Value of Ratings

FIrst post here, sorry if it's in the wrong category!

I was just challenged by someone roughly 200 pts lower rated than me. I looked at her games, and she recently timed out of a ton of games, some clearly winning for her. Point being, she playes higher than her rating suggests and the results of the game would affect my rating in a skewed way.... or I suppose she may time out in a winning position would be another way to look at it. :/

My rating is higher than earned because of a time out as well, but I had drawn my opponent in our prior game with black and had a legit chance to earn it anyway.

The question I have is this:

Is too anal to put this much thought into your rating when your skill and your fun are really the point? I mean, I obviously want a high rating, it's a bit of a score keeping psychology I suppose.

Just wondering what other people think, and would do in this situation. I understand people will view it differently, just want to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

Your rating is nothing but a number next to your name, BUT and its a big but, ratings are the currency of the chess world. It is the way you can judge your stregth and your opponents.

I quite enjoy the rating system in chess. It's definitely one of the things that make community chess very interesting and fun for me.

It all depends on how you've obtained your rating. I could sit on this site all day beating the expert computer, and have a rating well over 2000.

play more games and it balances out.

I definitely do not do this. I find cheating at chess a bazaar practice. How can one like chess and yet spoil the game entirely by not playing it?! Same goes for a meaningless rating... what is the point?

Also, I am fairly certain I could sit all day playing the expert computer and fail to beat it once. :(

I think I found the answer I am looking for in Natalia Pogonina's recent article. She recommends ranking your chess ambitions. Since I would rank "Improving Chess mastery by playing solid opponents" higher than "increasing my online chess rating" (which would seem to be the long term result of following that plan anyway), my choice is clear.

@planeden: Good point!

Thanks all for your input!

I feel like the rating system on here just isn't accurate enough to take too seriously.  Why do I think that?  Just look at how I've been doing.  I've been getting way too many time out wins, and my rating has shot up from 1600 to 1800 in the last few months, and I know for sure that I'm not playing anywhere near that level, because the best player I've ever beat without him/her timing out only has a rating around 1700.

I wish it would balance out, but as I said, too many time out wins, not enough losses.  I've even resorted to giving up on games earlier, but it hasn't had enough of an effect.

So in conclusion, don't think too much about ratings, there are people that are underrated, and there are those like me who are overrated by a mile.

True. You can turn off the auto flag, but in tournaments they always autoflag.

I would add that if you beat the same 1200 rated player 99 times, and they beat you once, that single victory should have a very very small effect on your rating, even if your a GM. But it would actually undo all the small gains over the 99 games and give a let loss (not at all ratings obviously). So yeah, can't put too much stock in them I guess. It's too bad, they really ought to be more informative a number.

The mathematics inherent in the rating system are almost as great an intellectual achievement as the invention of chess. 

Good question!  I used to think a lot about my rating, and feel better when my rating went up and worse when my rating went down.  

I've been doing better (and feeling better) since I started focusing on playing better chess than what my rating was.  Ratings follow performance after all, with a little fluctuation.