I usually play casual games, but I've just been playing a few rated games yesterday and today and I am being CRUSHED. I used to be 2,000 in bullet and I've dropped (in 24 hours) close to 1800 and even at that level I'm being flattened by some 1600's. I do the analysis and some low rated players know 10+ moves of theory in my pet lines and then doing 30 CPL 0 blunders / 1 inaccuracy type games. They are seeing great combos, outplaying me positionally and much quicker than me too!
I don't care about my rating but I don't think my play has changed so I'm curious why this is so much different to how it used to be. Some of the games have been painful!
Have lichess ratings been affected by the lock down somehow? Or maybe people are just getting stronger due to lockdown induced boredom practice?
Another possibility is that players around the world are available at different times of day, which might somehow impact their performance.
There was a time of inflation on lichess some 6-12 months ago, then it stabilized and now I think (from pure observation of top players) there is slight deflation. Ratings depend on a lot of factors, some players don't play at their real strength sometimes, other times they over perform etc. It's hard to tell, you could be getting unlucky and getting paired with players in good form, or maybe there is more to it
my gut feeling was just after the lock down when lichess server was being hammered by players, i lost more frequently and my rating dropped, which often happens, but it also often jumps back up and it didn't. I feel it's dropped around 50, instead of bouncing around 1500-1600, it's bouncing around 1450 - 1550. Purely subjective and not in the least reliable.
@Sir_Lose_A_Lot Any thoughts if cheating could explain this? Could you share a few illustrative games?
New players are seeded at 1500.
If there is an influx of beginners weaker than 1500, they donate rating to the pool as they drop below 1500.
If there is an influx of players stronger than 1500, they drain rating from the pool as they rise above 1500.
The former is the usual situation, the latter may have happened as club players joined because of the COVID pandemic.
My bullet rating has been dropping a lot!, but I don't feel I'm playing worse. Feels weird.
-180 points in a week (July 1-8)
-260 since June 15th
Did it happen to anyone else? What chess player population phenomenon happened in this period?
@tpr Great point. This must be the answer - stronger club players signing up during lock down and sucking ratings point out of the system.
@Sir_Lose_A_Lot That's fairly unlikely to have such catastrophic effects on rating (180-200 points). Even the rating inflation (influx of low-rated players) only raised the 50th percentile from 1500 to 1560 or so. You may have just been having a bad day that time (I also have dropped from 1642 to 1500 in 1 day at bullet and I recovered in a few weeks and stabilized at 1630-1660 range). And it's not rating inflation because rating inflation had slowed down a good bit by mid May.
And the influx of strong players is less likely to cause a large effect - by the time most players are strong, they would already be on lichess.
@Sir_Lose_A_Lot Sorry to piss on your bonfire, but Lichess ratings are about 300 points inflated compared to USCF/FIDE.
