Winning caused my rating to drop!!

I accepted a challenge from another player with a rating of 956 before receiving my rating. Shortly afterward, I received a rating of 1432, but my game was still in progress with that player.

i just beat that player (Checkmate, move 11). I didn't expect to gain any points for it because my rating was much higher than hers. However, when I checked to see how it affected my rating, I was shocked to see that it had dropped from 1432 to 1386!! How can winning a game cause my rating to drop?

Somebody please explain this to me.

That's because your rating is provisional.It's a really strange system.
http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?id=5789
That thread should explain,but I don't understand much of it 😕

I noticed that as well. I suspect that it's not so much the player that you have just won against but that after the game the ratings from all your provisional games are recalculated and thus your previous game might have for instance been between another new player with a ranking of p1200. You beat him and your ranking changed accordingly. However 1 game later that P1200 player now has a more stable ranking and might have dropped to say 1100 so your whole rankings change lower irrespective of whether you won or lost the last game.

I noticed this on one of my games. When we started we both had p1200 ratings. At the time of winning mine had risen by 200 and theirs had dropped by 200. After winning the game my rating came down by about 20 points.

Blame it on the p status & just play lots of games quickly till then at players who are rated slightly better than you.

Originally posted by douglasbushong
I accepted a challenge from another player with a rating of 956 before receiving my rating. Shortly afterward, I received a rating of 1432, but my game was still in progress with that player.

i just beat that player (Checkmate, m ...[text shortened]... me cause my rating to drop?

Somebody please explain this to me.

Your rating in the first 20 games is calculated as an average of your first 20 results, and therefore in the first few games can fluctuate quite a bit. The contribution of each individual game to the average is as follows:

If opp has played 20 or more games:
opps rating + 400 if you win
opps rating - 400 if you lose
opps rating if you draw

If opp has played less than 20 games:
opps rating + 200 if you win
opps rating - 200 if you lose
opps rating if you draw

(if opp has played < 5 games substitute 1200 for his rating)

The most likely situation given your information was that you had played 5 games and your opponent had played between 5 and 19 games.

So your new average was (1432*5 + (956 + 200))/6
= 1386

As you play more games your average should settle down, and from 20 games up a different calculation is used that is more intuitive.

Hope that helps!

Dan