GLICKO - BOOST Deloitte / FIDE Chess Rating Challenge

The rating system I entered into the Deloitte/FIDE Chess Rating Challenge, the “Glicko-boost” system, is a substantial extension of the Glicko system. The Glicko system (Glickman, 1999) is a rating system I invented in the mid-1990s in which each player is characterized at any time by two parameters: a rating, and a “ratings deviation” (RD). The RD, the main innovation of the Glicko system, is a measure of the uncertainty in a player’s rating. The greater a player’s RD, the more uncertainty exists about the player’s ability. The implication for rating updates is that players with large RDs typically incur large rating changes, and opponents of players with large RDs tend not to be impacted much by the game results against such players. The Glicko system has been in wide use on various chess servers, online gaming systems, as well as for non-gaming applications.