Posts:
141
Registered:
Feb 29, 2004
From:
the land of smelly cheese
Age:
38
some serious weidness going on with the scoring here!
Posted:
Nov 16, 2006, 5:00 AM
hey Dweebo,
I just got the following results which I can't explain: I won two turn-based games by default. Both single game wins said I'd 'won the set'?!? And both times, my score went down and the loser's up(!) What's going on? See for yourself:
Posts:
542
Registered:
May 9, 2002
From:
Northeast USA
Re: some serious weidness going on with the scoring here!
Posted:
Nov 23, 2006, 3:24 AM
Hopefully I can clear this up. This is a question that comes up often enough that it is actually in the FAQ, in the General FAQ section. However, the explanation in the FAQ is a bit vague and the justification for the provisional rating system is definitely a stretch.
If you are curious about exactly why the ratings adjust the way that they do or how the calculations are performed, the formulas are displayed in that same General FAQ.
If you look closely, the formula for "established" players is much more sophisticated. Despite what karlw said, if YOU are established, your rating WILL increase when you win every time. It is impossible for anything else to happen. It does not matter at all whether your opponent is established or provisional.
However, if YOU are a provisional player, your rating can go down when you win under certain conditions. This happens only when your rating is much greater than your opponent's rating. It WILL happen when:
1) You and your opponent are each provisional AND your rating is more than 800 points higher than your opponent's.
OR
2) You are provisional and your opponent is established AND your rating is more than 400 points higher than your opponent's.
When these conditions are met, the magnitude of the negative EFFECT on your rating varies based on:
1. How much greater than 800 (or 400) the difference in ratings is. (larger ratings difference = greater effect)
AND
2. How many games you have played. (less games played = greater effect)
For example:
If you are playing your 20th game against a provisional opponent and you are rated 1000 points higher, you will lose 5 points.
If you are playing your 20th game against an ESTABLISHED opponent and you are rated 1000 points higher, you will lose 15 points.
If you are playing your 1st game against a provisional opponent and you are rated 1000 points higher, you will lose 100 points!
If you are playing your 1st game against an ESTABLISHED opponent and you are rated 1000 points higher, you will lose 300 points!
(NOTE: I'm fairly certain that r1 = 1600 if you have never played any games. Dweebo, is this right?)
The provisional system is broken. There are other threads with long discussions about exactly what is broken and why and what can be done to fix it. The good news is that this problem only affects you while you are provisional and you are not provisional for very long. You should not worry about your rating during this time since it will not matter very much in the long run once you have played many more games.
Among MANY other things, two big reasons why this is a real problem for this site are:
1. This problem affects (only) provisional players. Thus, this tends to happen to players brand new to the site and if noticed would be quite a turn off, possibly causing that player to dismiss DSG as a crappy site before they really give it a chance.
2. For turn-based in particular, if ratings are not adjusted at all after a split set, then in these cases, it would actually be better to split the set than to win it!
For now, if you are a provisional player, beware when you are playing an opponent who is rated much lower than you. Some day, the provisional system might be improved so that this is no longer a problem.
Re: some serious weidness going on with the scoring here!
Posted:
Nov 24, 2006, 1:33 AM
Yes, the provisional system is probably broken. I have lost a lot of points in turn-based because of it.
But two things I can at least sort of contest.
1. That it doesn't matter what your rating is during provisional, you will fix it later. Even if you win at a rate higher than even, sometimes it is very hard to get out of a hole. There are a lot of pretty decent players stuck around low 1400s-high 1300s.
2. The playing your first game against someone rated 1000 points lower... are you ever actually going to find anyone rated lower than 600?
I know, minor points, but still. I don't think the provisional system really does matter that much, however, because of what a niche interest this site falls into. People seem to either be pente players or not before they will find a site like this, and since it seems to be the best that offers live and turn-based games, that will matter more than a faulty system turning off total noobs from the site.
I actually had it happen to me too just a few days ago in one of my turn-based games.
Would it be enough to just not allow ratings to go down when you win when provisional. So the end result would be no ratings change. I forget if there was a reason that would be bad, it seems like a good idea to me know.
I do not want to change the ratings formulas much at this point but that seems like a simple enough change. -dweebo
Posts:
141
Registered:
Feb 29, 2004
From:
the land of smelly cheese
Age:
38
Re: some serious weidness going on with the scoring here!
Posted:
Dec 1, 2006, 4:05 PM
I'm sorry but having read all the replies, I still don't understand how I (an established player) could lose score when beating a provisional player in a complete set!
None of the formulas provided by up2nogood seem to match the above criteria.
Posts:
1,032
Registered:
Dec 16, 2001
From:
Powell, OH
Age:
37 Home page
Re: some serious weidness going on with the scoring here!
Posted:
Dec 4, 2006, 3:30 PM
Well glad you spoke up. I didn't look closely enough at the issue, just assumed it was the same old provisional "bug". However, I believe you WERE provisional when this set ended, I looked at when your turn-based pente sets completed and it appears that you had not completed 20 sets that didn't end in a draw.
Turn-based ratings go by sets, so you have to win/lose a set for it to count towards your rating, and for it to count towards becoming established. The set in question was number 23 for you in Turn-based Pente, but you had several draws so you were still not established.
As for the double message that the set was over, that occurred because both games ended at the same time (because of the timeout), and both games were marked as complete before the messages were created, so they both said the set was complete. That is also why the ratings change was done twice, because the code checks if the set is complete, then does the ratings change. That IS a bug, so I will add it to the TODO to be fixed.
Posts:
751
Registered:
Mar 1, 2002
From:
My Own Lil World Mostly
Age:
43
Re: some serious weidness going on with the scoring here!
Posted:
Dec 6, 2006, 10:34 AM
Up2ng -
Shut up you know it all! LMAO
Just kidding!!!! I really liked your response and it applies in most arenas! hehe but ummmmm....SHUT UP!
Love You MAN!
Miss your brain for sure!!! I hope you are doing well and that married life is treating you well! I love your wife even though you won't tell me her freaking name! LMFAO!!! Okay the "newcastles" are talking but for real, we are friends, right??? LMFAO
Peace, Love, and Light to You and Yours (the unnnamed wife)!!!!
Posts:
1,032
Registered:
Dec 16, 2001
From:
Powell, OH
Age:
37 Home page
Re: some serious weidness going on with the scoring here!
Posted:
Dec 6, 2006, 5:24 PM
> So how could my rating go down after winning a set??
That is what up2ng is explaining above. It is not a bug in the software, just a bug in the provisional formula that only occurs when you and your opponent have a difference in your ratings by alot.