ratings

  Chess ratings serve two purposes: (a) they tell you your relative ability,
and (b) are useful means for identifying and playing opponents of roughly your
same ability.

  This server utilizes the Glicko rating system developed by Mark E. Glickman
(with assistance and corrections by Dmitry Dakhnovsky and server
implementation by Vek and Hawk).  The full explanation of this system is given
in the "glicko" help file.

  In general, your rating will be adjusted by several factors: (a) the result
of your game (win, loss, draw), (b) your opponent's rating, (c) the stability
of your rating, and (d) the stability of your opponent's rating.  If you want
to determine how your rating might change after a match with a given player,
use the "assess" command.

  At present, there are separate ratings for three kinds of chess: Standard,
Blitz and Wild.  Your current rating is available on your "finger" file.  Once
you have an established rating (20 or more games) in a given type, your
highest established rating to date will also be displayed.  Players with
established ratings will also have their ratings listed on several ranking
lists (see the "best", "hbest", "rank" and "hrank" help files).

  By default, the "who" command lists logged on users in order of their
ratings.  This way, you can identify and match players of certain ratings. 
You can also use ratings in your "formula" for filtering out match requests
from other players.  Ratings can also be used to filter out kibitzes and
whispers by the "kiblevel" variable.


TRANSFERRING RATINGS FROM ANOTHER CHESS SERVER

  It is possible to transfer your rating from another chess server to this
server.  Contact an admin concerning which admin should process your request
since different admins are on different chess servers.  In general, you will
need to email your request to that admin.  Please use the subject line
"Request for ratings transfer" and in the body of the email tell the admin
your handle(s) on both chess servers.  Also be sure to "message" the admin on
the other server so the admin can verify that you are the person you claim to
be.

SPECIAL NOTES:

(a)  In the case of adjourned games that are resumed, ratings are adjusted by
the users' ratings at the time the match is resumed rather than the ratings
they had when the match was started.

See Also:  assess  best  finger  formula  glicko  hbest  hrank  kiblevel 
message  rank  who

[Last modified: October 8, 1995 -- Friar]