Hm yes, thanks for your clarifications. I tend to agree about turn-based chess - it is more similar to correspondence without postal stamps than to OTB play. I also find it quite time-consuming; actually I can't play more than 10 turn-based games at a time against opponents of any reasonable strength, but it may have to do with the fact that I am not very experienced in this medium. If one has mostly or only played turn-based chess on the Internet with long thinking times, with the use of databases and analysis board etc. then I imagine that they would have quite a bit of trouble adjusting to OTB play. Live chess is much more like OTB chess in this respect. But I realize that it is not quite the same but it doesn't necessarily make it less real. It is still essentially the same game.
Online rating and OTB what's the difference!
The difference is that online ratings are meaningless while OTB ratings aren't. I feel much the same about CC/Postal ratings as well........ at least post strong engine era...
FIDE DOES rate some correspondance chess matches.
I think you may be confusing FIDE with ICCF . FIDE ratings are for OTB play only. ( unless they have changed this very recently )
I used to play fairly regularly in OTB and we actually have a pretty strong local club with several FMs but now I don't bother to go to the club any more and haven't gone in years. It's just easier to log on the Internet and easier to find opponents. Okay, it is possible to complain about the quality of Internet play - lag is a problem in fast games, there is occasional cheating etc. but that doesn't make it not real or less real. Is it your impression though that most of your online opponents are not taking the game seriously ? Mine seem to be taking it pretty seriously, judging by the fact that they often play on in hopeless positions hoping to win on time etc.
Actually, yes, that's my impression. But now that I think about it that might be an unjustified prejudice. It's been some time since I've gotten online to play any serious chess so I'm probably confusing meeting players weaker than me with players who aren't trying as well as thinking most people use online chess the way I've been using it... just for some quick throw away games.
I do feel like there are some sites where there doesn't seem to be any serious chess going on though... e.g. yahoo! and some others. I guess I'm also recalling the difference in standards between places like (for an obvious contrast) yahoo! and ICC.
I used to play fairly regularly in OTB and we actually have a pretty strong local club with several FMs but now I don't bother to go to the club any more and haven't gone in years. It's just easier to log on the Internet and easier to find opponents. Okay, it is possible to complain about the quality of Internet play - lag is a problem in fast games, there is occasional cheating etc. but that doesn't make it not real or less real. Is it your impression though that most of your online opponents are not taking the game seriously ? Mine seem to be taking it pretty seriously, judging by the fact that they often play on in hopeless positions hoping to win on time etc.
Actually, yes, that's my impression. But now that I think about it that might be an unjustified prejudice. It's been some time since I've gotten online to play any serious chess so I'm probably confusing meeting players weaker than me with players who aren't trying as well as thinking most people use online chess the way I've been using it... just for some quick throw away games.
I do feel like there are some sites where there doesn't seem to be any serious chess going on though... e.g. yahoo! and some others. I guess I'm also recalling the difference in standards between places like (for an obvious contrast) yahoo! and ICC.
I know that in your case you really probably don't take online games very seriously but I would hesitate to conclude that this is the case with most people even if many of them say so after you beat them, he he. But I suppose that once one gets to about FM level it might become difficult to find suitably matched opponents on the Internet. If I ever reach that level, I will consider a come-back to OTB play.
If you play good online you can play good OTB, but it's not that easy to compare the ratings. Look at the quality.
One is real chess and the other is fantasy chess--anyone who brags about an on-line rating is not a real chess player.
+1
I said it before and will say again, this is nonsense. Chess is an abstract game whether you play it in "OTB" or over the Internet. Bishops are not real bishops when you play in OTB, Knights are not real knights, the Queen is not a real queen, the King is not a real king etc. Chess is in any form a metaphorical representation of reality at best, or an escape from it at worst. It's not like you are dealing with any of the world's real problems by playing in "OTB." The notion that OTB chess is somehow more "real" is completely nebulous.
Net ratings can be useful, but because you can pick who you play against you need more data than just the rating. In fact you need:
Rating
Number of games player
Avarage rating of opponents
Best Player beaten
By taking these four things into account your net grade can at least be slightly usefull.
