Answers.Body: <blockquote>
  <p>So could you hack your &quot;rating&quot; by playing tons of games against people who are much worse than you ... such that you'll never lose</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>No. If you play enough games you will lose some and draw some and every draw will lose a ton of points and a loss will lose even more. The ratings calculation tables are based on statistics so that expected ratings gains and losses correspond to the probabilities of players with the given rating difference winning, drawing or losing.</p>
  <p>See also <a href="https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/39044/what-stops-me-from-pumping-up-my-rating-by-playing-a-200-game-match-against-a-mu">this related question</a>.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-17T19:29:28.217Z
Answers.Text: if Carlsen plays 1000 games vs a 1800 rated player, do you think there's any serious chance of him losing even 1 match? (Serious question ... I genuinely don't have the context to know the answer)
Answers.UserDisplayName: Brondahl
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-18T12:58:38.833Z
Answers.Text: @Brondahl If the rating difference is this high then the higher-rated player will not gain any elo points.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Abhyuday Vaish
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Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-19T11:04:21.070Z
Answers.Text: @AbhyudayVaish _actually_ 0 points? Or just "very small" ... < 0.1 pts?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Brondahl
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-20T07:49:36.103Z
Answers.Text: He will gain 0.8 per win
Answers.UserDisplayName: QEDemonstrandum
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Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-20T11:17:09.817Z
Answers.Text: @Brondahl Yep zero points for a win(if the difference is huge)
Answers.UserDisplayName: Abhyuday Vaish
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-20T11:27:36.490Z
Answers.Text: @QEDemonstrandum No, he won't. The rules have changed. You get that only once per tournament.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Brian Towers
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Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-21T18:36:41.920Z
Answers.Text: @Brondahl probability says he might lose. There could be three reason if I take Carlsen as an example, cause he is so great - 1. opponent is cheating. 2. Carlsen somehow lost on time. 3. Carlsen got so distracted for winning 999 games and lose the last one for the distracted. (suppose, all games are played with no break).
Answers.UserDisplayName: Billy Istiak
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Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-17T18:51:21.933Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2022-12-17T18:51:21.933Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Brian Towers
Answers.Body: <ol>
  <li>Rating calculations are done while keeping a few things in mind to avoid these kinds of hacks. If you play a very low-rated player for a number of games then there'll be a point there'll be no rating gain. Just zero points for a win</li>
  <li>There are chances that you might end up losing/drawing a game as your opponent will understand your game plan/strategy. This will cost you a lot of ratings.</li>
  <li>If you play weak players consistently then your game will not improve and may even become worse.</li>
  </ol>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-18T13:04:59.913Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2022-12-18T13:04:59.913Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Abhyuday Vaish
Answers.Body: <p>Yes, with a &quot;pure&quot; Elo system, you could, <em>theoretically</em>, increase your Elo arbitrarily large. There are three caveats:</p>
  <ol>
  <li><p>Each organization uses a different versions of the Elo system, and they may very well have a modification, such as having a cutoff after which you don't receive any Elo gain.</p>
  </li>
  <li><p>While <em>mathematically</em>, there is no upper limit, in practice there's a limit to how many points a person could get before they died of old age.</p>
  </li>
  <li><p>Winning 100% of the time, not just 99.99%, isn't necessarily possible. I'm reminded of &quot;Man from the South&quot; by Roald Dahl <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_the_South" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_the_South</a> :</p>
  </li>
  </ol>
  <blockquote>
  <p>While vacationing at a resort in Jamaica, the narrator encounters an elderly South American man named Carlos. They are soon joined by a young American naval cadet, who boasts about the reliability of his cigarette lighter. Carlos offers to bet his Cadillac against the American's left little finger that the American cannot ignite the lighter ten times in a row.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>The tension comes from the fact that no matter how easy something is, can you really be sure that you won't mess it up somehow?</p>
  
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Answers.CreationDate: 2022-12-21T05:57:03.737Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2022-12-21T05:57:03.737Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Acccumulation
Body: <p><em>Obviously the community would accept or acknowledge such a hack ... but mathematically would it work, or does the Elo system have something to prevent this?</em></p>
  <p>My impression is that, very roughly speaking each time you play someone, your Elo goes up or down depending on whether you win. And how <em>much</em> it goes up or down depends on the disparity between your previous rating and your opponents.</p>
  <ul>
  <li>If you beat someone who was better than you it goes up a bunch.</li>
  <li>If you beat someone who was a little bit worse than you, it goes up a little.</li>
  <li>If you beat someone who was <em>very</em> much worse than you, it goes up a tiny amount.</li>
  </ul>
  <p>But I assume that even if you play people who were ridiculously worse than you ... is still goes up <em>a bit</em>?</p>
  <p>So could you hack your &quot;rating&quot; by playing tons of games against people who are much worse than you ... such that you'll <em>never</em> lose, and your rating will keep going up and up, even though you're not getting any better?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2022-12-17T18:02:45.787Z
Comments.Text: Obviously there are all sorts of practical problems about how you'd find such unbalanced official matches, or whether you could actually ensure you *never* lose ... and there would be no real "point" to doing so ... you wouldn't actually be better, and no-one would *believe* you were better .... but in the abstract ....?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Brondahl
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2022-12-17T21:08:56.563Z
Comments.Text: GM Igor Rausis [tried this approach](https://chess24.com/en/read/news/gm-igors-rausis-allegedly-caught-cheating), but it isn't as simple as that, and eventually was caught cheating.
Comments.UserDisplayName: emdio
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2022-12-18T00:29:40.903Z
Comments.Text: Related (not a dupe): [What stops me from pumping up my rating by playing a 200 game match against a much weaker (>400 point difference) player?](https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/39044/26335)
Comments.UserDisplayName: SecretAgentMan
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2022-12-21T18:43:49.837Z
Comments.Text: https://ratings.fide.com/calc.phtml?page=change This is just a calculator. There's some more calculator and documentation. documentation > calculator
Comments.UserDisplayName: Billy Istiak
Tags: <rating><elo>
Title: Could you raise your score arbitarily high by only playing against much weaker opponents?
ThreadText: # Could you raise your score arbitarily high by only playing against much weaker opponents?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2022-12-17)
  
