And ok, looking at the top of that list makes me a little sad...

Thanks TGM! Much appreciated!

I don't see any gap at the top, unless you mean TheMasterGamer (the only big name player I appreciated so far) :P
Draugnar, bitch, I'm right at your back. You know what that means (sexual reference).

My rating still sucks...I've had such a poor showing getting started. Gonna take some time to get it up

I'm curious about the re-entry. I finished one game in November. It doesn't show hangs in my score. Did I just re-enter with that one November game already included?

I think he's talking about the huge gap that MadMarx has on the rest of the group. He's pulling away from the pack.

oh...
I had the impression he was always that far away.

Would be curious to see...."Ghost Rating Year-to-Date" or "Ghost Rating Last 6 Months" which would discard early games. I have often heard people say, and believe it is true of myself, that my game play has changed dramatically since I first started playing. The "YTD" or "6Mnth" rating would let us see how you currently rate versus current players. Just a thought.....have *no* idea how difficult it would be to pull off.

MadMarx is like Secretariat ...

myself, I have bounced back up to 152, making some progress again ...

i think i will join the next 100 GR world game :) from 225 to 104 :)

Krellin, since you fail at math I'll explain it to you.

If you suck (as your record and GR clearly reflect) all your earlier games do is lower your GR, meaning that future victories against better quality players are worth relatively more to you. Discarding earlier games does nothing but push everybody closer to 100.

This system is nice because your entire past is represented by just a number, rather than averaging new wins with old losses. It's much easier to bring up your score if your play dramatically improves, no matter how low it was. It's also very difficult to raise it playing sub-par opponents once you start getting into the 200's.

YJ. I'm not sure if you understand how the GR system works. You gain the same number of points regardless of what your rank. It only depends on the rank of your opponents so having a lower GR will do nothing for gaining you points quickly.

Sigh, I've been descending since September, I've really got to step my game up.

@Yonni- Not really true. The GR is pretty simple. Instead of everyone putting in an equal bet, everyone puts in an equal percentage of their GR (so someone with a 200 puts in twice as much as someone with a 100) into the pot, and then at the end of the game it is split in the same way points are split. So if you have a high rank while you do "gain" the same amount that anyone else would at the end, you have already invested more than others, so your net gain is lower (and even possibly negative).

@hellalt - I see that. stratagos, Lando, me, and you fill out the top 75. Gratz, dude!

thx. strange thing is that I don't recall doing anything spectacular the last 4 games besides soloing in a public chat noobs game.

Did you have some 3 or 4 way draws against some higher ranked players by chance?

I don't think so.
check your pm Draugnar.

Wow, I went up 144 spots in November, and another 62 spots in December -- if I am reading that correctly. Very cool!

krellin, Ghost-Rating is designed to give precisely that comparison. What lopping off old data would do is simply make it less accurate.

Whoo, up 863 over two months, I am very pleased.

Ghug: WTG man! I thought I would jump much higher than I did but I'm crippled by only playing 1 at a time I think :P

Yonni: What uclabb said :) to my understanding GR calculates an expected outcome for each game based on each players GR, how much you go up/down when the game is over depends on you you did relative to this expected outcome.

So a PPSC 1 SC survive for a player with GR of 70 playing against the top 6 in the server would actually improve his GR, even though he was shit, because his EXPECTED outcome is lower than 1 in 34.

And MM in a 3 way draw with 6 low-rated players would drop his GR, even if though he reached an "acceptable" outcome; because his expectation predicted a solo was 50% likely (or that 50% of the points should have gone to him, if you prefer).

That's my crude understanding of it anyways. It sounds like I'm criticizing but I'm not: I'm just pointing out the extremes. It's a very good system IMO.

Thanks. You seem to be online enough to play more, why don't you?

I think uclabb's explanation of how GR is calculated is more accurate than YJ's, but both systems lead to nearly identical results, so your point is sound.

Yes, it's more succinct.

Too busy though, ghug. I actually put a lot of thought into the games I play, and really don't have time to do more at that level of play.

Both Yellowjacket and uclabb are right. Yellowjacket's explanation is I think a better way of *understanding* of how it works, whereas uclabb's will give you a way of doing rough calculations of how much your rating changes.

Both ignore the adjustment made to account for the fact that you cannot "totally win" a PPSC game, which is only significant when the game is rather unequal.

@ghug the two explanations are actually equivalent, and do lead to identical results- the higher bet is equivalent to being expected to win more.

Ah, YJ, all the PPSC play may be your problem.

@TGM, good to know, I'm going to go read the explanation of the math behind all of it now.

Jacob - "I'm curious about the re-entry. I finished one game in November. It doesn't show hangs in my score. Did I just re-enter with that one November game already included?"

I believe it is comparing each month to the previous month when determining the "ChangeRank", "ChangeGames", and "ChangeGhostRating". Since you weren't in the previous month it doesn't know at that point in time what your previous rank, games, or ghost rating was. It would have to be smartened up or redesigned to know what your previous status was from the last time you showed up in the rankings.