Hi,
Since the newish ‘handicap games preferred’ has started I was wondering how the ratings are adjusted when handicap games are organised.
Question 1
From the looks of the handicaps it seems to be (this could be wrong) that the deviation is also being used to organise the stone differential pre game.
i.e
player 1 rating 1500 deviation 50 (assume, I don’t know 8kyu, not sure of the matching bands) player 2 rating 1200 deviation 200 (11kyu ish?)
then this would only be a slight handicap, if any at all, as player 2 could be 800-1600 and player 1 1400-1600
Whereas
player 1 rating 1500 deviation 50
player 2 rating 1200 deviation 50
This would be a 1-2 stone handicap with player 1 1400-1600 and player 2 1100-1300
Which seems sensible but it would be nice for it to be confirmed.
Question 2
How does it impact results? There are several alternatives here and it would be interesting to find out how OGS translates this to rating adjustments.
i.e It could be that the handicap player gets a temporary rating ‘jump’ equal to the handicap. Pretending each stone handicap is a 100 rating then a 3 stone handicap game would push the 1200 player to have a ‘for purposes of rating change value of 1500’ though this might be a rating drop for the higher player as the swing on loss or win would not be so bad.
it might also be not counting at all or even ignore the handicap and rate win/loss with the original ratings/deviations.
Or the volatility could be decreased for handicap games thus potentially drastically reducing movement post handicap game…
Anyway any information would be appreciated.