Rating should not start at 1500.

i gues this has been discussed, why ? my noob friends are 600,

If accounts are set up by schools, they start at something like 1200. Because there are very good players, very bad players, and many people in between, the average is ~1500. That's at least why I think it starts at 1500.

There has to be a starting point, and Glicko2 is designed to bring you into your proper rating range fast.

@Cedur216 said in #3:
> There has to be a starting point, and Glicko2 is designed to bring you into your proper rating range fast.
That makes a whole lotta sense, brother(or sister)

@justthere said in #1:
> i gues this has been discussed, why ? my noob friends are 600,

I guess it's more or less all the same where rating starts, when you play bad you will soon end up with a lower number, and vica versa. It's what @Cedur216 just stated:
@Cedur216 said in #3:
> There has to be a starting point, and Glicko2 is designed to bring you into your proper rating range fast.

And just because your friends are stuck there, does not mean everybody is. In fact, most people are actually right in between 1000 Blitz-2000 Blitz according to lichess. (lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/blitz?username=airfloo) *I put myself there, bc username can't be blank.

So if the vast majority is set up there, the algorythm seems to make sense.
And yes, you could say, if it was set up lower, everybody would start at 600. But then again 600 would be the new 1500, and there were people, who lets say even got down to 200 and others that got up to 2200 or whatever. In the end, there will always be the extrema on one or the other end, that is simply the nature of every scale. Likewise, that must not mean, that the scale is wrong, just that you are on one specific end of it, from where it may seem beeing set up uneven, or not properly scaled.

> If the player is unrated, set the rating to 1500 and the RD to 350. Set the player’s volatility to 0.06 (this value depends on the particular application).
http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf

@justthere I don't know if you understand the basic logic of a rating starting at 1500 but since everyone else here didn't explain in simple terms why that is the case I will go ahead and explain it.

The start point doesn't matter a whole lot, just know that approximately half of the players will have a rating below the starting value and half will have a rating above the starting value. I assume you don't care to know more about the math involved but if you go to a rating distribution chart here: lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/blitz you can see that the cumulative amount of players below 1500 is 50%.

So if the ratings started at 1300, half of the players would have ratings below 1300 (excluding some other interesting but not important math) that happens holding all else the same.

Hope this helps!

I agree. I think the average rating of most lichess players is 1500-ish. That is why lichess ratings will start at 1500. Of course, school accounts are always 1200. Some kid accounts start at 1000. GM accounts start at like, 2500-2900. Very strong bots start at 3000 lichess rating. 1500 also brings you into your rating range quicker.

I forgot to mention that with rating devlation, after your first game, you go up by ~400 or down by ~400. 1500 is the best place to start. For me, I'm around ~1100 (well, should be) and I just lost my first game and I was around my chess rating.

EDIT: Please mind any spelling mistakes. I wrote this in a hurry.

I do not understand why the Lichess rapid ratings are not as accurate as those at chess.com compared to US Federation otb rapid ratings. Yes different pools etc, but chess.com rapid ratings closely approximate what players have otb Federation rated.