Player Ratings

Player Ratings

Backgammon is a game of skill, and it’s much more fun when games are evenly matched. So, to help you play against opponents of a similar level of experience and to ensure player skill level is accounted for when points are assigned, we’ve developed a system of player ratings. Player rating makes picking games with other players of similar abilities easier and also means that points are assigned more fairly.

Your player rating changes according to the outcome of each single game or match you play – if you win a game your rating goes up and if you lose it will go down. However, three more important factors influence your player rating and points score: the current rating of both players, match length and your experience.

Match Length

The longer the match, the more points you win, because it takes more skill to win a long game. For example, a two-point match would be worth twice as much as a one-point match.

Points are awarded according to the length of the match agreed upon when the invitation to play was accepted, and not the final score. In other words, a five-point match will always count for five in both the rating and experience calculations, regardless of the final score.

Player Experience

The PartyGammon.net player rating system is based on the Internet backgammon standard – FIBS. This system takes the rating of both players, match length, game outcome and your experience into account when calculating your new rating after a single game or match; defeat by an opponent who has a better rating than you will cost you fewer points than if the match had been against an equal or lower ranked player.

The FIBS system considers a player to be experienced when they have played 400 games. If you have 400 games or more, your experience will not affect the ratings calculation. If you have less than 400 games of experience, then you will gain points each time you win a match. You gain more points the lower your level of experience, as explained in the table below:

Games Played Number of Points Won
400 and above 1
300 2
200 3
100 4
0 5

This means that when you are a new player your rating is very volatile, and will go up and down a lot.