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Dashboard > TopCoder Competitions > ... > Algorithm Support & FAQs > Algorithm Competition Rating System
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Algorithm Competition Rating System
Added by rsial2 , last edited by ntrefz on Jan 04, 2008  (view change)
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The following statistics are kept about each coder:

  • Rating
  • Volatility
  • Number of times previously rated

Before competing, new members ratings are provisional.

After a competition the algorithm below is applied to the competitors. First, the ratings of members who have previously competed are calculated, with new members' performances not considered. Second, new members are given a rating based on their performance relative to everyone in the competition.

A coder's handle is color-coded depending on their rating within the Competition Arena


How ratings are calculated

New ratings are calculated as follows:

After each competition, each coder who attended the competition is re-rated according to the following algorithm. For Algorithm Competitions, keep in mind that only coders who shared the same problem set are rated against one another. For Marathon Matches, a coder is considered to have attended the event is they make a submission of any kind (example or full). Only registering for the event will not cause the coder to be rated. The average rating of everyone in the competition is calculated:


Where NumCoders is the number of coders in the competition and Rating is the rating without the volatility of the coder in the competition before the competition.

The competition factor is calculated:



Where Volatility is the volatility of the coder in the competition before the competition.

Win Probability Estimation Algorithm:



Where Rating1 & Vol1 are the rating and volatility of the coder being compared to, and Rating2 & Vol2 are the rating and volatility of the coder whose win probability is being calculated. Erf is the "error function".

The probability of the coder getting a higher score than another coder in the competition (WPi for i from 1 to NumCoders) is estimated. The expected rank of the coder is calculated:

The expected performance of the coder is calculated:



Where is the inverse of the standard normal function.

The actual performance of each coder is calculated:



Where ARank is the actual rank of the coder in the competition based on score (1 for first place, NumCoders forlast). If the coder tied with another coder, the rank is the average of the positions covered by the tied coders.

The performed as rating of the coder is calculated:

The weight of the competition for the coder is calculated:


Where TimesPlayed is the number of times the coder has been rated before.
To stabilize the higher rated members, the Weight of members whose rating is between 2000 and 2500 is decreased 10% and the Weight of members whose rating is over 2500 is decreased 20%.

A cap is calculated:


 

The new volatility of the coder is calculated:


 

The new rating of the coder is calculated:


If |NewRating - Rating| > Cap the NewRating is adjusted so it is at most Cap different than Rating.

I suggest to make the images bigger, I can't read well some of them

Posted by fixman at Dec 13, 2007 13:36

It would be nice to have the formula to compute score from time and maximum score for a problem on this page.

Posted by dskloet at Feb 09, 2008 14:17

Its impossible, since you need to know the scores of other people. But, you can get something like that on http://mb.bzium.org:898/TC_Utils2/TC_Utils.exe?ofunc=5&conid=12008.

Posted by fixman at Mar 22, 2008 18:09

Not impossible. What you score on a problem only depends on the time you took to do it, the maximum score for a problem (when you submit after 0 seconds) and the length of the contest.

Posted by mishastassen at Apr 11, 2008 10:30

I have read this article carefully and I still don't know how the rating is calculated.

Could you provide some more information on that? E.g. I've got, let's say, n points of n_max, where n << n_max. Where can I find a list of factors which result in such and not other number? I suppose it's an individual matter for each problem, but some general framework would be very useful for newbies like me.

Posted by gajatko at Mar 23, 2008 09:00