Lichess Glicko Ratings

Are the ratings on Lichess far lower than other chess websites, or is it the nature of the Glicko rating system?

I ask this because I find myself struggling to compete with 1300-1400 rated players on Lichess, however, I consistently beat 1500-1600 rated players on Chess.com. In turn, my rating here hovers around 1300, and around 1450-1600 on Chess.com.

I understand ratings are sometimes incomparable, especially if they are two different rating systems. I feel as though a 200-300 rating difference is quite large however.

So I ask -- Is the Glicko rating system usually lower than other rating systems, or is it the nature of the lichess.org that the player base seems to be much more dominant at lower levels?

my chess.com rating is far lower than here.

Kinda feel like this is the wrong question:

"Is the Glicko rating system usually lower than other rating systems [?][...]"

We could start the ratings at any number, not just 1500, and it'd still be 100% legitimately glicko-2. The difference between ratings here and other pools of players has pretty much zero significance (no causation or meaningful correlation).

I'd even go so far as to suggest that the below statement is also the wrong way to look at it:

"[...] or is it the nature of the lichess.org that the player base seems to be much more dominant at lower levels?"

What suggests that 800 or 1300 is inherently "lower levels"? Why not 1800, or 200? Those numbers aren't relative to anything external.

Maybe what you're more interested in is the percentile that you fall into, but even that's not concrete.

Unless there's some standardised test, like an exam with right or wrong answers; there's no meaningful way to answer your question.

I understand we can arbitrarily set the rating numbers and people would still fall into certain percentiles.

What I asked was whether it is known that the lichess ratings, or Glicko ratings in general, are lower then ELO or whatever other rating system. I.E. would Magnus Carlson be a 2400 roughly in Glicko but still 2700 (or whichever he is) FIDE/ELO, etc.

Again, further clarification, does the Glicko/Lichess system rate people with lower numbers than others?

Generally on lichess.org the tendancy seems for players to be rated about 200-300 points higher than ELO, because the ELO center point is about 1300 and the lichess Glicko-2 is centered around 1500.

That being said, the margin is arbitrary and doesn't apply to everyone. The rating is simply a comparison of you against the pool of players being drawn from. I feel like lichess has some pretty competitive players especially in blitz and bullet, especially when it comes to tactics and traps. If you are a fairly solid player for your level, but not well versed in certain trap lines, it's quite easy to find yourself a lower rating on lichess, especially in faster time controls.

In essence, though, I agree with what Clarkey says...you're asking the wrong questions. But the simple answer to your question about lichess using lower numbers, no. It uses a higher start point than most systems. But it also calculates rating variance, so if you lose the first few games you play, your rating is going to drop sharply and it may take several games to raise to where it should be. You won't have a stable rating until you play upward of 50+ games in a given category, and even then you will have to remain active for the variance to not go up and cause you to lose more or less points on win/loss. Hope that helps.

I like these kinds of topics because it makes me wonder what my rating would be if i played in FIDE/ELO system. I have only played on lichess which means I've never been to a live tournament or played anyone serious in person.

Indeed. OTB ratings are even less predictable based on online ratings. Online you have a relatively large pool of players, but they can be quite inconsistent. Club players are more likely to play OTB regularly, focus more intently on their game, play much longer time controls, etc. So while the pool is stronger, the overall strength is likely higher or at least more consistently strong. I wonder, too how I'd fare in club play. Definitely going to try one day.

@ #1: It used to be that the toughest player pool, by far, was on ICC. It probably still is to some extent but that seems to be less and less true every day. The competition on Chess.com and here on Lichess these days is a lot tougher than it was say a year ago. All of that said, I'm also noticing that players are stronger tactically on this site than Chess.com and they move much, much faster.

It would be interesting to start setting up team and individual based events centered around the theme of Chess.com vs Lichess.

@ #8: A Chess.com vs Lichess.org team would be great! We could have tournaments on each site, similar to playing home and away games. :D

Officially declaring war, huh? xD