.jpeg)
Does your rating even matter?
5/16/2020 – Online chess has become very popular in the last couple of years and more and more people participate and try to win games and achieve a higher rating. Rating matters so much that it can turn into an obsession. Ratings appear to represent the value of the person. We take a closer look at how the ego can become the curse of the rating system and how we feel about it.
Find the right combination! ChessBase 15 program + new Mega Database 2020 with 8 million games and more than 80,000 master analyses. Plus ChessBase Magazine (DVD + magazine) and CB Premium membership for 1 year!
Why are we playing chess?
Is it for the fun and joy of the game? Is it to train our brain, exercise the mind and sharpen our smartness? Do we enjoy the creativity, trying out wild sacrifices and interesting openings? Or do we like the competitive part?
Granted one of the points mentioned above applies to us, we wouldn't need to play a rated game, would we? None of the statements interfere with playing a casual game, if we think about it for a moment. Sure, a rating system is very useful to play against opponents who have a similar strength. This makes chess even more enjoyable. But what if we could have casual games with opponents of the same strength? Would we miss the rating system?
If we win a chess game, we gain rating points. This is very addictive for a couple of reasons:
- Having a higher rating than others grants us value
- Gaining points by winning a game is rewarding
- The competition is more real
Some players are getting obsessed with rating points, so much so that they cheat to accomplish a false feeling of status and value. The obsession starts by not being able to deal with the own ego.
Ego is the Enemy
This is the title of a book by American marketer and author Ryan Holiday, which is about the treacherous nature of the ego. He describes very well how the ego often takes the lead in cases of aspiration, success and failing. Those three themes are a huge part of any serious chess player. If the ego takes over, it gets difficult to strive for long-term goals or mastering a craft.
Once the ego takes over, which is closely related to suppressing your emotions, your status and honour has to be retained at any cost. This can lead to emotional outbreaks and an unhealthy fighting spirit.
One sentence from an interview of Russell Brand and the Gracie brothers struck me. Ego and alcohol are the main reason fights exist. It couldn't be more accurate in my opinion.
Egos and alcohol are probably the only two reasons to start fighting and not only physically
I remember one incidence of ego overload at a Chess Open in Hamburg, Germany. After four rounds the player who was leading in the B-Group of the tournament, which was for players with a rating under 1800, sat down next to a young chess talent. The young player was analysing the game he had just lost with his coach, a titled player.
Evans Gambit for the new generation
The Evans Gambit is an attempt to destroy Black in gambit fashion straight out of the opening. Featuring games of old, and numerous new and exciting ideas, this DVD will give you a genuine and more exciting way of playing the Giuoco Piano.
The coach of the talent just explained how best to respond to the Evans gambit, when the B-Group player interfered and tried to explain, that the young talent played perfectly well against this opening and shouldn't listen to the trainer! While the B-Group player got louder and louder, the coach kept his calm and suggested different variations. The B-Group player left the table angrily, smashed some chess pieces off the board and gave a thumbs up to the kid while he walked away.
Well, that escalated quickly
Winning four games in a row lifted the B-Group player's ego to a new dimension. He got upset, that someone would dare to challenge his opinion. The coach remained calm, because he knew well enough what he was talking about. Keeping the ego quiet at times shows confidence.
The chess rating necessity
All of us playing online chess have had an opponent whose feelings got hurt because they were losing. In my other article "Three reasons we keep playing even when totally lost!" I described one way of being a sore loser: just let the time run out on purpose.
This happened to me in a five-minute blitz game, after my opponent dropped a piece in just three moves. So now I had to wait for four minutes and 50 seconds to play the next game. I also had to stay online, just in case the opponent would sneakily make a move. It sounds so silly when I think about it now. Any better solution?
How about resigning?
No, the own ego won't let us do that. We cannot lose rating points because of a sore loser. At this moment we are to caught up in our emotions to make a rational decision. Would the situation be any different if it had been a casual game, without losing any rating points? Certainly! We would be fools to keep the time running for absolutely no reason.
The point I want to make is that if rating points do not matter why don't we resign in a situation as described? Why do we feel so emotional when winning or losing a lot of points? Why do we want to reach a certain rating so badly?
The next time we play online and have a similar situation, it would be good to think about the worst-case scenario, which could happen if we resign. The conclusion would probably be that it won't be the end of the world. A rating score is nothing more or less than a number after all.
This article is not meant to challenge the idea of the rating system, but to make you think about it from a different perspective.
How much does the rating matter to you? Only pick the sentence which you relate to the most.
Participate in this poll and see what other readers think.
chess-rating
Links:
| Advertising |
Discussion and Feedback
Join the public discussion or submit your feedback to the editors
I would never resign a game that is not lost, regardless of it being rated or unrated.
"This happened to me in a five-minute blitz game, after my opponent dropped a piece in just three moves. So now I had to wait for four minutes and 50 seconds to play the next game. I also had to stay online, just in case the opponent would sneakily make a move. It sounds so silly when I think about it now."
Is that a win-win, lose-lose, or win-lose?
Is that a win-win, lose-lose, or win-lose?
By cheating online to get a high rating the cheat can then use their high false rating to suck in students and charge for online sub-standard lessons.
My only quibble with the rating is when I got old my rating fell. People thought I was sandbagging. I was not, (my ego would never let me do that. :) ) I just got old and blundered more.
My only quibble with the rating is when I got old my rating fell. People thought I was sandbagging. I was not, (my ego would never let me do that. :) ) I just got old and blundered more.
psychologists prefer ratings because they can set players in standard groups. Ithink erasing the problem is not the solution.we should work on ourselves so that we see ratings as a measure of relative strength and improvement.not more...
nice post
Losing a piece in three moves is pretty fast, but not necessarily a reason for resigning. I'm ashamed to say that in a blitz game I trapped my opponent's queen and won it for a knight. My opponent, who was fundamentally a very good player, still won!
Surely it's quite straightforward. If you want to become a good or better player, you study the game, play a lot and analyse your losses. Your rating will reflect how successfully you did those things and is therefore a very useful gauge. For all other types of player, those who have reached a plateau, can't be bothered to study, or never had any particular ambition in the game, it has very little meaning.
People are known to be cheap when money is involved. Rating points are another thing that expose the same behavior in some players. More generally, there is psychological cheapness.
Loved this article and the example of playing someone online who lets their time run out. Unfortunately something we all seem to have to deal with these days. Fortunately chess servers restrict or ban players who often do this.
Sure our ego won't want to lose rating points by resigning in this situation. But one thing that is much more important to me (or maybe also just to my ego) is that I hate rewarding unwanted behavior. If I resign against someone who lets their time run out, I give them exactly what they want, which will only reinforce this behavior.
Sure our ego won't want to lose rating points by resigning in this situation. But one thing that is much more important to me (or maybe also just to my ego) is that I hate rewarding unwanted behavior. If I resign against someone who lets their time run out, I give them exactly what they want, which will only reinforce this behavior.
Nothing wrong with the rating. The problem is with the stupid K-Factor. Why favour an U-18 kid. Why not make K-40 universal for U-2300 players? Why should FIDE discriminate against late bloomers? Some questions that should be answered.
I enjoy chess more when I play unrated games. Playing rated games makes me stressed and causing more mistakes. My strength is clearly better when I play unrated games.
1
