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Subject: Re: Rating swings on ICC

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 07:55:01 07/31/98

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On July 31, 1998 at 09:26:14, John Scalo wrote:

>I've recently gotten my little engine up on ICC (Frankenstein) and I'm wondering
>what kind of rating swings are normal. A few days ago I watched in
>disappointment as the rating dropped more than 200 points and figured one of the
>minor changes I made wasn't so minor. But now it's slowly climbing back up.
>
>For those of you who have computer accounts on ICC, do you see such wild swings?

You will see big swings.

You'll be playing down (playing against people rated lower than you) most of the
time, and even if you wn several in a row, you will lose more points for the
loss than you gained for the win, so if you get hit a little more often than you
are used to, you can lose a lot.

Sometimes you will find that you have more problems with some opponents than
with others, and these people will sap your rating over a period of time.

The converse of this problem involves people who will come back for more no
matter how many times they lose, sometimes these people will play 20 in a row
and feed you over a hundred points.

I have had people tell me that my current version really sucks, and then the
next day tell me that my new version fixed all these problems and is now
wonderful.  It's hard to convince these people that it is the same version.

I think it is pretty hard to demonstrate a software improvement on ICC, because
the other goofy things that happen tend to dominate.

bruce



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