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Rating system

I played a player whose opponents were all 1200 or higher, yet his rating was 926. This made me think that maybe the rating system is flawed. Why should this player be rated 926 when he can obviously hang with 1200+ and the only reason he isn't rated higher is because he doesn't play lower rated players. Thoughts?
Correct me if I am wrong, but if his rating is only 926, he isn't hanging with them very well at all, unless he is intentionally resigning from winning positions in order to keep his rating low.
That's not a problem with the rating system (all rating systems have some issues, but most of them are pretty subtle).

The player in question might only play 1200+ players, but he doesn't hang with them. He performs against them like a 926 would.

The way the rating system works, any rating difference corresponds to an expected scoring percentage.

If you play all people who are 300 points higher rated than you are, you are expected to score about 15% (that number will vary a bit from system to system).

If you score better than 15%, you outperform your rating and your rating goes up.

If you score less than 15%, you underperform your rating, and your rating goes down.

If someone plays hundreds of games against players rated 1200, and his rating is 926, it's because he gets the results against those players that you would expect someone rated 926 to get.

Now, there is an interesting truth that somewhat justifies your point.

There's been a fair amount of work done that shows that the mathematical models used by most of the rating systems is not a good predictor of results when the rating difference is very large.

In other words, most rating systems do a good job of predicting actual results, but when the rating differences get large, the models predict lower scoring percentages for the higher rated players than actually occur in practice.

That means if you regularly play people 500+ points higher rated than you, you will probably end up losing points, because the rating system is not very accurate for direct encounters between such disparate opponents.

That's also why a few of the more rigorous engine rating lists over the years restrict the rating differences allowed in games between engines, because including matchups where the rating differences are very large distorts the results.

Hopefully that was all clear as mud :)
Ugh, should be "...used by most of the ratings systems are...".

My brain's clearly shutting down as the day progresses :)
Does the rating system take into account games that are lost by time?
The rating system only cares about results; it doesn't care how they're obtained.

Whether a loss is by mate, time, resignation, or disconnection doesn't matter, as far as the rating system is concerned.

It's all just a loss.

Does lichess attempt to keep their ratings in line with an 'official' rating system such as USCF ? (I am in usa). Have any players with active USCF ratings done tests to see how their Lichess rating relates to their USCF rating? thanks!
Quisiera saber si alguien me puede explicar porque me faltan 90 puntos en mi elo.
La ultima vez que jugue tenia 2040,entro para jugar hoy y me encuentro que tengo 1950.
Eso es normal aqui o es fallo del sistema,porque si es fallo espero que me lo restauren y vuelva a 2040.
Porque me ha costado mucho trabajo conseguirlo.
Gracias.
Creo que usted encontrará que es a causa de las nuevas actualizaciones de este sitio web. Están eliminando todas las puntuaciones resultantes de jugar contra personas que habían engañado. Esto puede ser la causa. En mi caso, yo en realidad gané un puñado de puntos!

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