I’m sure there’s a good reason but I’m puzzled to see… that having won the last game my ranking fell… but having lost the game before that my ranking improved. Any obvious reasons why this might be so? 
Perhaps I’m just reading the wrong lines when it comes to cause/effect?
It looks like your ranking went up after the win and down after the loss.
The game against mcan was game 21, you can see from the imagine that your rating after game 21 was an improvement on game 20. Game 20 was the one against CLONS where you lost, you can see your rating went down at game 20 compared to 19.
Thank you kindly for this prompt and helpful reply. I was reading the table - not examining the graph.
As I suggested above, my interpretation might have been in error … and apparently I was right, i.e., that I was wrong! 
EDIT: So I guess the ranking shown in the table is one’s rank when the listed game begins - not how it stands after it ends. Which will then be seen in the next line when another new game added to the list.
I’ll also add that the colouring for the game result (e.g. dark green for defeating a weaker opponent, or light pink for losing to a stronger opponent) appears to be inconsistent between the table and the pie chart. (Issue with pie chart on user page)
So don’t rely on those too heavily
Sounds buggy to me. I think the game history table should show the rank after the game 
Good to know, thx.
TBH, I’m not overly concerned about all the stats surrounding my OGS play at this time. Still just enjoying the learning and community spirit. Too much focus on my ranking will produce little joy. 
But yeah, I just assumed the ranking in the table would reflect the outcome of the game that’s being listed. (Not the precome… oh, can I say that?) Whatever.
Why? Then it won’t be clear why a certain handicap was used.
That’s an interesting thought. If one is trying to confirm that the handicap was calculated correctly this could help.
The reason I had assumed the ranking was related to the game result is that the rest of the information provided on that same line is all about the game’s results. The ranking currently shown pertains to some other game’s results.
Only the trophy and the result column are about the result. The rest is general info.
I guess the problem is that there are two players and each of them has three ranks: The rank at the start and end of the game and the rank at the moment you’re looking at the history (i.e. when you’ve loaded the page). Showing all six is too much.
Currently I think the player’s rank before the game and the opponent’s current rank are shown, which is a strange mix.
Well noted.
Look, I’ve got no special insights as a fairly new member of this community - and I’m humbled by the work and energy invested in what’s here on OGS.
Since the table is called Game History, it seemed to me that it was about how those finished games listed actually turned out. Hence my initial confusion and the reason for my original question at the top of this thread.
Yeah I think if there’s a logical way it should be presented then it’d be good if we can find it or find out that it is the way it is for good reason.
I think because games can also not just be live games but can span several months in correspondence, it could make sense to be consistent with both handicap and the colouring for whether you win/lost vs a stronger/weaker player to say base it on both players ranks at the start.
It seems a bit strange to say you beat a weaker player if you started off lower rated but ended up higher rated at the end of the game, whether it was correspondence or a live game.
But
I don’t think that’s true, because if you’ve played against the same player over the years for example and you filter for your games against them, you’ll see their rank be different over time in the history table.
I’ve played a player many times over the course of a few years and their rank is listed from 11k to 3k in the game history table.
Oh, that’s good!
