Rating Formula at RHP Needs to be Tweaked

I play chess in the 2000+ category. When I signed up at RHP I messaged Russ and asked him to start my rating around my USCF rating. He informed me that everyone starts at 1200, but it doesn't matter because you will eventually arrive at your level of play.

Well, let's talk about this rating system.
Has anyone besides myself noticed how hard it is to get to the same rating that they hold in their respective chess organizations?

Members at RHP are underrated!!! And here's why:

The RHP pool is a CLOSED rating system. What that means is that you could go in and add every player's rating and come up with a total value. Now then, since everyone starts at 1200, even the Experts and Masters, as they progress they pull points out of the total pool. Like I said, It's a CLOSED pool!

So what does that mean? It means that over a period of time, a person's rating will no longer be in relationship to his ability - No! A person's rating will be IN RELATIONSHIP TO THE RATING LADDER. According to the science of math alone, and given a long period of time... even Expert players here will have their ratings dropped to 200 or even 400 points under their real ability.

We can fix this. USCF realized the same problem a decade ago and they fixed it. However, the system here is not the same as their system, so I'd like to offer a "fix" for the rating system at RHP, and I'd like your input.

How about if RHP gives bonus points to a player's rating when they beat players rated 200 points above them? This is just one of the "fudge factors" used by USCF and many others are possible. Fr example, the rating system at RHP could also add a percentage point gain for "X" number of games played.

I'll leave it up to the membership here to expound on these ideas.

arrakis

I don't know if we're underrated here,at Gameknot ratings are calculated differently and when I won against a 1500 at the beginning of my playing at thay site,I got only 14-15 points,being rated 1300.

I can't choose which way of calculating is right.

There's not an official formula for correspondence chess?

Originally posted by arrakis
I play chess in the 2000+ category. When I signed up at RHP I messaged Russ and asked him to start my rating around my USCF rating. He informed me that everyone starts at 1200, but it doesn't matter because you will eventually arrive at yo ...[text shortened]... it up to the membership here to expound on these ideas.

arrakis

How do you know what rating your ability is 'really'? Aren't any ratings systems simply ways to compare people against one another?

By the way, the ratings system isn't really closed. New people come all the time, and some people quit. This causes the points available to fluctuate.

I don't have a problem using some other organization's rating system, but it will just trade set of numbers showing relative ability for another.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
How do you know what rating your ability is 'really'? Aren't any ratings systems simply ways to compare people against one another?

By the way, the ratings system isn't really closed. New people come all the time, and some people quit. This causes the points available to fluctuate.

I don't have a problem using some other organization's rating system, but it will just trade set of numbers showing relative ability for another.

I think most people are like myself. We have an established national and/or even international rating. Yeah, took many years, but we have it.

So to the mention that 'some people quit'... I'll bet a dime to the dollar that 95% of those people had more points than when they started! Which means that they took points out of the pool!

Originally posted by arrakis
I play chess in the 2000+ category. When I signed up at RHP I messaged Russ and asked him to start my rating around my USCF rating. He informed me that everyone starts at 1200, but it doesn't matter because you will eventually arrive at yo ...[text shortened]... it up to the membership here to expound on these ideas.

arrakis

I do not agree with you.

The object of any ratingsystem is to compare the members of that particular system! There's no point in comparing it to USCF-rating since the group of USCF-ratingholders is totally different than the group of RHP-ratingholders.
Most likely if person A and B have USCF-ratings of 1600 and 2200 then they will have about the same difference here (let's say 450 to 750 points)
Or, here's another way of looking at it.
Suppose, 400 USCF-ratingholders play at RHP and you are one of them, let's say number 10 of those 400. Then most likely you will be around that 10th spot here also of that group of 400.

