Elo Ratings in Games Other Than Chess
American Collegiate Football uses the Elo method as a portion of its Bowl Championship Series rating systems. Jeff Sagarin of USA Today publishes team rankings for most American sports, including Elo system ratings for College Football. The NCAA uses his Elo ratings as part of a formula to determine the annual participants in the College Football National Championship Game.
National Scrabble organizations compute normally-distributed Elo ratings except in the United Kingdom, where a different system is used. The North American Scrabble Players Association has the largest rated population of active members, numbering about 2,000 as of early 2011. Lexulous also uses the Elo system.
The popular First Internet Backgammon Server calculates ratings based on a modified Elo system. New players are assigned a rating of 1500, with the best humans and bots rating over 2000. The same formula has been adopted by several other backgammon sites, such as Play65, DailyGammon, GoldToken and VogClub. VogClub sets a new player's rating at 1600.
The European Go Federation adopted an Elo based rating system initially pioneered by the Czech Go Federation. The Groshin's Score an Elo based game.
In other sports, individuals maintain rankings based on the Elo algorithm. These are usually unofficial, not endorsed by the sport's governing body. The World Football Elo Ratings rank national teams in men's football. In 2006, Elo ratings were adapted for Major League Baseball teams by Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus. Based on this adaptation, Baseball Prospectus also makes Elo-based Monte Carlo simulations of the odds of whether teams will make the playoffs. Glenn O'Brien publishes rankings using several rating systems, including variants of the Elo rating system. One of the few Elo-based rankings endorsed by a sport's governing body is the FIFA Women's World Rankings, based on a simplified version of the Elo algorithm, which FIFA uses as its official ranking system for national teams in women's football.
Sports-reference.com uses the Elo rating system to rate the best professional players in basketball, football, baseball (batters and pitchers rated separately), and hockey (goalies and skaters rated separately). The list changes constantly, but as of 19 July 2012, the number 1's are Magic Johnson, Johnny Unitas, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Mario Lemieux, and Jacques Plante.
The English Korfball Association rated teams based on Elo ratings, to determine handicaps for their cup competition for the 2011/12 season.
Rugbyleagueratings.com uses the Elo rating system to rank international and club rugby league teams. As of 1 July 2012, Melbourne are rated best in Australia's NRL; Wigan are rated best in Europe's Super League.
Various online games use Elo ratings for player-versus-player rankings. In Guild Wars, Elo ratings are used to record guild rating gained and lost through Guild versus Guild battles, which are two-team fights. The initial K-value was 30, but was changed to 5 in January 2007, then changed to 15 in July 2009. World of Warcraft formerly used the Elo Rating system when teaming up and comparing Arena players, but now uses a system similar to Microsoft's TrueSkill. The MOBA game League of Legends uses an elo rating system as well. The game Puzzle Pirates uses the Elo rating system as well to determine the standings in the various puzzles. Also Roblox introduced the Elo rating in 2010. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive also uses the Elo rating.
Despite questions of the appropriateness of using the Elo system to rate games in which luck is a factor, trading-card game manufacturers often use Elo ratings for their organized play efforts. The DCI (formerly Duelists' Convocation International) used Elo ratings for tournaments of Magic: The Gathering and other Wizards of the Coast games. However, the DCI abandoned this system in 2012 in favour of a new cumulative system of "Planeswalker Points", chiefly because of the above-noted concern that Elo encourages highly rated players to avoid playing to "protect their rating". Pokémon USA uses the Elo system to rank its TCG organized play competitors. Prizes for the top players in various regions included holidays and world championships invites until the 2011-2012 season, where awards were based on a system of Championship Points, their rationale being the same as the DCI's for Magic: The Gathering. Similarly, Decipher, Inc. used the Elo system for its ranked games such as Star Trek Customizable Card Game and Star Wars Customizable Card Game.
Moreover, online judge sites are also using Elo rating system or its derivatives. For example, TopCoder is using a modified version based on normal distribution, while Codeforces is using another version based on logistic distribution.
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Famous quotes containing the words games and/or chess:
“Criticism occupies the lowest place in the literary hierarchy: as regards form, almost always; and as regards moral value, incontestably. It comes after rhyming games and acrostics, which at least require a certain inventiveness.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
“It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world—if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn’t mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should like to be a Queen, best.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)