How Handicap Ratings Work
Bath Table Tennis League rates every player from the scorecards they actually play — so cup handicaps are fair, and every player can see exactly why their number moved.
Why this exists
A handicap is only fair if it comes from real evidence. The old way — a committee guessing a number at the start of the season — means a player who improves is punished for a year, and a player who is quietly very good keeps an easy draw.
These ratings are computed from every rubber on every submitted match card, and they react to how close each match actually was. That last part is the important one: a rivalry decided on deuce sets barely moves either player, because neither proved they are the stronger. A comfortable win moves the needle properly.
Your rating comes from this league's results and nothing else. National ratings are never used, because a handicap should reflect how players actually fare against each other here — not how they are rated somewhere else.
How your rating moves
1. Start from your league level
You start from your own ranking-points tally in this league, rescaled so a division's worth of difference equals 100 rating points. Nobody starts at zero, and a Premier player starts well above a Division 3 player.
2. Weight the evidence
Each rubber counts for how convincing it was — the set score and the points in each set. Winning a set 11-1 counts far more than winning it 12-10.
3. Recent form counts most
Results inside the last 18 months count in full. Older results fade rather than being deleted, so the rating reflects the player you are now.
Real examples from this league
These are actual rubbers already rated in this league — the same maths applies to yours.
A convincing win
Charlie Callus v John Laidler
4-11, 5-11, 3-11
counted for 100% of a full movement
+9
1065 → 1075
John Laidler v Charlie Callus
4-11, 5-11, 3-11
counted for 100% of a full movement
-9
913 → 904
Lee Phillips v John Laidler
6-11, 0-11, 6-11
counted for 100% of a full movement
+10
1061 → 1071
A close, deuce-set battle
Stephen Richardson v Oliver Sharratt-Chan
12-10, 8-11, 11-8, 9-11, 11-8
counted for 21% of a full movement
+3
1145 → 1148
Shunxuan Chen v Nigel dagger
13-11, 7-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-9
counted for 21% of a full movement
+3
946 → 949
Martyn Le Butt v Albert Bolhuis & Philip Irwin-Brown (doubles)
11-7, 11-8, 11-13, 8-11, 11-13
counted for 22% of a full movement
+2
956 → 959
Notice the difference: a comfortable win moves a rating several times further than a five-set scrap decided on deuce points. That is deliberate — a close match tells us very little about who is stronger.
The exact formula
For each rubber, the change to your rating is:
Because every rubber is scored as a mirror image — your gain is your opponent's loss — the total across the league always balances. Nobody's rating is inflated by someone else's.
New players carry a “provisional” badge
Until you have played 20 rubbers your rating is still settling, so your profile shows a
How this becomes a handicap start
In a cup or a championship event that starts from ratings, the start you receive is the gap between your rating and your opponent's, multiplied by 0.15 and rounded to whole points. So a 100-point gap — exactly one division — becomes a start of 15 points. The start always goes to the lower-rated player, and it is worked out from the two players actually drawn against each other — not fixed for the whole competition.
A start is a number of points, so it only means something alongside the length of the game: this league's handicap cups are played up to 21, and every start is scaled to match. Championship Handicap Singles can be played to 11 or to 21, and the starts in that event are scaled to whichever the committee has chosen — so the same rating gap is worth roughly twice as many points at 21-up as at 11-up.
A cup can use its own factor or its own scoring format if the committee prefers, and the committee can always override an individual tie — in a cup or a championship. The ratings are the starting point, never the final word.
Every movement is traceable
Open any player's profile and you will see their full rating history — every rubber, the set scores it was based on, the weight it carried, and the points it moved. Each entry links straight back to the match card, so you can check the working yourself. Nothing about your rating is hidden.