How Ratings Work: Starting at 1200
A 1200 start does not mean everyone plays the same. Here is the rating algorithm behind YiBoard: the expected-score formula, the real numbers behind rating gain and loss, why a new account climbs faster, and how the score converts to grades and dans.
Every new YiBoard account opens at 1200, Sixth Grade. Play a handful of games and the number moves in ways that look arbitrary: beat someone rated 200 above you and you pick up twenty-something points, beat someone 200 below and you get change. That is not noise. One rating algorithm runs every ranked game, and all it does is ask what you were supposed to score given the gap between the two of you. Read the formula once and you know where your title came from. The rules sit on the how-to page, and the side-by-side sits in Grades and Dans vs ELO.
The expected score, in one line
The math has two halves. First it works out what you were likely to get, then it bills you for the difference between that and what you got. The first half is the expected score: E = 1 / (1 + 10 ^ ((opponent - you) / 400)). Equal ratings give E = 0.5, nobody gets an edge. Face someone 200 points higher and E falls to about 0.24, meaning you were expected to win fewer than one game in four.
The second half produces the number you watch: new = old + K * (result - E). A win counts as 1, a loss as 0, so winning pays K * (1 - E) and losing costs K * E. Lower expected score means a bigger reward when you win and a smaller bill when you lose. That is the whole origin of beating stronger players being worth more. No daily bonuses, no multipliers hiding behind it.
Rating gain and loss against three opponents
- Opponent rated 200 above you: E = 0.24. Win +24, lose -8.
- Opponent rated the same as you: E = 0.50. Win +16, lose -16.
- Opponent rated 200 below you: E = 0.76. Win +8, lose -24.
- All figures assume K = 32, rounded to whole points. Every extra 200-point gap pushes E further toward whichever end it was heading.
- The numbers match how it feels. Against someone you cannot beat, losing costs almost nothing. Against someone you should beat, winning pays almost nothing.
Why new accounts climb faster: the K value
K sets how far a single game can move you. YiBoard holds it at 32. The exception is your first ten games, which run at K = 64, doubling every swing. That is not a welcome gift. Your 1200 start is a guess, and a large K burns the error off quickly, at the cost of a jittery first evening. What you get in return is opponents that fit you from game eleven onward.
Then K drops back to 32 and the numbers settle. Moving up one full dan takes a dozen-odd net wins. Slow on purpose: two lucky wins in a row should not hand you a new title.
How the score becomes a grade or dan
The score is continuous; the grade is a tick mark on top of it. Grades step every 50 points, dans every 100, and the two bands meet at 1500:
- Below 1050: Ninth Grade
- Around 1150: Seventh Grade
- 1200: Sixth Grade, where every new account begins
- Around 1300: Fourth Grade
- Around 1400: Second Grade
- Around 1450: First Grade
- 1500: First Dan
- Above 1500 each dan costs another 100 points; 2300 and up is Ninth Dan
The conversion runs after every game, so the title never drifts from the number. The flip side is that a gap between Fourth Dan and First Dan can sit unchanged across two hundred games. Nothing is stuck; that distance is what the results support.
Why farming the ladder pays nothing here
Elo-like systems share two holes: accounts feeding each other, and matches nobody refereed. YiBoard closes the second one by validating every move server-side, so you cannot script yourself a result. Repeat games between the same two accounts then get decayed, which flattens the return on playing one opponent fifty times.
The plainest defense is the gap penalty itself. Pushing a smurf upward needs a high-rated target, and when that target loses to a low-rated account it drops exactly the points it hurts most to lose. Nothing here decides whether you played seriously. It just stops the cost and the payoff from lining up.
FAQ
How many points does a win actually add?
It depends on the gap. At K = 32, beating someone rated the same as you adds 16. Beating someone 200 points higher adds about 24. Beating someone 200 points lower adds about 8.
Do losses cost the same?
No. Winning against a stronger player pays 24 and losing to that same player costs 8. You pay against your expected score, so the more you were supposed to win, the more a loss costs.
How long does the provisional period last, and do I drop back after?
Ten games at K = 64, there to pull that 1200 estimate toward your real level fast. Then it returns to K = 32 and the same rules apply. Nothing rolls back when it ends, and nothing is clawed back later.
Reading your rating is more useful than watching it. Every ranked game on yiboardgame.com runs this same code, and the play page opens one in your browser with no sign-up and no queue. The leaderboard shows who currently sits on top. Two earlier posts fill in the rest: Where the Ladder Comes From covers the names, and Evaluation Functions covers what happens inside a position.