine accurate.

Originally posted by @mchill
Their are some highly rated chess players who play much weaker opponents. I will try to keep mi ...[text shortened]... gained besides an inflated number next to their name? They are pathetic and insecure creatures.

Two friends meet to play chess once a week. They keep track of the games and their win loss record. After months of play the record shows one friend winning 99 out of every 100 games on average. The friends should have ratings that differ by about 800 points.

Is it your contention that the two friends should be rated the same? The stronger friend is only playing the weaker friend, low "opponent average rating". Is the stronger friend not likely as strong as any other player that could compile the same record against the weaker friend?

Let's create, in thought experiment, two large groups of chess engines. One group we limit, by various diverse weaknesses in play, to ratings of 1400 against the RHP population. The second group we similarly limit to playing as diverse 1700 players.

Any engine in the first group by definition must maintain an even win loss record in the first group. Any engine in the second group by definition must maintain an even win loss record in the second group. They can not deviate from as they were created. There can be anomalies, one engine always losing to another and so on but all must maintain average in their group!

Now any engine from either group, plucked from its group and rating masked, would be identifiable by its play against either group. A 1700 engine played against the 1400 group would win 85 out of 100 games and thus reveal its 1700 rating. A 1400 engine played against the 1400 group would win 50 out of 100 games. A 1700 engine played against the 1700 group would win 50 out of 100 games. A 1400 engine played against the 1700 group would win 15 out of 100 games.

Our user names are a black box, however their inner workings produce the output of moves that lead to their ratings, against any sub population of rated those same ratings should emerge, on average. It is possible that for very human reasons some ratings would rise and others fall but it is as likely that any player that has played a weaker population for his stronger rating is underrated!

Originally posted by @jerryh
Two friends meet to play chess once a week. They keep track of the games and their win loss record. After months of play the record shows one friend winning 99 out of every 100 games on average. The friends should have ratings that differ by about 800 points.

Only between them two. That's precisely the problem: elo-system ratings are only valid within the group in which they were built up. They don't carry over accurately to other groups.
What's worse, if you accumulate these ratings in as restricted and artificial environments as you have posited, they don't really mean anything at all. It's like comparing car fuel usage measured on a skating rink. Sure, the numbers might mean something... but nothing that has any bearing on the real world.

Originally posted by @shallow-blue
Only between them two. That's precisely the problem: elo-system ratings are only valid within the group in which they were built up. They don't carry over accurately to other groups.
What's worse, if you accumulate these ratings in as restricted and artificial environments as you have posited, they don't really mean anything at all. It's like comparin ...[text shortened]... , the numbers might mean something... but nothing that has any bearing on the real world.

"Only between them two. That's precisely the problem:" Nah, they are friendly friends, they'll play anyone that cares to join them.

Just rephrase as all possible pairs of two players and my question becomes: Are the stronger players of all possible pairs of players not likely as strong as any other players from the set of all players that can compile the same record against the weaker players of the pairs? This is now phrased in the largest possible environment of every player in existence and it's still the same question to answer!

I'm not sure what your "carry over accurately to other groups" or "comparing" addressed in my first post?

"elo-system ratings are only valid within the group in which they were built up." Yep and the one and only group is the group of "any other player that could compile the same record against the weaker friend."

Just in case you also think my imaginary, ratings restricted, chess engines are restricted and artificial I'll rephrase them also and make the same ending statement to argue over.

Imagine a new player in two different paths to a rating at Red Hot Pawn. One version of newPlayer decides to play games only with 1400 players at RHP. The second version of newPlayer plays only with the 1700 players of the site. Both versions move to a rating on RHP. They are both moving to the same rating. There is no reason to believe that at any point in their converging rating histories the version playing only 1400 players will have a higher rating than the version playing only 1700 players.