Follow up on recent rating changes and possible wide bot use

About a month ago I have asked this question (it is now archived and it can be found here: https://lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/did-anything-change-recently-regarding-the-ratings):

"For some strange reason, my rating went up from being around 2,000 for years to mid 2,100s. The guys I play with at 2,100 lever are making way more mistakes then 2,000 plus players used to do. Sure, those are all 1 min games, but still something is off.
It feels like most of those players are computers and their rating is adjusted a bit too high.

Did anyone else see anything similar to this?
Ps. I used to play on a different site that was only for paid subscription, but when I realized most of the opponents were computers, I stopped playing there, even though I had more than 2 years left on subscription"

Since I wrote that, my rating went as high as 2233 on Aug 16th. I was able to comfortably play with anyone in that range at that time. That lasted for a week or so and then things changed again. My ability to win games started going down and I maintained low 2000 rating for a few weeks, and it got even worse after that. I got dropped down to low 1900s and even had a few days in mid 1800. Now it is in low 1900s again.

So, either I have some incurable illness that is affecting my brain and ability to play chess, or something else is going on here. Since I am still able to preform my regular work duties which require heavy brain activity as well, my money is on something going on with how things are going in here in Li.

The only thing that make sense to me is that most of the opponents that are out there are actually bots. It could be that they get an update here and there and have to start from fresh and until they play for a while they are not that good at the beginning.

I was hoping this not to be the case, but everything is pointing to it being true. As I have mentioned, I have played at ChessClub.com and even payed for its 3 year subscription last time. Once I realized all of the people that I was playing with were mainly bots, I stopped going there. It would be sad if we have the same situation here, but unfortunately, lots of things are pointing that way.

Comments are welcome

My rating changed. Therefore, bots. Quite a leap.

Maybe something changed with the USA-France ping times. Maybe you had a month of good sleep, nutrition & exercise. Maybe the body really does have up & down cycles, a la biorhythms. Maybe that's just how randomness manifests itself.

Arpad Elo: "The process of rating players can be compared to the measurement of the position of a cork bobbing up and down on the surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which is swaying in the wind."

There is something strange about ratings and matchups here. That is probably what spurs so many complaints about the perception of cheating. I am much lower rated than you, but I believe I play fairly consistently, having played for a number of years. Nevertheless, my 5 min. blitz rating has varied from a low of 1235 to a high 1622, all the while I play at about the same level of ability (mediocre).

Even at my low ratings, some members with even lower ratings play far better than their rating would indicate. I lose to someone 100 to 200 points lower. Some do not seem to make any mistakes. Some seem to have memorized all the best moves of given openings and defenses. They sure seem like bots. It does not really bother me, but I see forum posts from people who seem convinced that they have suddenly gotten much worse or better.

Sometimes, I am matched with different players who play the exact same openings or defenses in sequence, as if the system discovers a particular weakness or strength in your playing style.

It is odd. I have not figured it out yet. Initially, I thought games were somehow manipulated to get members to spend money on something, but I am not sure why these odd matchups, ratings, and pairings occur. Algorithms are so sophisticated now, you will probably never discover the answers.

Ratings inherently fluctuate. Just because you went on a negative streak doesn't mean there are bots everywhere.

I would not know what is the reason for a not very - commercial site to use bots? It makes sense for a site like chesscom.

I have noticed some cheaters here which obviously used bots although they were not high rated. But they were banned from normal play eventually although some made blunders on purpose.

Example:

It's the second best move of the computer and it still wins with perfect play however...

Probably not bots. I think a lot of players are so obsessed with high ratings (maybe they think girls will be impressed...FYI... they don't care) so I think many users are cheating or defeating their own fake alt accounts or friends to bump up ratings. Not sure if beating the same 5 "players" 50 times will get flagged (Probably)...

Regardless on chess.com the ratings are inflated minimal 200-400pts and I've heard here the ratings seem even more inflated.

Anyone serious about this game should not worry about ratings and just get better month by month improve something. Play OTB tournaments if you want a better comparison for ratings.

Though I imagine their are pockets of areas where ratings might be higher bc they haven't faced better players in other regions to level things out. A few people from North Dakota think they are Bobby Fischer then they realize there are 100 12yr olds in India that can beat them consistently.

@drSabrotna said in #6:

Though I imagine their are pockets of areas where ratings might be higher bc they haven't faced better players in other regions to level things out. A few people from North Dakota think they are Bobby Fischer then they realize there are 100 12yr olds in India that can beat them consistently.

Yes check out Claude Bloodgood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bloodgood

Got a 2700+ OTB rating but mainly because of playing in a closed pool (prison tournaments).

Just to be on the same page, I could not care less about the rating that I have here, and that was not a reason for writing this.

The thing is that people (or perhaps bots) I play with are playing at quite different levels in the period of a few months. There has to be something about having easy time to play people around 2200 to get to have same level now at around 1900.

What else could explain such a difference? I am using the same phone and mostly playing on my own WiFi, so nothing was really changing there. Unless, something was being changed with my connection (either right now or 2 months ago) that is causing all of this.

Any constructive idea is welcome!

@mrbasso said in #5:

I would not know what is the reason for a not very - commercial site to use bots? It makes sense for a site like chesscom.

The other site that I mentioned (chessclub.com) seem to be inflating number of players so it looks more poplar than it actually is. I am seeing over 100k players (about 60k active games) during the day and that drops down to half of it in the evenings. Would this site need to utilize bots to look that big is something I don't know the answer to

I have noticed some cheaters here which obviously used bots although they were not high rated. But they were banned from normal play eventually although some made blunders on purpose.
That is another part that is well repeated here - people cheat. How they could cheat here with just ability to move its own pieces on your device? What they can do?

All the kids who play bullet 10 hours a day had to go back to school. All the kids who didn't play chess all summer have resumed their scholastic club attendance.