Variants Poll: What rating system do you prefer?

1) Imo Neo has proven himself consistently over the years to be a top player at both ffa/solo

2) If the way the game was played at both rating systems was identical, then there would be no reason to change it either way since it has no impact on the game. Being good at the 4p stage doesnt mean not getting 4th, since getting 4th can just be bad luck with opposites (and then who the flank players target). There are other ways (other then not getting 4th) where one can show off being better at this stage. 

I would agree with Neo that the 3 -.5 -.5 -2 promotes avoiding 4th significantly more. The point is that you lose significantly more if you get 4th so you will accept lesser winning chances if you can get to the 3p stage (then with the 3 -1 -1 -1 system). The possible rating loss in fact is a 4x change from 3rd->4th as opposed to a 1x change from 3rd->4th.

I think getting eliminated first is punishing enough in the 3 -1 -1 -1 system, since your winning chances drop to 0, you dont need much more. Sure your rating doesnt update as much as with a 4th in the other system, but I think we should care significantly more about players ability to get 1st more then about how good they are at "not getting 4th".

The 3 -1 -1 -1 system is a lot more punishing. Every 4 games you need to win 1 to not lose rating (with equal rated opposition). In the 3 -.5 -.5 -2 system its a lot easier to maintain rating if you avoid 4th since you now only need to win 1 in 7 games (again vs equal rated opposition). Im a fan of more pressure on getting 1st.

 >>> Radon wrote "Solo cannot work without every player being extremely strong at the game and it is a system that punishes the better players who are on the receiving end of weaker players poor decisions in the 3 player stage."

If I understand correctly, this sounds like a big reason for those who want to go away from 3 -1 -1 -1 ( i.e. that it is too punishing). But I don't think that its hard to preserve rating is a bug, its a good feature. Trying to insulate losses to protect against bad players doesn't seem like a good solution when the rating system is in place for the highest levels of play (and is there to promote the best play). So I don't think we should hurt the gameplay for high level matches to cushion rating losses when there are big rating mismatches (which will always cause problems).

One big change that 3 -1 -1 -1 has on the 4p stage is that one wants to be much more careful with what situation you are in (points, material and king safety wise) when going into the 3p stage, since you may not be better off then in the 4p stage. Due to the magnitude of the rating change this kind of assessment is much more significantly warped with the 3 -.5 -.5 -2 (since 4th is so much worse then 3rd).

@Daniel1115

This proposal format was the winner in the previous poll, anyway at this moment it is not in participation, so don't worry, anyway I invite you to read my previous post again, especially where I say this:

>If you prefer a rating system SOLO, then the one that is active now, is perfect and does not require any changes, because it solved the problem of high ratings when playing in lower level queues and your loss in points is very minimal, compared to how it was before.

1st: 3 wins
2nd: -1 losses
3rd: -1 losses
4th: -1 losses

I also agree with what they say: Spacebar, Indipendenza and Neoserbian.

- "play to avoid 4th" , it is bad for the good quality of the game.
- Whichever system rating punishes the 4th the most, automatically forms passive opposite in the 4 player stage, and lets their opposite die.
- my proposal punishes the 4th and the 3rd equally.
- the 2nd is not a prize, because it does not gain or lose points.

Daniel, For this reason, I would like you to analyze well before referring to me here. Please see carefully everything I indicated in the previous post. 

Now I even realize that we are not so distant in our opinions and the proposals are not very different, it is something that we all reach a middle point where we can all agree on something, and not continue to be so divided in the opinions in general.

I feel that we can still reach a good consensus.

