[Slynky]

It's a difficult decision. I certainly see the merit of the discussion on rating multi-player games. Here are some thoughts on this "problem":

(1) As I posted much earlier in this thread (I think), one must be aware of multi-player games and the impact the outcome could have on one's rating. Given a game with 6 players competing for a rating, surely one person will suffer a big (depending on the Ratings of the people in the game) loss in points. Conversely, there are bunches of points to be had...assuming a person can manipulate themselves into 1st or 2nd place. Given 6 players, 2 will suffer some point loss, 2 will turn out about the same and the winning 2 will realize a point gain. I don't think that's too much. By "too much", I'm thinking 4 out of the 6 will NOT have much of a detriment to their rating. But remember, as I said, think long and hard about multi-player games and the chances you take when joining one and having it count as a rating.

(2) As far as making this rating system compare to a tried and true rating system (used for MANY years the world over), it's not far from what is done. Certainly, without much consideration, a one-on-one game comes the closest to simulating a chess match and score. When we get to a multi-player game, things change a bit. BUT, not too much, I think. In a chess tourney, let's say 30 players for 4 rounds, Ratings computations are NOT computed for how one placed in the tourney but the number of wins and losses as computed against the people played against and their Ratings. The actual formula that I use is the same as the formula the USCF (United States Chess Federation) with the exception of this: the formula calculates all the player Ratings that one played against, the number of wins and losses, and figures the score based on one computation. That's not much different than calculating each person's loss or win against each person they won or lost to. I think the USCF does it the way they do to make it easy (and quick) to calculate all the Ratings that they have to process each day from all the results that are pouring in each day.

(3) Lord Chane wrote the program to do the calculation. I hesitated to ask him to write me something to do the computation but he sometimes has the available time and interest to help out. Certainly, he's very busy at work writing programs to help our agency out all the time (currently, he's working on a full-fledged helpdesk program that will be spread over the US in our agency). The program uses the database table of players and their Ratings to compute the new Ratings and post those results in the player table as well as the games table. All I have to do is click on the program, enter the winning player (from a "drop down"), enter the losing player (from a "drop down"), and the date. The logic necessary to incorporate multiple-player games and their respective results would be quite an undertaking, in my opinon (based on my outdated knowledge of programing logic in Clipper and Pascal).

(4) The suggested adjustment to the points calculation deviate a bit from what is practiced in chess matches. It looks good on the surface but I worry it deviates too much so that we don't get the true results that the USCF has been getting for so many years. In other words, I'd hate to tinker with a formula that seems to work for chess even though we calculate multi-player games a bit differently than the chess federation does. But remember, 5 people in a multi-player game is not so much different than a chess tourney of 5 players...someone will win and someone will lose big. And everyone's score in that 5-person tourney will be adjusted just about the same as in our computations.

(5) Finally, not to be obtuse...applying the USCF Ratings formula to our SE4 games will not be perfect. But, it is a verified formula that takes into consideration the expected win probability and calculates points awarded accordingly. THAT formula works very well. I played competitive chess for many years. I played in Germany and in the US. And when I played against an opponent with a certain rating, the results were pretty much on target...in other words, if I was paired against a player with a higher rating than me, I usually lost. And, the inverse was also true. BTW, for anyone interested, my highest chess rating in the USCF was 1777...these days, though, I figure I'd play around a 1300 rating.

Though not directly related to the suggestions for a computation "adjustment", my sincere thought is this: given enough players, given enough time for the Ratings to "smooth out", a person should be fairly confident of their chances for a win or loss by looking at their opponent (or opponents in a multi-player game). I'd like to see 50 or more people in the Ratings system. Heck, I'd like to see everyone there (well, except for the work...hehe). But, people might not join because they don't think they can be rated near the top. I look at it this way: I think chess is the best game in the world! I'm not the best and never will be a Bobby Fischer. BUT, I wanted to see how I DID rate with other players. So, if people love this game as much as I do and others do, they would want to do the same thing...see how they measured up. Perhaps they might have a low rating BUT, if I were in their place, I'd like to see if my rating got higher...to see if I was getting better. That's what I did in chess.