ratings floor

Just a suggestion to make ratings more fair here:
Why don't we have a floor value to protect people when somebody's rating suffers catastrophic failure? For example, Dustnrogers, a player who is capable of 1800+ ratings, lost a huge number of games recently, causing his rating to drop below 1000 briefly. This would have been a hardship on opponents losing to him during this time.
What I would like to suggest is that, once somebody passes an even 100 rating level (for eg: 1500) then, he can't go below the previous 100 (1400). I'm a mid-1400's player; but, if I broke through to 1500+ on a good run, then, under this plan, I couldn't drop below 1400 after.
Comments?

Interesting idea... I think it would be better to use the player's average rating as the rating floor and recalculate it once a month.

I think this is a very bad idea. If ratings are to be meaningful, they must reflect a player's performance, so when someone loses masses of games, their rating must fall accordingly. If someone resigns hundreds of games or gets timed-out in them, then that's their own fault, and they deserve the rating they get as a result. I agree that if someone has a rating which is much lower than their true strength, that's unfair to their opponents. But they should be angry with this person, who has acted recklessly, not blame the rating system.

Not a good idea in my opinion. I see the point of protecting the opponents, but this could create extra problems when the player who has dropped to his floor starts playing recklessly, because he has nothing to lose anymore.

Originally posted by David Tebb
I think this is a very bad idea. If ratings are to be meaningful, they must reflect a player's performance, so when someone loses masses of games, their rating must fall accordingly. If someone resigns hundreds of games or gets timed-out in them, then that's their own fault, and they deserve the rating they get as a result. I agree that if someone has a ...[text shortened]... they should be angry with this person, who has acted recklessly, not blame the rating system.

I agree.

Dustin to his credit offered to resign games against people who were worried about his extremely low rating affecting theirs.

Originally posted by David Tebb
I think this is a very bad idea. If ratings are to be meaningful, they must reflect a player's performance, so when someone loses masses of games, their rating must fall accordingly. If someone resigns hundreds of games or gets timed-out in them, then that's their own fault, and they deserve the rating they get as a result. I agree that if someone has a ...[text shortened]... they should be angry with this person, who has acted recklessly, not blame the rating system.

If you look at the reason behind ratings, you'll discover that their purpose is not to 'reflect a player's performance' but to give the player's probability of winning against other rated players. Therefore, if a player loses a bunch of games due to problems of game management, his rating no longer reflects his level of skill.
This is why I would like to see a rating floor.

It seems to me that, because the ratings system repairs an active player's rating so quickly, there is very little disincentive to recklessly taking on too many games. The player may suffer a massive rating loss, but can claw it back at the expense of their opponents over the next dozen or so games.

Perhaps the "K" factor in the ratings calculation could be reduced for players whose ratings have moved by 200 or more points over 20 or fewer games, in the same way as for provisionally rated players. This would both reduce the impact on their opponents and slow down the readjustment of their own rating. Such player's ratings could be labelled 'u' for unstable; they might be declared stable again after 20 games.

I think it would be much better to calculate and display a persons average rating on the profile page, perhaps as a horizontal line on the game graph already displayed there.

After starting this thread, it came to me that the ratings formula used was designed for a much more sedate chess environment than we have here. OTB tournaments, for example don't have players who are dealing with dozens of games at the same time. OTB ratings are updated only after every tournament played, and are not subject to catastrophic time-outs caused by bad management. Do we need another approach that protects us from such things?
So I'm glad at least that people have been responding to my suggestion.

Originally posted by David Tebb
I think this is a very bad idea. If ratings are to be meaningful, they must reflect a player's performance, so when someone loses masses of games, their rating must fall accordingly. If someone resigns hundreds of games or gets timed-ou ...[text shortened]... person, who has acted recklessly, not blame the rating system.

You think it is a bad idea,but would you take him on rated after mass timeouts and you might get a point if you win.If you lose you drop 32.If you draw against this player who is rated in the hundreds he gains 15 points and that you lose 15 points?So would you accept a challenge from him?I don't think you would.Anything can happen in one game.The victims of this are the honest players who start games at equal rating and are used to pick up points when he comes back.

Originally posted by bestmate
You think it is a bad idea,but would you take him on rated after mass timeouts and you might get a point if you win.If you lose you drop 32.If you draw against this player who is rated in the hundreds he gains 15 points and that you lose 15 points?So would you accept a challenge from him?I don't think you would.Anything can happen in one game.The victims o ...[text shortened]... est players who start games at equal rating and are used to pick up points when he comes back.

David would lose 32 or gain 1 before or after or in between the mass timeouts 😛

Originally posted by gumbie
David would lose 32 or gain 1 before or after or in between the mass timeouts 😛

You hit it.The point is you start a game in say a tournament.He is same rating say 1500,but he goes walkies and the vulchers have a nice feast and the good guys are facing a situation that they lose many points against an equal player.

I would suggest some sort of punishment for multiple timeouts or resignations, But I really can't see how it could be done.

Originally posted by gumbie
I would suggest some sort of punishment for multiple timeouts or resignations, But I really can't see how it could be done.

How the top players do it is shun them.
I like to play tornaments,so...

Let's say you have a clan match against a player who is rated 400 points higher then you. You lose the first game quickly, but then you roll your sleeves up and give the second game much thought, you come out ahead, you have played a great game that you will now win. The game slows down and your opponents rating drops 500 points, and then he resigns. This could'nt have happened in otb play as you would play one game and then another. This is unfair because the ratings difference between the two games is catastrophic. It's the same player playing at the same level of chess expertise, but the victory of the second game is soured by the ratings slide. If you had resigned the second game instead of fighting it out, would you have been better off?

Nyxie