Backgammon Online

03-Apr-2010
15:48 PDT

Any possibility of creating an individual rating for ladder, tournament and regular games.
I'd like to play in tournaments and ladder games, but don't because unlike regular games we have no option to decline games. I may be wrong, but I am assuming the option to decline a challenge in regular play is to prevent an extreme loss in rating because of an "unlucky" loss to a much lower rated player. I could go further in explaining this issue, but I don't want to insult any ones intelligence. I just don't think it would be such a big deal to change to a 3 rating system. Thanks for any consideration to this matter.

03-Apr-2010
23:41 PDT

I like the fact that a guy of sub 1500 can play a 1800 in these types of games and get a "lucky" win...too bad, if you can't take the points hit don't enter!!!

03-Apr-2010
23:53 PDT

I agree with Colzmachine - It gives lower players the opportunity to play against higher players - something that they would never have if it weren't for ladders and tournaments.

You may lose a few points every now and then, but on the law of averages, your rating should remain about right, since you will win games against lower rated players much more often than you lose.

For example, you lose 1 game and go down 10 points against a lower rated player, but you'll win two easily and go up 6 points each - in the end, you come out slightly better.

Have a look at the statistics of the higher rated players at the top of the ladder, where playing lower rated players is the norm - you'll see that they all have a higher win to loss ratio. If they were playing players of the same strength, their ratio would be about 50/50.

04-Apr-2010
00:56 PDT

There's a slight flaw in your argument Saurus - if you lose to a much lower rated player you lose 6 or 7 points but if you win you get as little as 1 point and as much as 2 points, so it takes quite a few games to recover from the loss. That said, I agree that the ladder gives lower rated opponents the chance to play higher rated players - and if they beat higher rated players good for them!