Occasionally I (rated ~1900 classical) get paired with opponent who are clearly very underrated. I can tell because their blitz and bullet ratings might be 2300, but since they've only played one "classical" game, their classical rating might be only 1650 or so. This is frustrating and feels unfair, since it's very clear I'm going to lose rating points. Since I'm above the starting rating of 1500, this happens much more than the opposite (playing against clearly over-rated players).
It seems like there should be fairly straightforward ways to avoid this nuisance. E.g. if a player already has non-provisional ratings in other types of chess, using the average of these for their starting rating. Or, e.g. if a person is rated 2600 bullet, using what the average classical rating is for other people in the 2500-2700 range as the starting rating of this person.
Another way to avoid this would be to scale down the number of points at stake when playing provisional players, so that regardless of whether they were under or over-rated, it's just not as big a deal.
It seems like there should be fairly straightforward ways to avoid this nuisance. E.g. if a player already has non-provisional ratings in other types of chess, using the average of these for their starting rating. Or, e.g. if a person is rated 2600 bullet, using what the average classical rating is for other people in the 2500-2700 range as the starting rating of this person.
Another way to avoid this would be to scale down the number of points at stake when playing provisional players, so that regardless of whether they were under or over-rated, it's just not as big a deal.
