how does the rating system work?

When I first joined chess.com my rating was higher, then either a setting changed or the site changed the way it rates you?  My rating used to be between 1100 and 1200 before it dropped drastically overnight down to a new "Rapid Rating" of about 700...I think...

Is my rapid rating different to my actual chess rating?  Is there a way to see both??

There's no such thing as a single (actual) rating. You get a rating for each type of chess you play and those are your ratings for those games pools

https://support.chess.com/en/articles/8566476-how-do-ratings-work-on-chess-com

O.K. Thanks for replying

So my "Rapid Rating" means zilch then? Obviosly it goes up when I win, but these are due to points won by winning games, but it doesn't reflect my ability or mean that that's my chess rating?

Is there any way of finding out or testing to find out what my rating is on this site? Or elswhere that you know of?

I'm simply curious to know as I know my game has got better over the last few months.

Thanks for your help Martin...maybe we'll get a game sometime?

At first, chess.com gives you a high rating to use it to determine where you fall. For example, when you are rated 1200 and you lose to the person rated about 570,I assure you your ratings of 1200 will now be less than that of 570, that is, you will be rated 500 since you failed to retain you rating.

That answered you. Not so!

That's what's confusing me, when I first started playing here my rating was fluctuating from about between 1000 and 1200...up and down. Then one day I came onto the site to play and my rating or points had dropped right down? Suddenly I'm at about 800 and that's the first time I saw the term "Rapid Rating" "Your new Rapid Rating is 8oo" for example?

That's the change I don't fully understand?

I always play the same game. 30 minute each and the opponent is randomly selected, usually with a similar "Rapid Rating" ??

I don't get how I dropped from 1100 odd to 800 all of a sudden overnight?

Maybe I playes some super bad games but if I was going to drop that much then I would have thought the drop would've occurred much sooner, like when I first sterted playing??

Any thoughts on what might have occurred back there???

Thanks for your reply man!

In my stats it states that my "Daily" rateing is 1244.

Does anyone know exactly what that nymber reflects? That seems around about the number or rating that I should be right now, which used to be shown before the change to "Rapid Rating"

Confusing!

Ratings are a measure of past performance. If your rating is relatively stable, for a given pool, then that's your relative strength and it's likely you'll score around 50% against similarly rated opponents.

If you have improved then your results will reflect that and you should be winning a higher percentage and as you do, your rating will trend upwards.

The site uses the Glicko rating system that includes a measure of rating uncertainty called the rating deviation (RD) value. Players with few games in a pool will have a high RD value and see big rating changes after games. As more games are played that value drops as does the magnitude of rating changes.

One other feature of the rating system is that the RD value increases if there are longer gaps in play. That reflects the uncertainty of rating accuracy due to possible rustiness or a new level of skill.

You had at least a couple of longer gaps, so when you started playing again, you saw bigger changes due to that

Right thanks again for your explanations

Do you have any idea what the "Daily" rating of 1244 means which I can see in my stats?

Thanks!