Also the USCF-rating is not holy. My (Dutch) rating is 2190, my FIDE-rating is 2240 and my USCF-rating would be over 2300 if I had one. So to me the USCF-rating looks very inflated and the FIDE-rating a bit inflated. But no problem since I know they are all relative numbers 🙂

Quirine

i agree with all the above posts (even though they slightly disagree with each other🙄 )
.... except "people taking rating points with them when they leave".... i disasgree with this .... easily as many players drop below 1200 then leave as go above 1200 then leave.

another point to remember ... rhp ratings are still stretching themselves out ... the highest players are almost all still getting higher rated ... once the 2300 players get to 2300 people at 1900 will get to 2000.

i think the ratings systems are working well .... russ has many other projects ... and some of those badly need work.

Yeah, I used to be rated 1850 USCF, I'm struggling to hit 1550 here, but the pool of players is small, and correspondance players have the luxury of using plenty of time, opening books, etc., to help them on their game, so I'm not overly concerned with the disparity.

silly.. your just talking about facots of multiplication.. who cars whether it's underrated or overrated.. they are just numbers. you shouldnt have to see a big rating to feel good about yourself.. its all about the theory of relativity. nike: just play chess

Doesn't the the provisional system make sure that better players starts out with more points. As long as you're provisional player you gain more points than the opponent loses when you win.

Anyway, I agree with the other posters. It's all just a matter of relativity. The rating system of RHP compares the players of RHP. And that is all that it needs to do.

Originally posted by John Rambo
Doesn't the the provisional system make sure that better players starts out with more points. As long as you're provisional player you gain more points than the opponent loses when you win.

Anyway, I agree with the other posters. It's all just a matter of relativity. The rating system of RHP compares the players of RHP. And that is all that it needs to do.

Provisional ratings are calculated differently.
Basically your rating is the average of the score of all the games you have played. If you win a game your score for that game is opponent's rating + 400 (200 if they are provisional), draw it's their rating, lose it's their rating -400 (200 etc.).

So if you are rated 1400 provisionally after 9 games and beat a 1400 player (non-provisional) your new provisional rating will be 1440.
The most a non-provisional player can win or lose against a provisional player is 16 points. There is effectively no limit to how much a provisional player can win in a single game (cue the obscene example of a player who loses 5 times to 1000 rated players then beats Ironman going from a rating of 600 to 967 in one game).

Anyway I must think that Arrakis has no clue how the rating systems work. You cannot compare ratings from two different systems. Hell, sometimes you can't compare the ratings in the same system. Here in New Zealand if you are a club player playing in Wellington it is acknowledged that your rating is a hundred points or so higher than it would be if you were a club player playing in Christchurch. It's just turned out that way. Eventually it will adjust itself but right now the disparity exists.

Comparing RHP ratings to anyone other rating (FIDE, USCF etc.) doesn't work except by direct comparison. For one we are playing correspondance chess here. It's not the same as OTB chess. Database use (love it or hate it) is allowed here. Even if you try to compare it to a different correspondance rating it won't work.
Your RHP rating is your RHP rating no more no less. You are not entitled to a higher rating here because of your rating elsewhere no more than you are entitled to a title because of your rating here.

And arrakis's experiences are his. I personally, feel that my rating here is a lot higher than I would earn playing in OTB tournaments. Mostly because of the difference in time allowed and research. Each to his own.

about this site being "closed pool": if the same amount of points were on the site for a given amount of players then that would mean when you, for example, gain 20 points ur opponent loses 20 points. i dont think this is the case! if it were, there would be just as many players rated under 1200 as there are above, unless on average the lower rated players had more points below 1200 then the higher rated players have above. if anyone can see what im getting at theyll realize it refutes the idea of losing points from the pool when a high rated player quits. the best way to improve the rating system's accuracy (with relation to other systems) is to have people with a well established fide, uscf, etc. rating that has a low rd play a couple hundred games games against each other on rhp and determine their ratings based on the rhp formula. this wood give a good idea of the relative values (of course people who have a rhp and fide, uscf etc. rating cood just submit it and if enough people did it we'd have a good idea how they compare)

I've said on more than one occasion that it's a daft system. But would anyone entertain my remarks? Oh, no.

Well, it'll all end in tears.

And that's all I have left to say.

😛