About the Rankings
The ranking system is an ELO style system, with a few tweaks to
accomodate networked play. The main parameters are:
- the center of the system is 1500. The average ranking of
all active players should always be close to 1500. One of
the tweaks is that a few bonus points are awarded to every game
to continuously rebalance the system; so if players leave, or
stop playing, the ranks of all the other players are gradually
adjusted to bring the system back into balance.
- The most that can be gained or lost in a single game is
approximately 20 points, in a game between players of equal
rank. The stake is less proportional to the difference in
rank, up to about 900 points where the higher ranked player
can't gain points and the lower ranked player can't lose
points. New players have less influence on the change in
rankings, so it is hard to gain or lose points by playing
beginners.
- Cheating: anyone
suspected of playing games against themselves, or against shill
players, or against the villiage idiot, for the purpose of
inflating their rankings will be summarily disciplined.
Likewise, anyone using any program not provided by this site to
assist during a game, or using any tool or device not also used
by his opponent, or .... you get the idea. Play fair. If
you want to experiment, play unranked games.
Generally speaking, the rankings are a very rough guide to how
strong a player is, especially players who haven't played many
games. The rankings depend as much on who you choose to play
as on how good you are.
About Master Rankings
The master ranking system is a parallel ranking system, which uses
the same basic formula as the regular ranking system. The main
difference is that master rankings are based only on serious games
between serious players. Eventually, comparing master rankings
might be a fairly reliable guide to the relative playing strength of
master players.
- Ok, so how do I become a
master? The current benchmark is to achieve
an honest lobby
ranking of 2000 for any game. The management is alerted
automatically when a new candidate qualifies. Your recent
games will be reviewed to be sure you're not using some trick to
artificially inflate your ranking. Master player's names
appear in blue ink in the lobby, and masters can play games in
master rooms, which count toward master ratings.
About the Ranking Ladder
The ranking ladder is a parallel rating system based on the idea
that better players win in games against worse players, so there's
a natural hierarchy with the best players at the top.
Boardspace implementation of this simple idea is designed
to encourage players to actually play, and to prevent players who
achieve a high ranking from avoiding playing to protect their
standing. Here's how it works.
- The ladder is based on powers of 2, with one player on level
1, 2 players on level 2, 4 players on level 3 and so
on. Your level is intended to represent, roughly,
your skill level.
- On any given level, the first player is whoever played
most recently, and so on to the last player is the player to
played least recently.
- When a human player plays a ranked game, he is moved to the
first position on his current level. Robot players are not
moved.
- If the winner was on a lower or the same level, the winner
moves up one level. If the higher level is full, the last
player on the level is demoted one level. There's one
exception to this; you can't advance twice in a row by defeating
the same opponent.
Under this system, as long as you keep playing you will remain at
your current level or move up. The only way you can move
down is to not play. Players who do not sleep have an
advantage!