Why do some people choose to play against weaker opponents?

Since the day I beat someone who was over 1700 (with his peak at 2000 I believe) when I was around 1000 or 1100, I noticed it brought me a lot of points. I later noticed that we could choose the rating range we'd like to play, and so decided I would only play stronger players now. The advantages are obvious for me: If you win, your rating goes up very quickly, if you lose, you lose only a few points (in the case above with the guy at 1700, a draw would have been around 9 points already if I recall correctly).

What I don't get are the people who do they exact opposite. They play against weak players, but the risk of being beaten is still there, and that again would result in a big rating loss. I was thinking they'd try to keep their rating low, but why play at all then, they could just go and lose on purpose or quit matches all the time to get to that point. Or is it maybe a statistical thing? So that they have many wins? And a philosophy of many wins but little rating increases?

I don't see any reason for myself to play only players rated between lets say 200 and 400 rated points lower than me. The only reason I can think of right now is that people would do that because they like to have many wins and care too much about their stats, or they feel like just playing a game without too much effort and deep thoughts against lower rated players. The funny thing of this is I believe those players who care too much about their rating and wins, and so play lower rated opponents, are less likely to improve fast because the level of the game is probably lower than a game with a better rated opponent

Yes, I don't think they can improve by playing matches against weaker opponents, but then the question is if that's their goal in the first place. Like you say, they may want to play it without thinking too much, without taking it too seriously …

It is a matter of respect. If you want to play stronger opponents you should be willing to play weaker opponent too. If everyone insisted on playing only stronger players, there wouldn't be anyone left you could play against...

In addition, not everyone is as overprotective about their rating.

Can't argue with Jenium's logic.

Well I currently am playing a bunch of people rated lower than me. 3 are friends and the others were just matched by chance because I set my seeks to a very large +/- from my own.

Well, you can't exclude your own rating anyway, you've got to include players with 50 less than you anyway, so you always get to play "weaker" opponents too.

 

Maybe they remember what it was like when they were green with the lower rating trying to climb if someone played lots of training games and help you then it's only fair to give others the same chance to spar and get practice time in.

 

I like to win every once in a while

First of all, the rating system is designed with that in mind. It already "knows" what you "should" score against a higher rated opponent. So if you score 25% when it predicts you should score 20%, then your rating goes up. Do this enough, and it starts to predict you'll score 25% and now you'll have to score better than that for your rating to continue to improve.

Although yes, playing against marginally stronger players helps you improve, not in terms of rating but in terms of learning.

Having said that, to answer your question, sometimes I'll play only much weaker opponents. It's fun to have all your plans go well for you, and more or less never lose. Even when you do something wrong, like miss a tactic, you don't despair because 1) they'll probably miss it and 2) you'll probably win the material back anyway or 3) you'll win on time because they fumble around so much trying to win.

If you truly just want to play against stronger players then why not just go against a computer? That's better than playing a GM now and if you set it on the highest rating you will learn all the best openings. Also, there is a tiny kernel of validity in what you say about not playing weaker players. The last site I played at I suspected "ringers", with low ratings. They would be rated real low, but play like a computer. I thought they did it for fun or revenge, not sure which. I haven't run into that here, which is another nice aspect of chess.com. As to the importance of rating,  everyone is concerned about their rating, except those who have a low one and are not interested in doing the work it takes to build it. Your rating tells the world and yourself, what you have accomplished. If you do play someone far higher than you and happen to win it will be because they blundered 99.9% of the time. Finally, if you look at it long term, you will never get your rating up just by playing stronger players. I have been steadily raising my rating recently, but because of beating weaker players. I studied my game history on the daily and noticed the vast majority of wins were from players with lower ratings, but those wins steadily increased my rating and had I only counted the games vs higher rated players my rating would have dropped.

Site lag fked up my post. Deleting this one to try again.

  Because if you try to emulate their play, you will play worse. Their play is based on extreme calculation. As Carlsen said, he doesn't like to play engines because they play like an idiot (even though the idiot wins due to calculation).

 

 

If the engine is referencing a high quality opening book to play its openings, then yes, you'll learn the best ones.

If it's just playing engine moves not only will you certainly not learn the best openings, but it will sometimes be playing outright mistakes.

All computers today have opening libraries. That's how they managed to program Deep Blue to beat Kasparov. Also, you misquoted Carlsen. He said "it's like playing an idiot, who can beat you". By idiot, I believe he meant someone who doesn't have conscious thought. Using a computer to learn is the same thing they used to do before computers. Bobby read over 4000 books on chess before becoming world champion.

I personally enjoy 20-0'ing 1800s and 1900s in some 1+0 bullet, when relaxing. 

The key is when you want to win a lot when you're relaxing, so you just pick some players a good deal weaker. I'm sure they enjoy it too, since a lot of players also want to play stronger players. 

If they accept the rematch, it's obviously OK.

 

But when I play rated, I just click the seek, +-200, and I get opponents in my rating range naturally. 

If you play a lot of weaker players, it's generally not that helpful for you to gain rating points. 

 

They need or want a rating they can't afford out of their current strength.

I think it all comes down to what you get out of chess.  If you only get pleasure from winning, then maybe you're like the kid who likes to play sports with younger kids because he doesn't like competing with those as good or better than him.

Personally, I enjoy the fact that I can be creative and mentally thorough enough to play a good game even when I lose.  Of course, I'd like my share of wins: after 10 straight team games against higher rated opponents, I won't mind if my next one is a little lower even though I'm 6-1-1 in the 8 finished games.

Here's a great club: https://www.chess.com/club/world-wide-chess-players

They probably don't care about their rating and just want to beat players for the fun of it :P