Experts who appear as beginners

[King Hrothbeort]

Sometimes I have encountered players who play as experts but on BGA are labelled as beginners. Clearly this happens when expert players first join BGA and start playing here the game they have become expert in somewhere else. It could also be that players who have become expert here have created a second account here, I hope this isn't the case.

[T72on1]

Hi,

It seems to me that you are right in the possible reasons why someone is playing as an expert but is labelled a beginner here.

My question though: why are you posting this? Should something be done about it?

[King Hrothbeort]

I am posting mostly for the sake of discussion. I can't think of a good solution to stop the inappropriate behavior without impact to the other, but maybe someone else will have ideas I haven't thought of. I know some people care a lot more about ELO than I do, and find it frustrating to be beaten by an expert player and lose ELO points as if they had been beaten by a beginner, I must admit I find it somewhat frustrating myself.

[Yorgad]

Rank only reflects one's account experience, not the physical person using it. Depending on the game it may take some time to climb the ladder, nothing wrong here IMO.
If you're a beginner playing against a "false" beginner, well just call it a day and learn from it.
If you're a good player playing against a "false" beginner excpecting an easy game, then it's on you, sorry. To avoid that restrict your game to players with the same level as yours.
Honestly ELO is overrated, hopefully you won't care so much about it over time.

Now I've heard of some exploits in ARENA where good players would create alt account in order to snipe current leaders points more efficiently, by taking advantage of the matchmaking limits (which pair players from different leagues), I don't know if it's still a thing knowing BGA is working on improving the match-making algorithm.

On a side note multiple accounts is not forbidden on BGA to my knowledge. What's forbidden is to use multiple account to self boost ranking.

Cheers,
Y.

[T72on1]

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

I agree that it can be frustrating to loose like that if you are a high ELO player and loose a lot of points that way. But that can be avoided by restricting access to your games in most cases. Exceptions are arena and tournament games.

In other cases I don't see much harm. Good players in real life have to start their BGA career somewhere, right?

[robinzig]

Likely the most common reason for this is people who have played the physical board game a lot but only just joined BGA.

I don't think anything can be done about it, other than hope the ELO system is sufficiently sensitive to allow those players to reach their true level quickly. The only alternative I can think of would be asking all players to "self-rate" themselves for every game they play for the first time, but I don't think that's a good idea - it would require a huge update from BGA and would be very open to abuse (human nature says that even those not actively seeking to abuse the system will likely rate themselves as "experts" when actually very average, etc.)

[Silene]

Likely the most common reason for this is people who have played the physical board game a lot but only just joined BGA.

I don't think anything can be done about it, other than hope the ELO system is sufficiently sensitive to allow those players to reach their true level quickly. The only alternative I can think of would be asking all players to "self-rate" themselves for every game they play for the first time, but I don't think that's a good idea - it would require a huge update from BGA and would be very open to abuse (human nature says that even those not actively seeking to abuse the system will likely rate themselves as "experts" when actually very average, etc.)

I think self-rate is a nice idea. Maybe not to full extent, but for deciding whether to start at 0 or 300 (maybe 200 for more luck-based games). But yeah, that would be an extreme change. Also you can't give them the higher K-factor in the beginning then.

Another, milder, option would be to reduce K-factor for the higher-ranked player temporarily for games where they play someone who has a high K-factor - so that a loss won't hurt as much.

[King Hrothbeort]

I think the self rating idea could be used for players to decide whether to start at beginner ELO = 0, or apprentice ELO = 1, this shouldn't mess with higher ELO rankings and could distinguish between "I have never played this game as far as I remember" and "I have played this game and understand the basics".

[Silene]

I think the self rating idea could be used for players to decide whether to start at beginner ELO = 0, or apprentice ELO = 1, this shouldn't mess with higher ELO rankings and could distinguish between "I have never played this game as far as I remember" and "I have played this game and understand the basics".

Does it make a difference for you whether someone has 1 or 0 ELO?

[ufm]

I think the self rating idea could be used for players to decide whether to start at beginner ELO = 0, or apprentice ELO = 1, this shouldn't mess with higher ELO rankings and could distinguish between "I have never played this game as far as I remember" and "I have played this game and understand the basics".

Does it make a difference for you whether someone has 1 or 0 ELO?

Unless to join a table which allows/disallows beginners, then NO.