Board Game Arena

understood. I believe they meant that any checkers you could bear off would impact the number of points you lose, (as opposed to being the primary calculation for the plus / minus points) - but if the ELO only cares about win/loss (not by how much) then I will consider this an urban myth and try and communicate that to the player - thanks.

I don't think I'd call it an "urban myth." It seems to be a misunderstanding. If does affect the ending score of the game. So either one of the two of you is mixing up between "score" and "points", or the person who told you that is just wrong. I don't call one person being incorrect an urban myth.