Rating returns to provisional after long inactivity

Hi @Russ / @Chris, hope you are well 🙂

Just an idea, i have seen this implemented on other sites. If a player doesn't play a rated game for 'X' time, then their rating becomes provisional again. Not sure what the correct amount of time should be, but I feel it would be a good addition.

From a purely personal perspective, I haven't played seriously on RHP for quite a long time now. When i left, i was timed out in about 100 games, so consequently my rating is somewhere around 1200. My actual strength is probably somewhere around 19-2100 on this site. I have tried to come back a few times to play some serious games here and try and improve my openings against some good players, but unfortunately I am stuck having to play some 100-150 games before I am eligible for the higher rated tournaments.

There are a number of reasons this is undesirable from a site perspective.

1. The people I beat will lose a lot of rating as my grade is so low, which isn't really fair.
2. I could easily enter lower banded tournaments, which is also not really fair
3. If my grade becomes provisional, i cannot enter banded tournaments (which i wouldn't anyway, but generally would resolve some sandbagging issues)
4. Any weird rating inflation/deflation issues would be minimised as big timeouts are not uncommon here in my experience.

What do you think? If someone leaves for a year, it is unlikely their rating would be unchanged. Either they would be a lot better or a lot worse, depending whether they have spent that year playing or taking a break.

Perhaps and alternative would be to allow a player to choose whether to make their grade provisional again, after a period of inactivity. Either way would be better than the current system, as I really can't motivate myself to play 150 games against much lower rated opposition. It's not so fun for them and it's not so challenging for me either (no disrespect to lower graded players intended). To complete that many games at a normal game load of say, 30 concurrent games, can literally take years.

@Marinkatomb
Not sure what the logic is ..seems like you're punishing a player simple because he hasn't had a rated game in a year. What about players, like myself, who enjoy this site, but prefer to have unrated games? I'm still here, and active. Maybe the site gods should purge anyone who hasn't logged in for a year..

@marinkatomb said
Hi @Russ / @Chris, hope you are well 🙂

Just an idea, i have seen this implemented on other sites. If a player doesn't play a rated game for 'X' time, then their rating becomes provisional again. Not sure what the correct amount of time should be, but I feel it would be a good addition.

From a purely personal perspective, I haven't played seriously on RHP for quite ...[text shortened]... omplete that many games at a normal game load of say, 30 concurrent games, can literally take years.

This is a tough one James.
If your rating was suddenly increased to somwhere near the original I suspect this would bring a lot of complaints from others who would want the same treatment if they had been in hospital or something for example so I can't see that happening.
I see from your full profile that your t.e.r is 1467 so maybe you could persuade Russ to re instate you with that rating.
Otherwise you could try open invites and see if you could get games against higher rated players that way.
Or PM some higher rated players and ask them for rated games in the open invites system
Or play games against lower rated players and before the games start explain to them you are going to sacrifice your queeen for instance.
Hope this helps

@venda Hi Venda, yes all good suggestions. The only thing to consider is that I could simply create a new account and achieve an accurate rating after 20 games. If i continue using me account, it will literally take me at least a year, probably more to achieve the same thing. My point is that this is not really desirable for anyone. It's not desirable for me because it's a huge drain on my time. It's a pain for my opponents, who either lose a lot of rating points to an under rated player, or they win and get very little when they deserve more. Also from a site perspective, players like me entering banded tournaments ruins everyone's fun.

I take the original point, what about people who play casual, that is a fair point, maybe returning the rating to provisional should be an option, rather than an automatic change.

@marinkatomb said
@venda Hi Venda, yes all good suggestions. The only thing to consider is that I could simply create a new account and achieve an accurate rating after 20 games. If i continue using me account, it will literally take me at least a year, probably more to achieve the same thing. My point is that this is not really desirable for anyone. It's not desirable for me because it's ...[text shortened]... int, maybe returning the rating to provisional should be an option, rather than an automatic change.

Also, if you started a new account your stats for your present one would disapear as would any history as you can't have two accounts on this site according to the TOS.

I think your original suggestion was a good one. The question would be rather Russ would be willing to do this, as venda said if it is done for one it would need to be done for all in the future.

-VR

@very-rusty said
Also, if you started a new account your stats for your present one would disapear as would any history as you can't have two accounts on this site according to the TOS.

I think your original suggestion was a good one. The question would be rather Russ would be willing to do this, as venda said if it is done for one it would need to be done for all in the future.

-VR

Why not have it as a site policy? The same thing applies with official grades. My ECF grade expired and I had to start from scratch, it's normal.