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Seperate autopairing rating

Hi all

I really think it is important to have a seperate "auto-pairing" rating where you cannot choose opponents - and maybe cannot abort more than 1 every 24 hours.

This would be something else to try and achieve, and will be a good defence against those carefully picking opponents (or even maybe friends etc), which would establish a much harder to achieve rating. There could be autopairing ratings for different time limits. I believe it is worth this insulating layer to underline how you can't choose opponents on it.

Feedback welcome
Also it would be easier for me doing videos in good conscience if all I can play against are people about 500 points lower than me on bullet. But with the autopairing, I can remove my own responsibility for the pairings, and apparent wanting to "bash bunnies" with live commentary.

Cheers, KC
I think I understand what you are trying to achieve, but this seems as though it's more of a gripe with the ratings system than the pairing system.

The rating system should be functional regardless of who you are elected to verse. However this isn't necessarily the case, it is possible to have pockets of players whom only play within themselves and 'debase' their ratings from the community.

I don't know if the issue is prevalent enough to warrant a divergence of rating classes.

In the near future it is very likely that auto-pairing will be the central method of finding opponents, so putting these changes in place may be all for nil. This means that the homepage games list and graph will become less accessible.

This would only leave challenging friends to play as an issue. And quite frankly, this is a keen minority of the way games are started.
I think it's good to keep the friend one there. A lot of people I know, I challenge them and they play as anonymous.

But I do agree with Kingcrusher. There's a lot of people who have been fairly similar to me in rating - say, I've been 1800 and they're around 1750 - who will just abort the game when I join theirs. It's got so bad, I'm currently at something like 7.5 points with someone, purely from aborted games. As soon as he sees it's me, he aborts.

That just seems idiotic, because he's either a) trying to protect his rating (even though we've never played before) or b) doesn't like me, in which case I would not insulted if he banned me...

So, for that route, the auto pairing seems much better. But I do like being able to play with your friends, etc.
An important aspect of this is the system on autopairing pairs people as though it was a Swiss pairing system - winners playing winners etc so that a low rated player should find it very tough to win multiple games in a row on it. The higher rated players will get increasingly tested as the site gets higher rated players who use it.
Is this idea in lieu of FICS' continuous tournament system that you were alluding to in previous forum posts/messages?

I like this idea, but it needs a well integrated implementation model.

One of the starting block ideas that I've had is to change the functionality of the "Find new opponent" button that appears at the conclusion of a match. The idea is that this button will pair you with an opponent searching for the same settings as your current game.

Are you requesting that the next opponent will have the same (or comparable) amount of consecutive wins or losses as yourself?
Yes this is why it needs parallel ratings - not only will you not be choosing your own opponents - the system will be giving you a tough Swiss pairing experience where a 1200 even will end up playing say 2500s if they win a few games in a row.
If I understand correctly, you're proposing an automatic pairing system which pairs people as if they were playing in an ongoing tournament.

I don't believe pairing people in this manner makes much sense outside of a tournament. Ratings are a better indicator of strength, which should be the basis on which pairings are made.

More generally, I don't believe in automatic pairing systems outside of tournaments. I don't believe that selectively choosing opponents can guarantee a higher rating (outside of creating accounts for the purpose of throwing games). You may win more often against lower-rated opponents, but the rating system ensures that the occasional loss will set you back.
And all auto-pairing pools would serve to achieve is to isolate players. At any one time, there could be a player waiting with a seek ad up, and a player waiting in the pool, who might have been perfect opponents for one another.
Claymore, with a seperate rating for the autopairing achievements, the central concept is not just of not choosing your own opponents, but the system making it as hard as possible for anyone to win any number of games in a row. It is a proven and popular concept for many years already on other servers.

Also extra rules against aborting games could be put into the autopairing system to make it a Gold standard for rating purposes, and very hard to get a high rating on.

When people can choose their own opponents, then ratings can go anywhere - and they do. GMs on the ICC for example go more than 3100 for example. On the autopairing it is only about 2500.

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