nobleheart: Ah, but wins-losses-ties are kept track of on this site. It's Your Turn (IYT) does it by winning percentage only, or at least they did when I used to play on that site. In Dark Chess on IYT I am over 95% in side games and tournament games. That sure sounds great, don't it? The thing is, who are my opponents and how well have they done against others? I did well in Keryo Pente on IYT too, but when I played certain people it was obvious I was not in their league. Some of those people only played players as good as they or near so. They had a lower winning percentage than I did, but they were, with no argument from me, better players than I. This is what a rating is for. Anybody can win every game if there's no luck in the game played and they are the better player. Games like Chess, Checkers, Atomic Chess, Extinction Chess, and Keryo Pente have no luck in them. Games like Dark Chess, Crazy Screen Chess, Backgammon, Poker, Bridge, and Battleboats have varying amounts of luck in them. As good or as experienced as I might be at Dark Chess, I have had players who have just learned game defeat me. It's a game that you can outsmart yourself in or fall into traps of your own imagination, let alone what your opponent might be cooking up.

All the same, the amount of luck in Dark Chess is a lot less than the amount of luck in Backgammon. This is the whole point about the ratings. The few of us that play Dark Chess aren't complaining about the rating system used here for Dark Chess, though I think it could be better, it is those of us that play Backgammon that have a problem with how this rating system works. Going strictly by winning percentage won't really tell you too much except to tell you who wins most of their games. This is already kept track of on this site and it is a chart that I try to stay on. If I never played Backgammon, I'd be doing real well on this chart, by the way. :)