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Elo Ratings

Posted By: Rick Janowski
Date: Friday, 11 March 2016, at 4:44 p.m.

In Response To: Questionniare - results (Leonardo Jerkovic)

A fundamental problem with a worldwide or continental Elo based rating system is the general lack of interaction of the sub-populations. Elo rating has a broadly proportional relationship with win-rate which is clearly dependent on the average strength of opponents played. Where two equally strong players (based on PR or normalised win-rate) play most of their matches in a stronger and weaker sub-population respectively, the latter will tend to have a higher Elo-Rating. Thus players from very strong backgammon countries (eg, USA, Japan, Denmark) will effectively be handicapped. This general relationship will also tend to apply to VR-adjusted Elo systems unless there is so form of weighting (which would likely be a major source of controversy and resentment).

For these reasons, when considering "win-based" ranking systems, I think a normalised win-rate ranking system could be more effective (actual win rates normalised for standard match length, and standard opponent strength).

I know the majority voted for Elo rating as the ideal measure, but this to me is a little like voting to immediately eradicate World poverty. Very laudable but extraordinarily difficult to achieve in practice.

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