Online ratings are over inflated. Also, The claim that someone rated 2000+ in Blitz online is probably a strong OTB player is hogwash...It is easy to get an online blitz rating of 2000+ by selective play, cheating, etc, but you can't do any of that in OTB. Now, if you mean to say that a REAL blitz rating of 2000+, in live Blitz tourneys would correspond to a strong OTB I might agree, although I have played many good blitz players who move too fast in OTB and blunder often.
The problem is not that simple:
On this site there is good OTB players with a blitz rating around 2000 and there is weak OTB players with the same blitz rating.
Sometime this happens with the "real" rating too, I have played OTB since 1994, you simply cant judge a players strengt just with a look at his rating.
Online ratings are over inflated. Also, The claim that someone rated 2000+ in Blitz online is probably a strong OTB player is hogwash...It is easy to get an online blitz rating of 2000+ by selective play, cheating, etc, but you can't do any of that in OTB. Now, if you mean to say that a REAL blitz rating of 2000+, in live Blitz tourneys would correspond to a strong OTB I might agree, although I have played many good blitz players who move too fast in OTB and blunder often.
Let me ask you a question, you say in your profile that you have a 2000 USCF rating but your blitz here is in the 1600s, so do you think that you are over-rated here ? Or perhaps you think that everyone else's online rating is inflated except your own ?
Online ratings are over inflated. Also, The claim that someone rated 2000+ in Blitz online is probably a strong OTB player is hogwash...It is easy to get an online blitz rating of 2000+ by selective play, cheating, etc, but you can't do any of that in OTB. Now, if you mean to say that a REAL blitz rating of 2000+, in live Blitz tourneys would correspond to a strong OTB I might agree, although I have played many good blitz players who move too fast in OTB and blunder often.
"The claim that someone rated 2000+ in Blitz online is probably a strong OTB player is hogwash...It is easy to get an online blitz rating of 2000+ by selective play, cheating, etc, but you can't do any of that in OTB." I would say that the person who is 2000+ online plays approximately 2000 OTB provided he/she plays fair and square. It's my own experience...
After so many months now I derive certain conclusions about my own previous thread:-
Here they are :-
1. People play thousands of game online ie. statistics are more accurate.
2. In OTB people might be more serious but still cannot compare the accuracy of online statistics.
3. Comparing blitz against standard is impossible or blitz against lightning or standard, out of question.
4. Use of engines in online chess esp in time control with 5/0 or above are rampant.
5. Many people use multiple accounts which means you might be beating the same person with different userid, this makes more inflation.
6. Two person playing only against them say 50 games will result in inflation.
Explaination 1 :- In online we see players with more than 5000 games blitz or lightning whatever. Is this possible in OTB? Nope! Anand with almost two decades of playing chess has approx. 2500 games. Statistics count.
Explaination 2 :- The biggest problem with online chess is the cheating/unfair means say in the form of a) having multiple accounts b) using assistance engine or stronger human
After so many months now I derive certain conclusions about my own previous thread:-
Here they are :-
1. People play thousands of game online ie. statistics are more accurate.
Arguably not the case. I've never once quite an OTB game because my wife called me to dinner, or my kids came in and asked me to do something, or the electricity went out, or my ISP decided to stop routing traffic, or the site went down, or whatever. I rarely play more than a few on-line games before either myself or my opponent quit the game.
Further, in on-line play one's opponents are far less random as one or the other players pick the opponents. In OTB play who shows up is who you play, and you have very little choice in choosing your opponents.
The fact that there are a lot of games says nothing about the value of the data. The value of the data is dependent upon the process that generates the data, and on-line play's structure is something that a person can use to skew their results. Read the blog post on this site about becoming the #1 ranked live chess player and note how the person in question selected his opponents quite carefully in order to generate the results he wanted. He clearly had to be a good player, but by his own admission his methodology inflated his ratings by at least a class.
