Rating Question ... Huge Drop After 1st Loss?

So I invited my girlfriend to play chess on FaceBook ... and subsequently defeated her in her very first game.

Now, the question I have is this: why did her 1200 rating (as a new player) drop to 1009 after only one match?

The match earned me +7 to my rating I think ... but I'm curious to know why such a substantial drop would occur in a new players' rating? When I lost my first match that didn't happen ...

Can anyone explain?

Thanks in advance. :)

Ratings are complex. As a new player, she is subject to more fluctuation since the site doesn't know her strength. It also depends on how many games you have played and how accurate your rating is. See http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-ratings---how-they-work for all of the gory details. The way I see it, you have to play at least 10 games before your rating starts to stabilize.

I understand that the rating's system is complex, but a 191 point drop after your very first match? That seems ... well, pretty wrong.

From my understanding, since she's a beginner and lost her very first game, the rating system will assume she's not very good and immediately drop her rating to where it should be (no offense to your girlfriend). It's better than her having to lose 25 games to get the rating to match her strength. On the flip side, if she starts winning games, it will get her points up high really fast until it all stabilizes out.

I think it also depends on who you lose to. If she loses her first game to a 1500 level player her score would drop less appreciably.  She loses to an 1100 level player and they assume she's worse than an 1100 and her score drops appreciably.  Your rank is 1164, and she lost to you, so it's a safe bet she's worse than you and her score change will reflect that.  If she beats you next it will go back up considerably, but not beyond 1200.  If she beats a 1500 level player next, then it will really jump.

The starting RD is 350 so very large fluctuations can occur. Losing the first game is good. If not she would have the opposite problem, that you have, of a highest rating statistic achieved in the first days on the site. This also triggers complaints in the forums. 

Thank-you for the all the help and advice ... it's not so much of a complaint about the ratings system, but her extreme drop in rating really stumped me when, after playing chess online for a couple years now and having more than my fair share of losses, I couldn't provide her with a valid explanation as to why it happened.