Quote:
Originally Posted by Go_Blue88
I made a comment like this a while back, and surprisingly, most people said that they play better against people with higher ratings and worse against people with lower ratings.
I could imagine that this could easily be connected to the idea that the majority of chess players believe that they are underrated. If you think you're 200 points "better" than your allegedly lagging rating, and you play someone rated 200 points higher than you, then in your mind it's an equal game, and you've got a 50/50 chance to score an upset (contradictory, but that doesn't mean people don't think this way). In such a situation, most players are likely to focus very hard, and will probably play relatively close to their "best" chess.
On the other hand, if that same player goes up against an opponent of the same rating, he will assume that he's "actually" better, and may not concentrate as hard against the "inferior" equal-rated opponent. Since of course we're much more likely to assume that we're underrated than to assume that our opponent is. Playing your 'A' game against opponents who are stronger than you may lead to a very similar score against those opponents as you get against equally rated opponents against whom you only play your 'C' game.
All just speculation, of course. Seems like a relatively believable psychological explanation to me, though.