English Chess Forum

Hi there, I noticed the other day that all my ratings on chess.com have dropped by about 300 points. Has anyone else experience this?

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2024 7:03 pm

Hi there, I noticed the other day that all my ratings on chess.com have dropped by about 300 points. Has anyone else experience this?

If you let me know your chess.com username I will take a look and see if your ratings have dropped by 300 points.

John Upham wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2024 8:14 pm

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2024 7:03 pm

Hi there, I noticed the other day that all my ratings on chess.com have dropped by about 300 points. Has anyone else experience this?

If you let me know your chess.com username I will take a look and see if your ratings have dropped by 300 points.

Or you could just type his name into a search engine and it will bring up the account.

From what I can see he played a rapid game where his rating ended at 1546 and then played blitz for which his rating is a lot lower. It also fooled me at first

As my old Latin master might have said apropos chess.com ratings, "Qui curat?"

Well, I haven't paid all that attention to it recently, so if no one else has had a massive drop, maybe I just lost more games than I realize. I hardly ever play, so its quite conceivable.

If you don't play very often, then your ratings will be subject to huge swings - it uses the Glicko system, and that's the way Glicko works.

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2024 9:18 pm

Well, I haven't paid all that attention to it recently, so if no one else has had a massive drop, maybe I just lost more games than I realize. I hardly ever play, so its quite conceivable.

You lost a lot of points in February but thought you were suggesting chess.com had made an adjustment to your ratings rather than losing the points in games played.

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 29, 2024 10:42 am

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2024 9:18 pm

Well, I haven't paid all that attention to it recently, so if no one else has had a massive drop, maybe I just lost more games than I realize. I hardly ever play, so its quite conceivable.

You lost a lot of points in February but thought you were suggesting chess.com had made an adjustment to your ratings rather than losing the points in games played.

That maybe the case but there seems to be another drop in play. My rapid rating was about 1830. Its plummeted since then and I can't quite work out why.

IM Jack Rudd wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2024 10:11 pm

If you don't play very often, then your ratings will be subject to huge swings - it uses the Glicko system, and that's the way Glicko works.

I've long thought there's an invalid assumption in the underlying theory of the Glicko system. There's a presumption that just because you haven't played much if at all in the pool of players measured on a local Glicko system, that you haven't played anywhere at all and are thus totally rusty. It can work the other way. If you want a major ratings boost on a Glicko based system and are playing well, just avoid playing on the server or national ratimgs system for a while. Then come back and clean up on ratings until the k factor drops back to a normal value.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 29, 2024 5:33 pm

IM Jack Rudd wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2024 10:11 pm

If you don't play very often, then your ratings will be subject to huge swings - it uses the Glicko system, and that's the way Glicko works.

I've long thought there's an invalid assumption in the underlying theory of the Glicko system. There's a presumption that just because you haven't played much if at all in the pool of players measured on a local Glicko system, that you haven't played anywhere at all and are thus totally rusty.

Not really, no: the presumption is more "we haven't seen much of you recently, so we have no idea if our estimate of your strength is still any good; we'll raise your K factor to indicate our uncertainty".

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 29, 2024 5:19 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 29, 2024 10:42 am

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2024 9:18 pm

Well, I haven't paid all that attention to it recently, so if no one else has had a massive drop, maybe I just lost more games than I realize. I hardly ever play, so its quite conceivable.

You lost a lot of points in February but thought you were suggesting chess.com had made an adjustment to your ratings rather than losing the points in games played.

That maybe the case but there seems to be another drop in play. My rapid rating was about 1830. Its plummeted since then and I can't quite work out why.

Between February 20th and 28th you dropped from 1843 to 1489 with a score of around 6 wins and 19 losses.

Oh, that explains it. I know I played a lot late night games but I didn't think it was that many.