How much difference does the ramp up make?
Here is an example. Bert and Ernie play a series of one-point matches. They both start with a rating of 1500. Bert is a better player and wins 2/3 of the matches they play, so Bert’s rating goes up while Ernie’s goes down. Their true rating difference should be 600 points. Let’s see how long it takes to get there. The first chart below shows how the ratings change when no ramp up is used. You can see that it takes over 1000 matches to achieve the 600-point rating difference. The second chart shows the ratings change when a ramp-up is used. Now the players reach their expected 600-point rating difference in less than 300 matches.
