I once read some lines about this, but only as a side-topic in a discussion about general Elo if I remember it correctly.
Sometimes it can feel that your point differences in wins are larger 90% of the time than when you lose.
I have had streaks of four consecutive close 2nds in 6 nimmt by under 6 points maybe, followed by wins of more than 30. Or streaks where every Dragonheart I would lose was within 0-10 points. Same holds for Color Pop (<2 points in comparison to not seldomly >5 points in wins) or Stone Age.
So while if you take into account the sheer points collected over some specific period, you could arrive at an exact draw, while in a really bad spell the actual result could nevertheless look like 1-9 to your disadvantage. That's naturally an outlier, but against players of similar level anything but impossible. Namely if you consider the points as primary, it's indeed accurate that they are very close, but the distribution among games can be random/arbitrary. If could befall that your luck and ability concentrates on 1 of 10 games, so that your gap would be maybe +18, while in the others -1, -2, -4, -7... If you could manipulate the results, you would substract 17 points from your win and distribute it that way that you get maximum outcome from the remaining series, so you add +2 to the -1 = +1 = closest win, and so on.
Normally you can assess an average gap by the difference of skill in players involved, and the actual results will in theory describe a bell curve around that gap. The unfairness comes into play when it's expected that your (rare) losses will always contain very small margins, and a heavy number of your wins very high ones. That's for example when you take something with 600 vs. 150 or something, and in a game that mainly is based on skill, but can also consist of random elements that can lead to heavy imbalance (again Stone Age could be an example: how do the dice fall, who gets those early farms, tools by shop cards? Who sees the best cards first at average so the first move is a bigger advanatge? And particularly devastating can be, in whose round that mighty 1-7 hut pops up at the end, when many resources are involved?). This way, winning a lot of games by 80 or more points against someone while losing the odd by less 10 points doesn't sound unrealistic.
Besides the claimed fairness, another essential upside for me is that there is less frustration/hopelessness at early foreseeable losses. You would make an effort to reach the best possible result. The undifferentiated yes/no (win/loss) is omitted in favor of a continuum, just as the point tally represents a continuum (if you exclude the games that end with 1-0 in any case, mostly abstracts presumably).
So the consequence is that the Elo calculation would be more accurate and the matches more engaging (less perception of 'it's over anyway, when can I finally resign') even when they seem to be decided.
Sometimes it can feel that your point differences in wins are larger 90% of the time than when you lose.
I have had streaks of four consecutive close 2nds in 6 nimmt by under 6 points maybe, followed by wins of more than 30. Or streaks where every Dragonheart I would lose was within 0-10 points. Same holds for Color Pop (<2 points in comparison to not seldomly >5 points in wins) or Stone Age.
So while if you take into account the sheer points collected over some specific period, you could arrive at an exact draw, while in a really bad spell the actual result could nevertheless look like 1-9 to your disadvantage. That's naturally an outlier, but against players of similar level anything but impossible. Namely if you consider the points as primary, it's indeed accurate that they are very close, but the distribution among games can be random/arbitrary. If could befall that your luck and ability concentrates on 1 of 10 games, so that your gap would be maybe +18, while in the others -1, -2, -4, -7... If you could manipulate the results, you would substract 17 points from your win and distribute it that way that you get maximum outcome from the remaining series, so you add +2 to the -1 = +1 = closest win, and so on.
Normally you can assess an average gap by the difference of skill in players involved, and the actual results will in theory describe a bell curve around that gap. The unfairness comes into play when it's expected that your (rare) losses will always contain very small margins, and a heavy number of your wins very high ones. That's for example when you take something with 600 vs. 150 or something, and in a game that mainly is based on skill, but can also consist of random elements that can lead to heavy imbalance (again Stone Age could be an example: how do the dice fall, who gets those early farms, tools by shop cards? Who sees the best cards first at average so the first move is a bigger advanatge? And particularly devastating can be, in whose round that mighty 1-7 hut pops up at the end, when many resources are involved?). This way, winning a lot of games by 80 or more points against someone while losing the odd by less 10 points doesn't sound unrealistic.
Besides the claimed fairness, another essential upside for me is that there is less frustration/hopelessness at early foreseeable losses. You would make an effort to reach the best possible result. The undifferentiated yes/no (win/loss) is omitted in favor of a continuum, just as the point tally represents a continuum (if you exclude the games that end with 1-0 in any case, mostly abstracts presumably).
So the consequence is that the Elo calculation would be more accurate and the matches more engaging (less perception of 'it's over anyway, when can I finally resign') even when they seem to be decided.
