Rating bug?

I just watched a game where the player that got 4th place gained rating points. Is this a visual bug or did he really gain rating?

not a bug.

He had a very low rating compared to the others thus giving him +10

you cant be last and gain points.even if your rating very low compared to others.if its visual bug its ok,but if not,you should fix the rating sistem.

i think he should lose 4 points,if the sum of rating points in every game is 0.

Should be a visual bug but I will confirm that.

if you finish 3rd against much higher rated oppoenents you may gain points,  and if you finish 4th you could technically lose 0 points,   but you can win points for losing.   that is clearly a bug

Disagreed, the system does not change your rating if the sum total is not 0 so this is purely a visual bug.

He was probably in a game prior to this and gained rating during that match. Something I did not anticipate.

I guess it is also possible that he started a new game after being eliminated this game that ended before this game. Rating changes during the game does sound like a very likely cause of this visual bug, nicely found.

By the way, I think this visual bug has started some theories that there are inflation/deflation in the rating system when people see that the sum was not 0

I think they probably use normal ELO system. You may have a provisional rating. You can win points by losing against much higher opponents. That is normal. After 25 games usually you get permanent rating and this does not happen anymore. Something along those lines.

 is everybody disagree with me???

@edmundng2007 I will try to explain  

Your rating measures your skill, which is more or less some sort of measure of your probability to win any given game. Now when you win games it seems more likely that you will win future games (a higher proportion of them to be exact), but when you lose it seems as though you may win fewer (or less often). So winning a game gives an increase in rating and losing a decrease.  Though it is true that losing to a very strong player tells us very little about how good you are, because most people would lose, but that means your rating changes less not that it goes up. 

In order for losing to increase your rating it has to somehow indicate that your are better than your rating suggests, but anyone can lose a game! that's easy! So how could it indicate that? 

There is definitely rating inflation going on at the moment. A 1600 player isnt what they were and those that were 1700s are now 1900 to 2000 range

That's okay ratings will stabilize, and the inflation will stop soon.

Just let me hit 2000 first

Saw another game with similar problem. It looked like first lost rating points.