Unfortunately, neither I nor Jenn can move or edit posts, because the founder/website controller is not around or doesn’t have time.
I’ve heard the ELO argument before, and I know what ELO is. I have played thousands of chess games online on 2 different sites over the past 8 years or so.
ELO isn’t perfect either. If you play against someone who has very few, if any, games completed before, ELO will not give you an accurate reading either. When a top player starts with 1,000 rating and a pathetic newbie starts with 1,000 rating, with ELO you would gain very few points for beating either one of them.
ELO, I believe, takes 10-15 games at least to establish a “permanent” rating. Many players, especially early in the league year, will have 5 or less games played. I think you need to stick around awhile longer and get familiar with the skills of some of the players and you need to finish a few more games yourself, and then I think it is likely that you will gain appreciation for this system.
If you look over the rankings, you will see that the predictive value of PPG is tremendously accurate.
In other words, if you have a player with 2.5 PPG playing against a player with 3.2 PPG, I would bet on the 3.2 PPG player. I am very confident the 3.2 PPG player would win 2/3 or 3/5.
I understand the whole learning curve thing. Especially with a new and complex game, where a player is much better now than they were 6 months ago. This is partially corrected by the fact that every new league year, everyone starts over and records are cleared. We are near the end of the league year now.
The fact remains that the PPG ranking is highly accurate. There are few “upsets”, where a player defeats a higher ranked player, and when they do, I have found that the rankings are quickly self-correcting.
ELO systems are normally handled by computers. I am not a computer. I provide much more meaningful data than a computer rating system normally does (who beat who, who had what side). Also, my system has another advantage. When there is a new player, especially if I am playing them personally, I often have a very good idea of how good that player actually is, after only a game or two. I know for a fact that ELO system is slow to adjust the rankings of new players.
You have only completed 2 games, and you are at a 3.50 after defeating 2 of our (cough) weaker players. I did not see any part of your 2 completed or any of your ongoing games, so I don’t really know how good you are yet. But there is no rating system I’m aware of that could possibly accurately rank you after only 2 games against weaker players. If you want to know what you’re made of, play a couple tier 1’s or tier 2’s who have maybe 5+ games completed, and we will pretty quickly find out.
I do appreciate the ideas, don’t get me wrong. But I think you are pointing out perceived shortcomings of the rankings system a bit prematurely when you haven’t been around here very long.
The rankings system has proven to have tremendous predictive value, especially after a player has played about 5 games against a variety of skill levels. Therefore I see no need to try to implement an ELO or some such system.
