Above is the average number of GR points I've won/lost off of different sized games.

Below is my record on each size.  

I have won 96 2-player games.  This has translated into a gain of about 1109 GR.

I have lost 69 2-player games.  This has translated into a loss of about 2091 GR.

So, even though I have won about 40% more 2-player games than I have lost I have a net loss of 982 GR points from playing 2-player games.

I believe this supports my assertion that playing low-player games is a slow way to build rankings.

Hugh and I think Squintgnome had a discussion about this same thing a few years ago but I can't find it.

Could this be due to luck being a bigger factor in 2-player games?  I know some games like hex will be zero luck, but in general territory placement, first to go & dice luck would have more impact in a 2-player game.   I remember squintgnomes post about how high his dice luck & seat position correlated with his win/loss.

It makes sense if you are a good player, you will win more games.  But the more luck is a factor, the more you have to play to overcome that luck.  Just like you could play 3 games of chess and have a very good idea of who is a better chess player, but you can't just play 3 games of poker and know who is better (ok - not sure if that makes sense, but hopefully...)

You could test this by comparing your win/loss % and points gained/lost between pure skill boards and others.

Rank differential is most brutal in 2 player games. 

I have to admit that with 1 map exception I avoid 1v1 like the plague.

Rank differential is most brutal in 2 player games. 

I have to admit that with 1 map exception I avoid 1v1 like the plague.

Amidon37 wrote:

I have won 96 2-player games.  This has translated into a gain of about 1109 GR.

I have lost 69 2-player games.  This has translated into a loss of about 2091 GR.

A, How did you estimate the gains and losses? Are you basing it on your average GR and the average GR of your opponents.

Looks like you should only play games with 11 players to me... You're unstoppable in 11 player games! ;-)

Ozyman wrote:

Could this be due to luck being a bigger factor in 2-player games?  I know some games like hex will be zero luck, but in general territory placement, first to go & dice luck would have more impact in a 2-player game.   I remember squintgnomes post about how high his dice luck & seat position correlated with his win/loss.

It makes sense if you are a good player, you will win more games.  But the more luck is a factor, the more you have to play to overcome that luck.  Just like you could play 3 games of chess and have a very good idea of who is a better chess player, but you can't just play 3 games of poker and know who is better (ok - not sure if that makes sense, but hopefully...)

I think luck is entirely what this is about.  And I don't think the reward you get for winning a 2-player game makes up for the luck involved.  I believe that was the point of the squintgnome/hugh conversation.  

M57 wrote:

Amidon37 wrote:

I have won 96 2-player games.  This has translated into a gain of about 1109 GR.

I have lost 69 2-player games.  This has translated into a loss of about 2091 GR.

A, How did you estimate the gains and losses? Are you basing it on your average GR and the average GR of your opponents.

I used "about" because I had rounded when I divided the average gain/loss and rounded.  I then multiplied the rounded number and put approx.  Which was silly cause I easily could have figured it out exactly.

Based on the my delta in the GR I have won 1109 GR points and lost 2094 GR from 2-player games.

This does not include the game I won 2 days ago and gained 4 GR.  I would have lost 80 if I lost the game.

I should avoid 2-player games but I can't help it, I know they're killer on the rankings.

Andernut wrote:

I should avoid 2-player games but I can't help it, I know they're killer on the rankings.

2 Player Games

71.5% (231/323 games)

 

That's not really so bad. Your H-rating is 75%, so pretty close. Cona's 2-player percent actually exceeds his h-rating (80% vs. 78%)

(H-rating is, of course, your overall win percentage in all size games, normalized to a 2-player game)

Amidon, your problem is IMO because you are a good player (yes you are, don't be modest).

So your high ranking makes you lose more than 50 points each time you lose against a poor player. And this will happen quite often mainly because of bad luck, 2nd seat or bad setting.

But you won't lose many 10-player games against that kind of players. Indeed, it's very likely that you will have some other good players among the other 8 players. That will leave very little chance to the above mentioned poor player.

So I think you are right to avoid 2-player games.

Amidon37 wrote:

I believe this supports my assertion that playing low-player games is a slow way to build rankings.

Hugh and I think Squintgnome had a discussion about this same thing a few years ago but I can't find it.

