Chess Scotland Noticeboard

Alex Ian · Rook Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 51 Location: EK

hi, I have a question...

When you have played 30 games, your gain for winning is decreased. I would really just like to know why this is the case, as this does not allow players who play continously to go up very much.

Thanks, Alex Ian

Robert Lothian

The point is that your grade is an average. All of your games add up to a value of 800 points. So one game is worth 800 pts, 2 games would be worth 400 each and so on. But it would be ridiculous to have an 800 point difference on the basis of one game. So the minimum number of games is set to 30. As a result, value per game is constant until 30 games.

In other words, it's not people who play more than 30 games who are being penalised (actually stabilised - it works both ways), it's people who play less than 30.

There's some funny psychology in operation that causes people to extrapolate the straight line and convince themselves that that's the unmodified ('correct') function. It's the 1/N curve that should be extrapolated back to the singularity at zero games.

Ian McLachlan · Rook Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 63 Location: Lanark