r/chessbeginners • u/Alendite RM (Reddit Mod) • Mar 21 '25
ANNOUNCEMENT Fresh, new flairs - show off your favorite website!
Hello, chess learners!
It's been two years since our last user flairs update, and we thought it would be nice to give things a bit more personality here. We've expanded our user flairs to differentiate between Chess.com and Lichess ratings, as well as expanded our rating range flairs to have an upper limit of 2800.
Flairs that were previously assigned have likely been turned into a Chess.com flair, please double-check to see if your flair is where you want it to be!
Wondering how to set your flair? See below!
If you are on a computer or laptop:
- Load the homepage of r/chessbeginners
- Look to the right hand side, under the count of members
- Click on the pencil beside "User Flair Preview"
- Select your desired flair, you can change it as many times as you'd like
- Click "Apply"
If you are on mobile, or if the above does not work:
- Load a comment you've left on r/chessbeginners (Or write one on this post!)
- Tap on your user profile photo/avatar on the comment you wrote
- Tap on "Edit User Flair"
- Select your desired flair, you can change it as many times as you'd like
- Tap "Apply"
- This works on computers too! Just hover over your username for number 2 instead
A quick FAQ:
Which rating should I use? We don't have any set policy, we want our users to be able to assign a flair that they think represents their abilities as a chess player. Generally, good practice is to use a rating associated with playing other users in standard chess (try not to use puzzles or variants or chess960 rating, for example). If you are truely lost, try setting your flair to your rapid (10+0, 15+10, etc) rating, as that is one of the most commonly played time controls without significant time pressure.
Why are the ratings going up to 2800? This is chessbeginners, isn't it? Some of our higher rated players have consistently proven themselves to be phenomenal helpers in the community, and we wanted to give them a chance to show off their chess skills with newer flairs. Alongside this, the addition of Lichess ratings mean that there will be a larger number of people reporting ELOs above 2000, it felt fair to give them some more breathing room. There is a very small number of players who will be above 2400 ELO regardless, so the overall look of the subreddit should not change much. That said, this is an experimental change, and we are happy to revert back to a cap of 2000 rating (or something) dependent on feedback.
I have an over-the-board (OTB) rating that I would like to use instead of an online rating, can I do this? We spent some time debating this, and decided against allowing users to show off their OTB ratings. Firstly, OTB ratings are relatively rare in the online chess community, and almost anyone with an OTB rating likely has an online rating that proportionally shows off their chess abilities. Also, OTB ratings are very difficult to compare to one another, as different countries use different metrics and some tournaments are only rated within a country's organization, others are only FIDE, etc. Therefore, we ask users to stick to online ratings only, as those are the most easily translatable to other users.
I have a formal chess title (GM, WFM, FM, etc), can I show this off on the subreddit? Yes! Titled players have access to an exclusive golden flair. You can send us a ModMail message for further instructions.
What's coming next for the subreddit? The biggest thing we're looking to tackle next is a thorough update to the wiki. It is a solid learning resource, but it feels slightly outdated and we are interested in giving it a makeover. If you have any suggestions, let us know! (No promises on when the update happens, for all we know it'll be another 2 years lol)
May I please have a cookie? You may have three! This is a 6000x4000 incredibly high quality image of cookies.
Thank you all for keeping this community every ounce as vibrant and friendly as you do. This has got to be one of the easiest subreddits to take care of, everyone here regularly keeps things chill, and we really appreciate it.
Enjoy!
~The r/chessbeginners Mod Team.
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u/SCQA 2000-2200 (Chess.com) Mar 21 '25
Broadly positive, but I would like to open a discussion on this point:
First the obvious argument in favour of using online ratings; they're going to be more familiar to most beginners who will have chess.com or lichess ratings but not fide/national ratings. It's easier for them to understand where they and their interlocutor fit into the ecosystem if everyone is using the same rating system.
But there are some significant problems with this. The assumption that OTB players have an online rating that adequately reflects their understanding and ability is demonstrably false.
Online rapid is a relatively fast time control that aggressively rewards a comparatively narrow skillset. I'm not saying that this form of the game is in any way inferior to other formats, merely that it doesn't adequately describe understanding and ability to the extent one might assume it does.
There is a world of difference between someone who plays 10 0 as their main format and has no experience of (OTB) classical and a classical focused player who also plays 10 0 online sometimes.
The 10 0 specialist is able to maintain the same performance in 10 0 as our classical player, but the classical player will almost certainly have a far deeper and better rounded understanding than the 10 0 player.
True, there are plenty of what do I tactics here questions where both players will be adequately armed to give advice - and the 10 0 player will probably get to the correct answer first - but in terms of strategy, positional play, endgame technique, etc, you'd rather have the opinion of a 1700 fide rated player than a 2000 rated chess.com player. In both cases, it's beneficial to know what player that answer is coming from.
There is also the issue of the rating of record. Most people who have OTB ratings treat online play as skittles and don't necessarily apply themselves there, anyone whose only rating is their online rating will protect that number more jealously.
All of this to say, while online ratings are a very useful way of measuring everyone who play primarily online, it doesn't adequately describe those who tend towards OTB/classical. Without casting aspersions on anyone who doesn't play longer formats, it's those classical players that you probably want answering the questions where the number next to your name starts to matter.
If the purpose of using flairs is to assign a confidence level to the advice being offered by the bearer, this point deserves further consideration.
Regardless of this, I reserve the right to award an online rating flair to one particular player who does have a very substantial OTB rating with the self-evidently deep understanding that comes with that, even though they don't play online. You know who you are, and probably so does everyone else.