I understand the idea behind, but I find it bad for several reasons.

a) quite often someone wins simply by chance, because another player throws (even sometimes deliberately, especially in non-anon. games, for instance someone doesn't like someone else, understands that he wouldn't win anymore, plays for 2nd and offers the victory to another player),

b) in this system again the 4th is punished too much and it creates a lot of perverse effects, players play to avoid being 4th.

c) it is true that in your system the difference 2nd/3rd is minimal (that's very good), but the 2nd nevertheless loses not that much and it creates an incentive for playing for 2nd if you see that you can't win anymore... With +3 -1 -1 -1 we don't have this drawback.

d) more importantly: with +4 and -2.25, the ratings would vary a lot, and I do not think that it is good to encourage the volatility and inflation.

e) to some extent, with this +4 (or +5, etc.) you could create an incentive for some naughty players to cheat with the system. Yes they would be unmasked one day necessarily, but in the meantime it would be very damageable for our overall image + for the ratings of the victims. (I've already lost several times many points due to alts for instance, who were 2700 actually but officially 1500-1800, and nobody has ever reimbursed this undue damage).

I think it's good to keep what we have.

But if we had to change absolutely, what would I suggest?

Some postulates first.

a) to punish 4th too much is not good (one may quite often be 4th simply because the opp played terribly and the flanks correctly, it is not normal because the ratings variations should reflect how WE played, not someone else ; in addition it is not good at all for the quality of the game to push players to avoid the 4th at any cost),

b) the difference 2nd/3rd should not exist or should be very narrow, because the 2nd is usually the main loser in fact, who failed in the 2nd stage (of the 3 stages) to play correctly; in addition we shouldn't encourage playing for 2nd both because it's not good sportsmanship and because it makes undue victories, when players throw,

c) the variations shouldn't be too large / ratings too volatile.

That's why I would suggest something like +3 -0.8 -1 -1.2.

Anyway: I've read all, and most players (even those who DO NOT AGREE AT ALL WITH EACH OTHER) are right to some extent. And it is clear that we'll never be able to reach a "perfect system that suits all". 

The only way to solve this difficulty is: "more liberty". 

Let's simply allow the person who launches a game to choose the setting (like today one can choose to launch with this specific time setting, with this or that set-up, with additional rules like en-passant removed, with +40 pts for the mate, etc.). We can let 4-5 options like that (and by default could be again +3 +1 -1 -3, because that's what the beginners and LL players like).

The players will join or not according to their tastes and preferences and principles.

It seems to me that a lot of players who have minimal Teams experience, and don't help or support their opposite often prefer Solo.  Why is that?

4th should always be punished the most, since you're the worst player of the 4.

I fully agree, and I also can quote several games where I was green; made absolutely no mistakes; was 4th; and where the blue rating was much lower than mine, i.e. nobody can say that I was 4th because I was the worst player.

It's a matter of fact that strictly no one can be "3rd or better guaranteed" if his opp plays BS and the flanks know how to play FFA. Quite often regardless of what you do, you simply prolonge the agony and finish 4th anyway. It is not about your ability, it is not about the flanks correct cooperation, it is not about your opp level, it's about the combination of these 3 factors. You may well be 3000, if your opp is 1800 and your flanks are 2300+ and cooperate not even perfectly but just correctly, you're 4th.

This is a starting position issue and the BY position should seriously be considered if they don't wanna go back to Old Standard.   They can't just fix the Solo system, without addressing the starting position as well.

New Standard isn't the optimal setup for FFA, and it's even worse for Teams, since we have very few openings to choose from.  We voiced this opinion loud and clear during the Month long arena prior to the merge, and they implemented it anyway for some unknown reason.

According to Icy, BG had the advantage in Old Standard, while RY were playing to equalize,  the Teams Championships supported this theory.

I agree the starting position is ridiculous however in this game you grab a snapshot out of context. 1.g just play l8 instead and if red goes for the mate blue just sacs a bishop easy game. The issue you raise is a positional issue not a rating system one but you could have played this more accurately. Not to mention you don't even get mated in the game: https://www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/29663152/16/4

Please, I would love to see these games because im willing to bet that you did make plenty of mistakes, but again this is an issue with the position not the rating system.

Regarding the other point ask Rojitto.

