From the FAQ Section of the Ladder:
https://www.theblitz.club/ladders/faq.php
Q:What is the ELO ranking and how does it rate players on the ladder?
A: In the world of Chess there is a rating system called ELO, which we have modeled here at the Blitz as a way of showing the relative strengths of ladder players. In brief, the rating system awards points to winners (and subtract points from losers) of games based on the relative strengths of the players before the match. Thus, a strong player beating a weaker player will gain fewer points than if the weaker player had beaten the stronger player. The bigger the starting difference, the fewer points at stake. Everyone starts with 2000 points and moves up/down from there.
I must emphasize that this is a auxiliary measure, the most important measure (and thus the default ordering of the ladders) is the total number of points amassed, as the Blitz exists to bring players together to play and discuss.
That being said, you may take greater pleasure in competing well against a player with a higher ELO rating than you.
The code for our implementation is below. The one change that I have made to the chess version is a take (a very rough) account of level of victory. The next addition would be a point swing reduction for games including novice players (who start at 2000 points, but most likely do not warrant that higher a rating as beginners). The final change that I will make is to add a factor for the balance of the game (most likely a mixture of Win/Loss and player reported balance)
function ELO_Calc($p1_rank, $p2_rank, $victory_level, $result) { // ELO variables for // rank_inc = K * ( S - 1 / (1 + power(10, -(Rp-Rc)/alpha)) // adjust S based on win level and K and alpha based on newbie status. $K = 40; $alpha = 400; $S = 1; $pw_rank=$p1_rank; $pl_rank=$p2_rank; if ($victory_level == 2) { $S = 0.5; if ($p1_rank>$p2_rank) { $pw_rank=$p2_rank; $pl_rank=$p1_rank; } else { $pw_rank=$p1_rank; $pl_rank=$p2_rank; } } if ($victory_level == 3) { $pw_rank=$p2_rank; $pl_rank=$p1_rank; } if (($result==7) or ($result==) { $S = 0.75; } $rank_inc = $K*($S-1/(1+POW(10,-(($pw_rank-$pl_rank)/$alpha)))); if ($victory_level == 3) $rank_inc = 0-$rank_inc; return $rank_inc; }