Sorry, Improvers: Your Rating DOES Matter.

John Steinbeck once wrote that Americans don't see themselves as "poor" - but as as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Similarly, many club players see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed grandmasters" - just working through a plateau before their inevitable rating skyrocket - just around the corner!

Of course, "Improvers" often hear the same five words on repeat: "don't worry about your rating!" For the most part, this advice is in good faith: obsession with rating increase can lead to bad habits - memorizing openings, playing "systems" that stunt tactical development - and so on - but it also originates from a thesis that the "rating obsession" germinates from an... arrogance, that every player is seeking a higher - but wholly undeserved - rating. This attitude even permeates to the higher levels, where Super GMs agonize over losses to "low" rated 2500s. Don't they know their place?!

For the past year, I've told those who asked: "I don't care about my rating. I only care about improving at chess." And I still believe this! But we have to be real: Rating. Matters.

It's not because of "ego" - this is the misconception. The conventional view is that players are attaching their self-worth to their rating number - that's it's purely about identity. This is probably true for many players - but there are in fact many other valid, practical reasons to be concerned about your rating. Let's enumerate a few.

Swiss System First Round Pairing

If you are playing in a Swiss System tournament, having a higher rating is of course better. If you are on the low end, you're likely to be paired with someone 300 - 500 points higher in the first round. If you can score an upset - great. But if you lose your first round, you'll be "slumming it" with lower-rated players the remainder of the tournament.

In my experience, this does not lead to chess improvement as beating up on someone 200 - 400 points lower than you does not teach much. It seems like most tournaments (except the CCA) have just two sections - Open and U1600 or U1800. This means for lowly 900 - 1100 players are constantly playing up, losing their first game, and then playing against the 500 - 700 rated scholastic players for the remainder of the tournament. Not a great time investment!

Ideally, you want to be rated in the middle of the pack - so you play someone rated slightly-higher or -lower than you with a reasonable chance of winning - and having a good (not lopsided) game.

Avoiding the Dreaded Full Point Bye

Another aspect of the Swiss System - the Full Point Bye. If you are rated on the low end of the field, you are very, very likely to receive the full point bye after losing that first round game to the higher-rated player. Again, not a great time investment as you often miss the entire round.

In a large enough field, higher-rated players avoid the Bye even after losing 2 or even 3 straight.

(On the flip side, a player from the upper section with a Full Point Bye will accept a pairing - obviously, you should always be on the lookout for this opportunity should it arise).

More Rated Games with Longer Time Controls

For some reason, lower rated players get much, much shorter time controls - typically G45 or G60. If you want the longer games - i.e. 3 day, 5 round 90+30 or 40/80 tournaments - you'll need a 1800+ USCF rating.

The CCA offers longer controls, i.e. 80/120, etc. but those are few and far between. We're told "play longer time controls" but organizers didn't seem to get the memo! The club I frequent, Marshall Chess Club, has monthly ALTO (Adult) G60 tournaments and weekly 90+30 games, but their monthly 3-day, longer time-control tournaments are U2400 or Open with restrictions against "playing up."

Opportunity for Online Training Games

Earlier this year, I participated a Lichess4545 "Lone Wolf" tournament. In the Slack channel for "improvers," I often saw a message like the following:

Looking for rated training game, 2200+ Classical please!

If you have a higher rating, you're going to have more opportunities for training and cohort. It seems no one wants to collaborate with someone they perceive as "bad" - and for some reason nobody < 1800 Lichess Classical wants to do these training games + analysis? (weird)

Your Interactions with Other Players (Positive/Negative)

ELO shapes the conversations and interactions you have with other players. Even if you have the healthy "ELO doesn't matter!" worldview, higher-rated players tend to say and act certain way once you reveal your rating:

• "I can recommend a good book of 1-move checkmates"
• "You should just play the same opening every time."
• "You should just study tactics"

All these are good-faith recommendations, but still rather unfair assumptions about my studies / training plan. The conversation becomes rather tedious as I must politely work through telling them "yes, I'm doing all that."

Basically, the pervasive attitude is that any sub-1200 USCF adult player is probably keeping notation with a red crayon and mouth-breathing. If you actually get a draw, they are irate, even outright angry (as has happened to me, several times) and never want to analyze post-game. Again, it's more tedious than offensive, but a reality you have to live with.

This is just my ego slipping out, however. A more practical problem: they won't play you casual games. Instead, they'll often show your an impromptu lesson, say an opening trap in the Queens Gambit Accepted (that you've already seen many times - but I digress).

Aside from love of the game, I'm playing chess to meet new, interesting people. It can be aggravating when my chess rating causes an adult to talk to me like a scholastic player. Again, maybe this is just my ego? But hopefully some "ELO-haves" reading this will have a second thought about how they interact with the "ELO-have-nots"

"What's your rating?"

Almost every time I play chess OTB, this is the first question I'm asked. Not "how long have you been playing?" "what's your favorite opening?" or, incredibly, before even asking "what's your name?" (And if it's a pipsqueak scholastic player, they ask "what's your peak rating?" - followed by "how old are you??").

Heck, when I was buying a chess book the other day, the cashier asked me what my rating was (chess.com - normies don't know about USCF) - and he didn't even play chess! "Just puzzles on chess.com."

This question is inescapable - thank you Covid Chess Boom - but now I have a ready answer:

"How about we play a few games, then you tell me what you think my rating is."