Re: Ratings (once again)

[Eduard Werner <edi.werner@gmx.de>]

> Huh?  I won both games and yet my rating went down and my opponent's rating
> went up (after losing?).
> 
> Truly weird.

> actually I hate to bring up that subject again, but ...
> I had a rating of 1826 (chu shogi), my opponent 1660. I won.
> The ratings after the game were: 1816 -- 1660. I'm citing
> >from ratings.html:
> 
>   Note that during the provisional period beating a player whose
>   rating is more than 400 points below yours will actually decrease
>   your rating.
> 
> Hmmm. The rating difference was merely 126, not "more than 400
> points".  Am I missing sth here? During the last 4-5 games I have won
> against different opponents, my rating went down, down, down, all with
> rating differences of much less than 400.

You are right. But that and the fact that questions about the rating
system pop up pretty often means to me that the explanations on the
web page are not sufficient.  (BTW, I couldn't find a link to
ratings.html, I just recalled where it was since Richard had mentioned
it). I know decreasing ratings for wins is done in order to keep
ratings from getting up w.o. sufficient motivation. But increasing a
rating for a loss seems to me unmotivated either. Apart from that, I
guess the rating system is meant for motivating people, and seeing your
rating go down when you're winning is hardly encouraging.  Of course,
you are not supposed to play just for your rating, but you aren't
supposed to play in spite of it either. It's supposed to increase the
fun.  But somehow the system doesn't seem to get the ratings right. 
About the Chu Shogi ratings, I can truely say -- no offense
meant to my opponents -- that most of them are *way* too
high.  According to the rating some people are hardly weaker than I -- although
I know I can easily win against them with handicaps of 2 Lions and higher
(which would in a shogi-typical kyu/dan grading reflect a rating difference of
about 10 grades or about 800 points). Well - I just keep challenging them to
get that right :-) But when I win only my rating seems to go down :-(
Perhaps anyone could enlighten me here?

Cheers

Edi