Verified Games Leaderboard

New players start at 1200. After a verified game, each player’s rating changes by:

delta = nearestInteger( K × (actual − expected) )

expected = 1 / (1 + 10^((opponentRating − yourRating) / 400))
actual   = 1 (win)  |  0.5 (draw)  |  0 (loss)

K starts at 32, adjusted per game by:

• Placement — your first 10 games multiply K by 1.5 so new players find their real level faster.
• Novelty — your first game against a given opponent gets +4 to K.
• Familiarity — during an active season, beyond 3 games against the same opponent, K shrinks linearly up to 50%. Repeated rematches earn diminishing swings. Between seasons (no ladder active) this penalty doesn’t apply.
• Streak — each consecutive win or loss past the first adds +2 to K, capped at +8. Momentum counts a little, but not a lot.

Decay — ratings only move when you play. There is no scheduled decay for sitting out. An admin tool exists that can pull long-inactive seasonal ratings 2% toward 1200, but it is not automated and is not currently used.

Carry-forward — when a new season begins, top players from the previous season start at 1250; everyone else resets to 1200.

Only verified games count — results feed this rating only after the opponent confirms within the 72-hour window.

Season resets — when a new ladder season begins, every player’s seasonal rating starts at 1200, except the top 25% from the prior season who carry forward at 1250. The all-time rating (shown on the “All-time” tab) is unaffected by season resets.