ELO

[PoorOldSpike]

Here's an interesting ELO story- I was a member of the German  Wargame Players Club some years ago which only used the ELO system, I was at the top of their CM ladder for a while but later slipped way down because I'd been taking a layoff.
But then I began my comeback and issued challenges to the top ten players, but none of them would play me!
I asked the club Boss why not, and he said- "They're afraid to play you because they're high-ranked and you're low-ranked, so they know that if you win they'll lose a huge amount of ELO ladder points and they'll drop like a stone down the ladder, whereas you'll get a huge amount of ELO points and will rocket up the ladder past them"

Also, they knew that even if they beat me, they'd only score a tiny amount of ELO points because I was low-ranked, so they'd decided it just wasn't worth their time and effort playing against me.
The maths the club used in their ELO system was very severe and some members were complaining about it, but whether they've tweaked the maths since then to improve it I don't know because I left the club a while back.