How are ratings calculated?

A couple of weeks ago I started playing a game against a player with a score similar to mine. It seems this game may end in a draw. Unfortunately, because he plays large numbers of games simultaneously and he makes his moves very irregularly, a lot of his games have timed out, and many of hs opponents have claimed their win. Because of this, his rating has dropped dramatically.

I am wondering how all of this is going to affect my rating. Not because I'm particularly hung up on my rating (although I do value it somewhat :-) but mostly out of curiosity.

My questions are:
1) does a draw affect one's rating? I've played a draw a couple of times before, but never paid attention to the effect it had on my rating.
2) how does winning or losing a game affect one's rating? What formulae are used?
3) I assume that these formulae take into account the ratings of each player: if I beat a player with a (significantly) higher rating, it will increase my score more than when I beat a player with a lower rating. However, this raises the question: what ratings are used for the calculation? The ones at the beginning of the game, or at the end?

Thanks in advance for your response!

If you look in the "Posers and Puzzles" section under "the ating problem" thread, there is some information there that might help.😉

Its in the FAQ section:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/help/popuphelp.php?section=faq#8

The only times drawing won't affect your rating is in games against opponents with exactly the same rating as yourself at the end of the game or if the game is unrated.

Drawing with a higher rated player increases your rating.
Drawing with a lower rated player decrease your rating.
Same as winning or losing but not as much effect.

Rhymester

Ratings are calculated using the two player's ratings at the END of the game.

I presume the logic behind this is that a player could significantly improve (or become worse!) over the duration of a game (some games last 6 months or more).

However it does have the unfortunate consequence that the order in which a person resigns his/her games has a huge impact on the points gained by his/her opponents.

Another consequnce is some players will drag out their lost games for as long as possible in the hope that their opponent's rating will go up, so they won't drop so many points against them when they finally lose.

Draws DO matter. It's possible to gain a large number of points by drawing with a much-higher rated opponent or lose a large number against a lower player. For instance, I recently lost 12 points because I drew (with black!) against a very strong 1700+ player.
😠

Dave

Originally posted by Rhymester
[b]Its in the FAQ section:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/help/popuphelp.php?section=faq#8

Originally posted by David Tebb
[b]Ratings are calculated using the two player's ratings at the END of the game.

I presume the logic behind this is that a player could significantly improve (or become worse!) over the duration of a game (some games last 6 months or more).

Originally posted by David Tebb
Draws DO matter. It's possible to gain a large number of points by drawing with a much-higher rated opponent or lose a large number against a lower player. For instance, I recently lost 12 points because I drew (with black!) against a very strong 1700+ player.
😠

Dave

Originally posted by StrayJay
Hmmm. That does make some sense in those cases, but in I bet that there are more games where this way of calculating new ratings is [b]not fair.

Maybe it's worth considering an extra option when creating a new game that will make the RHP-software calculate (at the end of the game) the new ratings based on the ratings at the beginning of the game. A ...[text shortened]... achother as opponents.

(Or) Is the way RHP calculates ratings are standard way of doing this?[/b]

Originally posted by thire
Maybe it's not very fair, but I think you method is even less fair: Against better players i choose "now" against lower rated "after the game".