Fencer: I do not like this idea Fencer, even though I would personally benefit from it. In Dark Chess there's not a lot of long time players in it as compared to more popular games, such as Backgammon. I have long series of games with a few of my opponents here. With a few exceptions I am rated a lot more than they are. When I lose a game as I did to reza today I lose 14 or so points. Had I won that game, I would only have gain 1 rating point. We've played 12 games against each other. Yes, his first win after 11 defeats, but if you do as you've proposed I would then gain 0 points from winning the game. Not much difference, right? But look what happens to him, he gets 0 also instead of the prize of 14 for winning against the top rated player. And what about when I play grenv? It doesn't seem fair to both of us to get no rating points for winning a game that either of us should have earned, but are denied them because we've had a long series of games against each other. This is the wrong approach to solving this "problem" which is mainly created by people attribtuing some sort of value to a more or less meaningless number. Why are you guys so worked up about people cheating the system? If you catch them doing it, throw them off the site. As for what to do about their inflated rating, can't you just toggle the games to act as if they were created as unrated ones? Just how prevelant is this cheating problem? As far as I know, I've never played anyone involved with this kind of scheme. Even if I did, they have to win their games when they play me. I rarely resign a game and almost always turn down a draw offer unless a draw is what it's going to be.

If the ratings are this much trouble, I'd like to not have a rating. Could you do that? I just want to play the games. Keeping track of my wins and losses is more than enough for me. I think the ratings are near useless and are making lots more trouble than any slight benefit they might bring.

Also, just because I win every game doesn't mean I'm cheating or trying to get more ratings points. It could actually mean that I'm the better player. So I win 20 games in a row. How does that make me a cheater? I'm not following this line of reasoning at all. Am I supposed to lose on purpose so that I can keep a veneer of respectability about my record? Oh, that's right, losing on purpose is against the user agreement. What can I do?