So, after 90 games I've hit a rating of exactly 1200 again.
The weird thing is, I also hit 1200 after 46 games. I'm wondering if I'm doomed to oscillate around that mark for the rest of my playing days, hitting about every 45 games as I go up and down.
I'm thinking biorhythms must be involved. Not so much in my playing as in my picking games. Optimism at the high point of the cycle leads to acts like joining tournaments, which leads to losses and a lower ranking. At this point my clan leader takes pity on me, assigns me games I'm capable of winning, which leads to a gradual rise in ranking and thus improved mood which persuades me to join tournaments...
Alternative and amusing suggestions welcome!
Here's an idea, don't play people who are lower rated. The difference in standard between a 1200 and a 1300 is negligable. If you win you get more points than you loose if you loose. Loosing to a lower rated player, even 30 points lower affects your rating much more than loosing to a player who is 30 points higher than you, though the difference between those two players standard would be unnoticable.
Originally posted by marinakatombThere's a fundamental flaw with that theory: ratings can change an awful lot between when you START a game and when you FINISH it. Given that people can't be too high above me if I want a realistic chance of winning, what's the guarantee that my ranking won't be above theirs by the end of the game?
Here's an idea, don't play people who are lower rated. The difference in standard between a 1200 and a 1300 is negligable. If you win you get more points than you loose if you loose. Loosing to a lower rated player, even 30 points lower affects your rating much more than loosing to a player who is 30 points higher than you, though the difference between those two players standard would be unnoticable.
I've had 'good' and 'bad' examples of this. I've started a game against someone with almost the same rank, but during the game they went down about 100 and I lost. I managed to beat a player whose ranking is usually a couple of hundred above mine, right in the middle of a major slump on their part caused by a lot of timeouts and resigned games. On the other hand the highest ranked player I ever beat just happened to be at the top of a peak when I beat him, his ranking has come down more than 100 since then.
I accept this as part and parcel of the ranking system. What I DON'T do is try to second guess all the time just to boost my ranking.
By the way, I don't think I ever said I WANTED a higher ranking particularly. Sure, I want to win, and to see that reflected, but that's a completely different thing.