Ratings inflation

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jumpnmustang
Posts: 42
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2003 3:43 pm

Ratings inflation

Post by jumpnmustang » Sun Feb 20, 2011 2:27 pm

I originally was going to post this in the running thread called "Rude behavior and cheating" or what ever that stupid thread was called. I felt that the topic was stupid and needed to have help dying, so I chose to move this over here.

Someone posted about ratings over there so I quoted and commented, and I will post it here as a reply so you guys know whats up.

This topic is an ongoing discussion and I feel as long as people "keep it clean" it can be brought up safely as a "further understanding tool" to help a player learn how to use ratings to improve rather than use them to promote their inflated ego.

Enjoy,

Jesse

jumpnmustang
Posts: 42
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2003 3:43 pm

Post by jumpnmustang » Sun Feb 20, 2011 2:28 pm

I believe it is kind of unfair to post an exact number to prove something is inflated. For you it may seem inflated but for others it may not. This site is grossly inflated and it has potential to give people a sense of euphoria. I personally like to goto FICS and ICC where I am rated 1950-2000 and then come back here and look at the 2500+ rating here and pretend I am a GM.

To get to my point. I don't see proof USCF is 150 points below ICC. I have seen more scattered ratings to prove there is little correlation between them than a scientific proof one is inflated. My rating USCF for example is about 1900 and it is "going" up without too much leveling, so that indicates I am not really stable anymore. My ICC rating is about 1950 and my FICS rating tends to be about 1950.

I find most people believe ratings deep down are a way to judge strength when in reality they judge approximates. So you NEED to attach about a 100 point leeway. If you are around 100 points of the ratings then you should consider yourself "STABLE". And don't go toward inflationary status unless of course there is a lot of people who are in the "Grossly" status like this site is. (Please note: This site IS by consensus inflated, but think about this: If you are in a pool of players who are playing and equally inflated, are you inflated? Why not judge your strength against the pool of players rather than your ratings outside the pool? Also you can't compare blitz ratings with standard ratings. Or Standard ratings to turn base ratings, also turn base can be comparable to correspondence.) I might be about equal across the board, but like I said, I have seen more proof of scattered ratings. In my opinion it's because people respect one more than the other. So they judge that one harder, or they try harder thus getting happier or more depressed based on the outcome of that respected rated. And sometimes find reason to make excuses for one of the ratings.

Interesting story: When I was 2450 here and 1600 in USCF (I was at the time winning tournaments left and right in my class levels and rising quickly from 1200-1800, and I guess the person here didn't look at that fact.) I was told here in chat that he noticed my USCF was ~1600 and his was ~1800 and my slowchess was ~2400 and his slow chess was ~2200, and he "hoped" I wouldn't cheat. It was interesting to me that someone would go that far to investigate my ratings and assume first that someone like me would cheat rather than assume first that maybe my "OTB" rating might be taking an upward climb.

I think this place is interesting because I find I get some really really weird games in this place. Mostly because I play fast and I forget what I was doing and when I "Reassess" so to speak Silman style, I find I have gotten myself into a really strange position that had nothing to do with the opening. And if you study chess like I do, you would know that the phases of the game are suppose to be in harmony. I find anomalies like this funny. And that is one of the reasons I play here.


jboger wrote:I have found there is a large amount of rating inflation on this site at the lower levels; I am rated about 1300 on ICC standard but I am rated about 2100 here (I can't check exactly right now because it's not taking my password for some reason?). That said, I have never used a computer for correspondence chess, and I have an 800+ point rating disparity between my ICC rating and net-chess rating (and ICC ratings are themselves about 150 points above USCF!)

gmiller
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Post by gmiller » Wed Feb 23, 2011 12:41 am

jumpnmustang wrote:If you are in a pool of players who are playing and equally inflated, are you inflated? Why not judge your strength against the pool of players rather than your ratings outside the pool?
Actually, this is all a rating can do. You can only compare ratings against different pools of players if the pools are similar. All a rating says is that you have a certain probability getting a certain score against another player of the same pool.

The ratings here are inflated only among the players that actually play regularly. The actual average rating on this site (last time I checked) was negative. But the problem is the people who start several games, make a few moves, and then never come back. People playing regularly eventually get points off of these and the result is inflation among people that actually play on a regular basis.

Not counting time-outs under 10 moves as wins helps keep the system at least somewhat accurate, but it's not perfect. I'm not sure what I could do to prevent it, and I'm pretty sure I don't actually need to do anything other than tell people to quit comparing ratings here to other places.
Greg Miller

mi
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Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 4:17 am

Post by mi » Fri May 06, 2011 4:54 am

Hi Greg,
In a real tournament, if you drop at The First Movement, Have you lost your influence and elo, no? All Those Who and players quit in small tournaments Would Be Cautious Before enrolling more?

and finally, those who have an inflated ego, are returned to their rightful place in real tournaments... ;-))

Anyway, congratulations and thank you for your work!

(sorry for my English...)
Michel.
Michel

gmiller
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Post by gmiller » Sun May 08, 2011 12:47 pm

A time-out under 10 moves always counts as a loss for the loser, it just doesn't count as a win for the winner.
Greg Miller

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