It isn't M1 and the fact you think the old scoring system favours blue not saving green just shows your lack of understanding.

Yes, no need to advertise your incompetence more than it currently already is. Maybe you should play again and stop sitting on your rating.

Something the proponents of the solo system in general aren't willing to do.

I still consider myself a new player to 4PC, and Chess in General since I started playing in 2021.  I'm constantly working on improving the holes in my game. When I was stuck at 1900 FFA, I was  getting crushed by my flanks. My solution wasn't to blame the system, but adjust to it, and that's when I started learning Teams. It wasn't long before I breezed through 1900's and beyond after learning how to attack my flanks effectively, and defend against their attacks.

Weren't you just complaining about green in New Standard?  In Old Standard the Queens had to develop in order to create mate threats, BG could defend, equalize and even turn the tables on RY.  This is not the case with the boring and repetitive New Standard.

Then the merge came along, and halted all my progress as I don't play Rapid as much anymore because of the forced Solo system that came with a bad starting position, where you must make forcing moves in the opening or get mated.  Nothing could be more boring than this combination that drove many players away, and until that's fully addressed it won't bring them back.

One last thing, I shouldn't have had to build a website for us to keep playing the game we loved pre-merge.

>According to Icy, BG had the advantage in Old Standard,
This is such obvious nonsense. 57% win rate for RY in old setup. (But of course when icy is blue or green then BG have the advantage...)

New setup has 52.7% win rate for RY. (after about 250k teams games so far)

Maybe you aren't the worst player in a said game, but you also aren't playing mistake-free, if you provided games, I'm sure I could point out places where you could have improved your chances of survival in the 4 player stage.  The point is, good players, even if they occasionally get 4th due to uncontrollable circumstances, will do a much better job at avoiding 4th than others will.

You already made a long-winded forum post about this very position.  I will post the response that I had in a discord conversation with admins:

"I mean, ultimately speaking, any starting position will require at some point your opposite to intervene and work with you if you are ganged up on and want to survive (that is purely the nature of the game). The only difference for omatamix is the immediacy of the help required from blue to green in the opening. As for the specific example mentioned in the link, while there is no guaranteed way to ensure green survives, a skilled player could still maximize their chances of surviving the opening. For example, green could start with 1.l8. While there is the chance of 2.Qxm7+ pass Qxm9# happening, green would be smart to risk that for the short-to-medium term absolute safety that comes with Qm8 next turn. On the flip side, red would have to risk Qxm7+ getting punished by Bxh13+ and besides blue's rating, would have absolutely 0 information to work with to be confident in such a gambit working out. A skilled green player would recognize this and would choose this path as most likely to maximize their survival chances."

This was in response to an admin asking what the defense to such an opening would be.

I could sense a bit of sarcasm in Icy's "opinions". 

How many Teams games were played during the same period last year pre-merge?

Is FFA being played more now than pre-merge?

The Old Standard theory is far more interesting than New Standard could ever be.  It's not like we were RY every game we played, it all balanced out by hitting the Rematch button or playing another game.  We don't see players like Icystun or Illingworth playing this New Standard, why do you think that is?

just take the queen blue can check he's not doing anything wrong

Well, simply by the response from Space, we see one of the fundamental problems here. When speaking about the set-up (and about the disbalance), in most cases participants presume that FFA=Teams for that. But I am sorry, it's a prejudice. It's not guaranteed AT ALL that the "best"/"the least worst"/"the optimised" set-up would be the same in Teams and in FFA.

Also, for the zillionth time: it's not only about the balance. I fully believe the admins when they say that the new set-up is more balanced. But we also must think about the variety of openings possible, about the predictability of the first moves, about the imagination and freedom to play this or that, about the drama and suspense and fascination. It is very clear that the new set-up is MUCH MORE BORING and obliges to play some specific moves, especially for BG (unless RY are incompetent). From my perspective, ANY set-up, even the most balanced ever, is to be rejected if there are less than 10 potential openings playable.