Tiddlywinks game score predictor

This utility is intended to solve the problem of predicting the result of an unplayed game based on other games which have been played.

Why

For example, in a tournament, team A may forfeit against team B but not against team C. While team A would conventionally get 0 points for the forfeit, granting team B 7 points would have an unfair effect on the relationship between teams B and C: team B would have been advantaged relative to team C by an action of team A which is unrelated to the winking ability of any of the teams. By predicting the game result in assigning a tournament total to team B, team C is treated more fairly. Predicting the scores means that actual game results still stand, so other games which have taken place can still be used to compare other teams.

What

The utility calculates a tournament rating — only relative ratings matter, so you don't need absolute values, and the ability to enter an initial rating is only really to make the results seem familiar. It does this naïvely by incrementally refining this to match the games which have been played, in a similar manner to the official ratings; the ratings are then used to predict the results of any unplayed games. Note that you will not be warned if there is no relationship between the players in a predicted game (if player 1 played only player 2, and player 3 played only player 4, there's no way to infer how player 1 and player 4 will compare). As such, the expectation is that most games will have actually been played, and only a few need to be predicted in order to fill out a score table.

How

To use: Add players and fill in names (and, if you like, initial ratings — only the relative ratings matter, although the average rating is preserved, and there's no 1320 lower limit; players in the latest ratings on ETwA.org have their rating filled in automagically, if spelled correctly). Then create and fill in the games. (Pot outs are irrelevant for prediction, other than their effect on the score; daggers are excluded for brevity and because probably other discussions need to be had in those cases.) If you do not enter a score, the game result will be predicted. The lower player of each team within a game can be left blank to indicate the upper player is playing singles (which is equivalent to both players being the same); the game is ignored if either upper player is blank. Press "Predict" to make score prediction (and rating calculation) happen.

If

This should not be taken as authoritative compared with the true Rantings (for example it ignores RRF and the error function is quite approximated); it's also as polished as one might expect for something occasionally used by tournament organisers rather than the general public.

Players

PlayerInitial ratingPredicted rating

Games