The best I can dig up is http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/2649p2/Global_Ranking_or_Championship_Points. Apparently, my thoughts ended up scattered all over the place due to a bad habit of off-topic posting.

For standard maps, a good-great player will do better in the rankings by playing larger games. I'm confident that the data would back this statement up pretty well. 

For specialist maps, it depends. A person can achieve a high 1v1 win rate on a specialist map.

I had this extreme thought a while back but never said it: each game size on a given map is essentially a different game. If ranked this way, we'd perhaps find Squintgnome at the top of the 1v1 WGWF, and Toto at the top of various multiplayer sizes, or something like that. Sadly, fine-graining like that would likely create as many problems as it solves :)

Hugh wrote:

I had this extreme thought a while back but never said it: each game size on a given map is essentially a different game. If ranked this way, we'd perhaps find Squintgnome at the top of the 1v1 WGWF, and Toto at the top of various multiplayer sizes, or something like that. Sadly, fine-graining like that would likely create as many problems as it solves :)

I rather like this idea.   A 4 player game on on WGWF is completely different than a 10 player game.

Although I guess if you are going to fragment board rankings, it's probably more appropriate to start fragmenting by scenario first.

What problems do you see it creating beyond an explosion of statistics?

I also wonder if this would help with the CP debate in a roundabout way.  WGWF would now have many different people earning max CP from that board, and so would be giving out more CP.  On oOther boards that don't get played as much, players would have a hard time getting up to the required 1500 threshold for max CP, as their wins would apply to different rankings.

Ozyman wrote:

I also wonder if this would help with the CP debate in a roundabout way.  WGWF would now have many different people earning max CP from that board, and so would be giving out more CP.  On oOther boards that don't get played as much, players would have a hard time getting up to the required 1500 threshold for max CP, as their wins would apply to different rankings.

If we did away with the current CP formula and considered a system that works with the game/scenario explosion (such as Option I - where a 1001 is worth a point), we don't have to worry about maxes.  I haven't given it much thought, though the idea is intriguing my spidey senses say that though it may not be hard to implement, the numbers sure would be hard to digest as a user.

Ozyman wrote:

What problems do you see it creating beyond an explosion of statistics?

An explosion of statistics is no small problem when the purpose of statistics is to succinctly summarize complex data!

But, in addition to that, there would be fewer data points per category than if similar categories were lumped together. Regardless of the ranking formula being used, less data means greater uncertainty in the ranking. Suppose we thought that 10-12 player games were all essentially the same. A person plays 20 of each type. If we get to use all 60 data points, we are more confident in the result, as long as there isn't an incentive to play one of those types over another. By contrast, having only 20 data points in each category, the displayed ranking in each category is likely to be farther from the "true" ranking. Also, luck/variation ensures that one of the 3 rankings may be significantly better or worse than the others when the player's skill is really about the same, since they are essentially the same game.

Toto wrote:

So I think you are right to avoid 2-player games.

 

But I don't want to, and I don't anyone else to either.

There are a large number of boards created on the site just for two players and I feel one reason they are not played that much is the relative lack of award for playing them.

And this does extend to 3,4 player boards also.

Ozyman wrote:

What problems do you see it creating beyond an explosion of statistics?

Also fog levels and turn limit can drastically change the game. 

I would like to be able to see "rankings" granualized like this.  But maybe more for statistics junky-ism than any real rankings.

The bigger problem with giving CP's for all variations is boards with lots of such become more valuable to play.  Some cool boards have a fixed fog and player count.

smoke wrote:

Andernut wrote:

I should avoid 2-player games but I can't help it, I know they're killer on the rankings.

2 Player Games

71.5% (231/323 games)

 

That's not really so bad. Your H-rating is 75%, so pretty close. Cona's 2-player percent actually exceeds his h-rating (80% vs. 78%)

(H-rating is, of course, your overall win percentage in all size games, normalized to a 2-player game)

If I only played dueling maps it would be much higher score - the wargear warfare boards etc completely wreck my rating :P But what I mean is that my 2-player games cost me a lot of ranking points because I gain so few and lose so many when I play them.

I despise 2 player games.  Mainly because I'm bad at them but I think they lack much strategy, its mostly just dumb luck.

3-7 is just the right number, any more and you only take a turn like once a month.