  *Obviously the community would accept or acknowledge such a hack ... but mathematically would it work, or does the Elo system have something to prevent this?*
  
  My impression is that, very roughly speaking each time you play someone, your Elo goes up or down depending on whether you win. And how *much* it goes up or down depends on the disparity between your previous rating and your opponents.
  
  * If you beat someone who was better than you it goes up a bunch.
  * If you beat someone who was a little bit worse than you, it goes up a little.
  * If you beat someone who was *very* much worse than you, it goes up a tiny amount.
  
  But I assume that even if you play people who were ridiculously worse than you ... is still goes up *a bit*?
  
  So could you hack your "rating" by playing tons of games against people who are much worse than you ... such that you'll *never* lose, and your rating will keep going up and up, even though you're not getting any better?
  
  **Tags:** rating, elo
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Obviously there are all sorts of practical problems about how you'd find such unbalanced official matches, or whether you could actually ensure you *never* lose ... and there would be no real "point" to doing so ... you wouldn't actually be better, and no-one would *believe* you were better .... but in the abstract ....?  
  > **username_1**: GM Igor Rausis [tried this approach](https://chess24.com/en/read/news/gm-igors-rausis-allegedly-caught-cheating), but it isn't as simple as that, and eventually was caught cheating.  
  > **username_2**: Related (not a dupe): [What stops me from pumping up my rating by playing a 200 game match against a much weaker (>400 point difference) player?](https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/39044/26335)  
  > **username_3**: https://ratings.fide.com/calc.phtml?page=change This is just a calculator. There's some more calculator and documentation. documentation > calculator  
  
  ---
  
  ## 3 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_4 on 2022-12-17. Score: 2
  
  > So could you hack your "rating" by playing tons of games against people who are much worse than you ... such that you'll never lose
  
  No. If you play enough games you will lose some and draw some and every draw will lose a ton of points and a loss will lose even more. The ratings calculation tables are based on statistics so that expected ratings gains and losses correspond to the probabilities of players with the given rating difference winning, drawing or losing.
  
  See also [this related question](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/39044/what-stops-me-from-pumping-up-my-rating-by-playing-a-200-game-match-against-a-mu).
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: if Carlsen plays 1000 games vs a 1800 rated player, do you think there's any serious chance of him losing even 1 match? (Serious question ... I genuinely don't have the context to know the answer)  
  > **username_5**: @username_0 If the rating difference is this high then the higher-rated player will not gain any elo points.  
  > **username_0**: @username_5 _actually_ 0 points? Or just "very small" ... < 0.1 pts?  
  > **username_6**: He will gain 0.8 per win  
  > **username_5**: @username_0 Yep zero points for a win(if the difference is huge)  
  > **username_4**: @username_6 No, he won't. The rules have changed. You get that only once per tournament.  
  > **username_3**: @username_0 probability says he might lose. There could be three reason if I take Carlsen as an example, cause he is so great - 1. opponent is cheating. 2. Carlsen somehow lost on time. 3. Carlsen got so distracted for winning 999 games and lose the last one for the distracted. (suppose, all games are played with no break).  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_5 on 2022-12-18. Score: 1
  
  1. Rating calculations are done while keeping a few things in mind to avoid these kinds of hacks. If you play a very low-rated player for a number of games then there'll be a point there'll be no rating gain. Just zero points for a win
  2. There are chances that you might end up losing/drawing a game as your opponent will understand your game plan/strategy. This will cost you a lot of ratings.
  3. If you play weak players consistently then your game will not improve and may even become worse.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_7 on 2022-12-21. Score: 0
  
  Yes, with a "pure" Elo system, you could, *theoretically*, increase your Elo arbitrarily large. There are three caveats:
  
  1. Each organization uses a different versions of the Elo system, and they may very well have a modification, such as having a cutoff after which you don't receive any Elo gain.
  2. While *mathematically*, there is no upper limit, in practice there's a limit to how many points a person could get before they died of old age.
  3. Winning 100% of the time, not just 99.99%, isn't necessarily possible. I'm reminded of "Man from the South" by Roald Dahl <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_the_South> :
  
  > While vacationing at a resort in Jamaica, the narrator encounters an elderly South American man named Carlos. They are soon joined by a young American naval cadet, who boasts about the reliability of his cigarette lighter. Carlos offers to bet his Cadillac against the American's left little finger that the American cannot ignite the lighter ten times in a row.
  
  The tension comes from the fact that no matter how easy something is, can you really be sure that you won't mess it up somehow?
  
  
  ---
  
  