Chess Rating question, what does it mean?
 

why does this occur?
in the professional chess world, the highest rated players are rated around 2800 or so. 10 years ago it was slightly lower.

On the internet chess club the best humans get speed chess ratings of up to 3300-3500 (although 3500 is not sustainable IMO, just where people peak).

Why is there so much larger of a range online in speed chess?

is there more skill (mouse quickness, etc) differentiation than in live slow chess? I'd imagine that the rating formulas are the same in figuring out how many points you should win by beating an opponent of a given level. and that translates into player A being x points above player B beating player B y% of the time.

or could it be that players of vastly differing levels rarely play live. However, online a 3000 may play a 2200 20 times and that the formulas break down when gaps in ratings get too wide?

Re: Chess Rating question, what does it mean?
 

Essentially a chess rating is supposed to signify a player's strength.

It is an approximation/estimation but is suspposed to be fairly accurate.

A young and quickly improving player with a rating of 1500 may really be of 2000 strength and his rating may be "inaccurate" but in time his strength will catch up to his rating as he wins games and inreases his rating.

The FIDE ratings for the top players in the world have increased over the past 10-20 years because of there being more strong players and more high rated players to play against. Thus these world top 10 players have more opponents to gain points from and are thus higher rated.

The online ratings you speak of are from the Internet Chess Club. It's blitz and bullet ratings have become Inflated via eeking (playing the same players or low rated players over and over again and just winning points nonstop). Also just generally over time there were some inconsistencies in the ratings formula which have caused the ratings to become inflated.

ICC now has 1-min, 5-min, and 15-min games whereupon you are placed into a ratings pool and cannot choose your opponent or color. These ratings have not become inflated.

Thank you.

Any questions regarding chess are welcome as well. Ask away.

Re: Chess Rating question, what does it mean?
 

I imagine the fact that only serious chess players join FIDE and pay to play in live tournaments, while thousands of clueless beginners play online for free or cheap, is enough to inflate the ratings by a few hundred points - comepletely aside from whether ratings are inflated by other tactics. Remember, "everyone" starts at the same initial score, but the definition of "everyone" is not the same on each site and for each game.

The situation doesn't seem so different from how the same players' ratings on casual and serious backgammon sites tend to differ by about 200. (With 1500 as the baseline, and 2200ish being a top player - the ratings aren't as spread out as chess.)

Re: Chess Rating question, what does it mean?
 

Ratings almost always inflate as time goes on. Because there are many many more games played online (probably as many blitz games are played on ICC than tournament games played in at least a month maybe more), the rating pool inflates at a much faster rate than one would expect. Also there are a few ways to illegally inflate one's rating that affect the entire pool. A bunch of people doing this will result in very high ratings over time.

Re: Chess Rating question, what does it mean?
 

I thought 3000 rating meant perfect chess as in if God played chess. And that online ratings were just inflated in general.

Re: Chess Rating question, what does it mean?
 

Some online ratings are much higher than fide. ICC is such an example. But any site could employ an underrated system as well.

The way new players get their rating and how you win/lose points vs new players is also critical I think.

Re: Chess Rating question, what does it mean?
 

it means if you are X points higher rated than your opponent, in the same rating system, in the long run you can expect to score f(X) points per game against him. Where a win is 1 point, a draw is .5 points, and f(X) = 1/(1 + 10^.025X).

Nothing more than that. There could be a new chess server opened tomorrow where I was rated 4500 and you were rated 4000, and the ratings would be just as consistent as if I was rated 1100 and you were rated 900. Also, in order to calculate a players rating accurately, he needs to play a large number of games against opponents of various strengths. The number required is less as the strength of the opponents approach his own strength.

You'll often hear a player tell yo, usually proudly "I am rated 1800" (or 1500, or 2000, or 2200). This doesn't mean anything without knowing what rating system he is referring to. It's a common error to the number is universal.