Friday, August 07, 2020

Ratings Drift In Action

 

I fear playing rated games, and I have written about this before. One of the bad things about not usually playing rated games is that when you finally play only a few games you will become the victim of ratings drift. This is when your rating goes up without you playing any games. The image above is an example of classic ratings drift.

I am not entirely sure why this happens, but your rating can go up pretty high before eventually falling off altogether.

I played two rated games in March in an attempt to get a rating for my buzzsaw account. I lost both of those games to a 9k player to get a rating of 10k?

Over the last five months I have noticed my rating rise all the while keeping the question mark because the server is unsure of my rating. 

Today I was observing Guo Juan reviewing games for the e-Go Congress. She complimented me on my rank. I heard her in Discord as I was exiting the room. I came back to the room to disillusion her, but she had already left. So now I need to write an email to tell her that I am a victim of ratings drift.

Last night I played a game with my other KGS account, goddess. It was a rated game with a 9k player I know to be my strength. Sometimes he beats me and sometimes I beat him. I had decided to make buzzsaw NR, and start playing rated with goddess. I used to have a rated account reserved for reckless play named fearless. That account would have long been inactive, and I do know if it is available.

I won the game against the 9k last night, and now I am 8k? I need to play rated with goddess before she drifts to 5k? :-)

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