Ratings update

[Charlie Reams]

I've updated the ratings in the light of COOT 2008. The most visible change is that I've raised the requirements to appear on the ratings. Players now need 6 games (i.e. one real-life tournament or a couple of weeks of online play), and at least one of those must have been in the last 2 years (clearing out a lot of inactive players whose ratings are probably no longer accurate.)

In terms of player ratings, Julian Fell has risen predictably from a totally ridiculous 17th to a still-underrated 6th, making him 3rd seed for this weekend's CONOT tournament. Kirk Bevins' excellent performance in COOT has also escalated him from 14th to 7th, so he'll be #4 seed this weekend. Various other minor shifts have occurred, but nothing that will affect this weekend's seedings much.

Here's the link: http://sooreams.com/cd/ratings.asp

[Dinos Sfyris]

No#33 CJ de Mooi? As in the Egghead?

[Charlie Reams]

No#33 CJ de Mooi? As in the Egghead?

Yep, that's the one.

[Dinos Sfyris]

Ha! And I'm ahead of him! Has he actually appeared on the show or done any online games/co events? If so how did he do?

[Jon O'Neill]

He was at COBRIS last year. He bought everyone drinks.

What a guy!

[Charlie Reams]

CJ De Mooi

[Julian Fell]

Players now need 6 games (i.e. one real-life tournament or a couple of weeks of online play), and at least one of those must have been in the last 2 years

8 games Charlie, according to your ratings. I think 6 might be fairer, since as you say, that = one COLin, but up to you

Edit to say: speaking of ludicrous rankings, David O'Donnell at 30th?? He should stop playing Corby so much!

[Charlie Reams]

8 games Charlie, according to your ratings.

Err, yeah. I meant to set it back to 6 before I uploaded them. Oh well, there'll be another update in a week and I doubt anyone will care between now and then. Thanks for spotting it.

[Kirk Bevins]

My top rating used to be 4 figures and now it's only 900. What's happened?

[Julian Fell]

Charlie, something which was discussed a lot last night on MSN was people's head-to-head records in unofficial tournaments, e.g. Kirk saying that he had a good record vs. Chris Wills but a poor one vs. Paul Howe - I was wondering if there's any way you can create a 'head-to-head' link from your ratings page, whereby you can type in any two players' names from the list and see the results of all rated games between them... is that in any way feasible? Does your ratings database store actual scores of games, or just who won and lost?

Would be very interesting if it's possible - now that there's a fairly regular cycle of tournaments with the same top players meeting time and time again - but I know you've got a few projects on the go at moment so it's just a suggestion. If it's not possible to do automatically I might even think about doing it manually for a few of the very best players... when I have time

Oh yes and we want to hijack your swimming pool for a game of underwater Countdown - that's ok isn't it

[Charlie Reams]

My top rating used to be 4 figures and now it's only 900. What's happened?

I tweak the way it's calculated occasionally, and that gets backdated to your peak rating.

[JasonCullen]

I guess I will get in the top 50 once I have gained more online/in person experience .

[Martin Gardner]

Rather than having not fully rated players at the bottom as a text list, why not follow the ABSP example and have "fully rated players" and "semi-rated players" - i.e. that all the players with not enough games or not recently enough appear under the fully rated players even if they have a higher rating (Sandie Simonis is about 700 for example, but would then appear below George Stanhope who's the lowest fully rated player.

It seems a bit more efficient than just listing them at the bottom in a big paragraph.

Martin

[Charlie Reams]

It seems a bit more efficient than just listing them at the bottom in a big paragraph.

What definition of "efficient" is that?

[Ben Wilson]

It seems a bit more efficient than just listing them at the bottom in a big paragraph.

What definition of "efficient" is that?

It's certainly more aesthetically pleasing if nothing else.

[Karen Pearson]

No#33 CJ de Mooi? As in the Egghead?

And my big (!) claim to fame is that I beat him in the last COOT.

Clearly I am struggling for claims to fame!!!

[Joseph Bolas]

Edit to say: speaking of ludicrous rankings, David O'Donnell at 30th?? He should stop playing Corby so much!

I too think David should be higher up the table. I know I have played more games than David, but he definitely should be higher up than me

[Howard Somerset]

No#33 CJ de Mooi? As in the Egghead?

And my big (!) claim to fame is that I beat him in the last COOT.

Clearly I am struggling for claims to fame!!!

Not struggling as much as I am, Karen.

My big claim to fame is that I've played a COOT game which was hosted by a person who beat CJ in an earlier COOT.

[Gavin Chipper]

How are ratings calculated, or is it too complicated? Approximately?

[Jon O'Neill]

How are ratings calculated, or is it too complicated? Approximately?

http://www.sooreams.com/programs/CoolRank.asp

Hopefully this will demystify the ratings system I use

Hopefully...

[Charlie Reams]

How are ratings calculated, or is it too complicated? Approximately?

You gain X% of your opponent's rating if you beat them, and lose X% of your own if you lose. X depends on the format of the game (9 or 15 rounds.) Some fudgery is added to deal with players with fewer than 6 games (whose ratings are only provisional.) Then the ratings of all the non-provisional players are Bayesian moderated so that people with a small number of games are pulled towards the middle (since their results are less statistically significant.) Plus probably some other stuff that I can't remember (the program is rather intricate after several years of tweaking.)