2. In OTB people might be more serious but still cannot compare the accuracy of online statistics.
It is a fallacy to think that volume equates to quality. It is precisely the seriousness of OTB play that makes it a barometer of a person's true playing strength compared to on-line play.
In on-line play you can never be certain if the person across from you is really playing chess or if they're watching TV and randomly clicking on moves every few seconds. But no matter what they're doing it is not very likely that the average player in on-line play is taking the game nearly as seriously as the average player in OTB play. The quality of the data is simply better. Combined with teh fact that on-line play allows for opponent selection and other means of gaming the system, there's really no comparison.
3. Comparing blitz against standard is impossible or blitz against lightning or standard, out of question.
Correct
4. Use of engines in online chess esp in time control with 5/0 or above are rampant.
Even in fast time controls it happens alot - which is another reason that the quality of the data is to be seriously questioned. Millions of data points of bad data is still bad data.
Cheating does happen in OTB play as well, but it is far far less common and it simply doesn't impact the data set the way it does for on-line play.
5. Many people use multiple accounts which means you might be beating the same person with different userid, this makes more inflation.
It also means that people are setting up the system to play themselves and inflate their own ratings! You're point out why the data set is not to be trusted. Again, volume doesn't equate to quality when it comes to data.
6. Two person playing only against them say 50 games will result in inflation.
Explaination 1 :- In online we see players with more than 5000 games blitz or lightning whatever. Is this possible in OTB? Nope! Anand with almost two decades of playing chess has approx. 2500 games. Statistics count.
Explaination 2 :- The biggest problem with online chess is the cheating/unfair means say in the form of a) having multiple accounts b) using assistance engine or stronger human
We shall be back with more researches...
oh! oh! peace! peace!
I don't want blood in my garden.
Not that one form is more valid than the other but the ratings measure different pools and environments. Online or not, in terms of skill in the game itself speed ratings aren't as impressive as standard OTB ratings because in speed games the clock often supersedes the position. Likewise correspondence isn't as impressive as standard OTB because resources are used.
If someone joined a 45/45 league and analysed seriously, read books and the like, I tend to think they'd be getting some very good experience very similar to the improvement that can be made in standard OTB play.
For professionals it's a bit different I think, because you can't duplicate that level of competition online (not enough titled players playing non-blitz for example). Any FIDE title for example will always be more impressive than any online chess rating no matter the site or time control.
When talking about this we all must consider cheating here on chess.com. With lots of cheating a non cheater loses more often lowering there rating. Your rating could be higher then you think. typically otb is 200-300 points lower but it can depend on the person. Cheating could be more of a problem then you think, with stupid closet cheating as well. i wish we could play on chess.com without having to take this into consideration.
HI Atos--I will try and answer some of your questions from my limited internet and personal experiences. I have not played OTB since 2001 and my busiest period was 1990-1994 when I had some very good results (and was in my early 30's)
First off--Bullet, I can not 1-0 for the life of me either here or on other sites. Am too old and slow. Now lets look at "turn based" (cc) play --here you can use databases, books etc so the memorization and preparation, surprise etc has little in common with OTB. While this is fun it also is very time consuming. I just played two games with Feezik and honestly spent hours on the game (as did he I think)--it was fun and exciting {except for the result
} so how people can play 30-50 or more games at once escapes me. Even in cc on other sites (or ICCF) I can rarely play more than 8 games at once so it is hard for me to realize how many take this seriously with multiples of that number going on simultaneously. Also I had quite a few time outs as well as people resigning in even or only slightly worse positions. In terms of preparation, most of my games were in thematics which people clearly did very little homework as I had winning games after 10-15 moves which should not happen in either the Danish or the Pirc with any research or studying.
Now lets look at Blitz--5-0 is what I play. Does my 5-0 strength equal my tournament strength? Maybe when I was younger and faster but clearly now the answer is no! Also, now I play at work or even when at home get distractions and lose silly games. Plus I use Blitz to work on changing my opening repertoire and or look at lines of interest not my "OTB" lines. I play to have fun. Hopefully this provides some insight and clarity on my thoughts of Internet chess--which is still fun to play.