Board Game Arena

I have seen some players who play only against beginner players and have their ELO which keep growing above 500.
It's seems like an exploit of the ELO principle.
The gain should be 0 if the difference between players is too high.

The larger the gap the closer to 0 the ELO gain will be. Between a 500 player and 0 player the ELO gain is 1.
It seems like a pretty risky way to climb personally. Sure, you're going to win most of your games. But one loss will cost you 20 ELO. And you have no real way of knowing how much a "beginner" has played in real life or on another account.

It works for a player who is in the top 25 so it seems not too risky. It is more simple if you win 0 if the difference between the two players is too high ( 300 between two ELO is a big step ).

It works for a single player in the top 25?

I mean, if they are comfortably beating random people at a rate of more than 20:1 then they are probably skilled enough to be a top 100 player anyway. Maybe it's inflating their rating a bit? The downside is they have to play 10x as many games to climb if that is all they are doing.

I wouldn't say the exploiter is smart in any way. I have ELO > 500 and just barely won an arena game against someone with ELO around 100. And I only earned 2pts. It's not worth it.

skrohmagnon wrote: ↑21 September 2022, 17:07 It works for a player who is in the top 25 so it seems not too risky. It is more simple if you win 0 if the difference between the two players is too high ( 300 between two ELO is a big step ).

You can't see the 20 other players who were around top 25 and tried the same thing and did NOT succeed . Just because 1 player managed to do it doesn't prove the system wrong. ELO is changing all the time, and you'll have ups and downs. So this player is on an up (but also probably a strong player). Down will come eventually.

Hello
I play a lot Res Arcana, I'm now in the top 30, sometimes "only" in top 50... I don't choose my opponent, it's open to everyone.
And most of my opponents are beginner ! So you could think I'm playing the strategy you describe, but it's not a choice ! I accept every challenger, and I'm proud of it : when a was a beginner, I was extremly happy when I had the chance to play against a strong player !
And when I win against a beginner, I win 0 ELO. I've just won against a player with 150 ELO, and I paid attention to the points I won in order to post it there : I won 1 ELO point... If I had lost (and it's very possible to lose against a 150 ELO !) I think I had lost about... 20 pts ?
So the strategy you describe doesn't seem very efficient...

when i Search for opponents, i say that it' s a game for persons beginner to middle because it is my level...
and i lost 4 times when I win 1 time... LOL

I really think it is fine now, since if the beginner is lucky, he or she could increase a lot of ELO while the "top" player would lose very much. Sometimes, the beginner has played the game offline, so it may be a fair game.