How Handicap Ratings Work
Bristol & District 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.
What's my start?
Pick any two players in this league to preview the handicap a cup or championship draw would give them — the same maths, from the same ratings. The match always starts 0-0: the net is written on the stronger player's side as a ledger.
Choose both players to see the start.
Still on committee numbers?
A cup that has not moved to ratings works exactly as the league cards do. A negative number gives points away, a positive number receives them — and the two never cancel: the plus pre-loads on the scoreboard while the minus carries a ledger, so the full distance between the numbers counts.
scoreboard starts 0-+2 · the -29 player wins 29 to level · total swing 31
Scoreboard
0-+2Opponent starts 2-0
Ledger
Ali -29total swing 31
The ledger is a note the player must clear, never a score loaded against them — the board itself never goes below 0-0.
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
Nigel Pedley v Tony Clothier
11-1, 11-5, 11-2 · Nigel Pedley's scores first
counted for 100% of a full movement
-16
1050 → 1034
Tony Clothier v Nigel Pedley
11-1, 11-5, 11-2 · Tony Clothier's scores first
counted for 100% of a full movement
+16
1050 → 1066
Chi Leung Stanley Cheung v Pete Sainsbury
11-4, 11-9, 11-2 · Chi Leung Stanley Cheung's scores first
counted for 100% of a full movement
-13
750 → 737
A close, deuce-set battle
Luke Raymond v David Goacher & Oscar Watkins (doubles)
12-10, 9-11, 12-10, 9-11, 12-10 · Luke Raymond's scores first
counted for 16% of a full movement
+2
881 → 882
Peter Harrington v David Goacher & Oscar Watkins (doubles)
12-10, 9-11, 12-10, 9-11, 12-10 · Peter Harrington's scores first
counted for 16% of a full movement
+2
882 → 884
Alan Anstey v Aron Shamash
11-8, 10-12, 10-12, 11-9, 13-11 · Alan Anstey's scores first
counted for 18% of a full movement
+3
850 → 853
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 net
In a cup or a championship event that starts from ratings, the net is the gap between your rating and your opponent's, multiplied by 0.035 and rounded to whole points. So a 100-point gap — exactly one division — becomes a net of 4. The match still starts 0-0: the net is written on the stronger player's side as a ledger, so they must win those points to reach level, and from there it is first to 21 as normal.
A net 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 net is scaled to match. Championship Handicap Singles can be played to 11 or to 21, and the nets 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 very lopsided tie can produce a net beyond 70% of the game. That is flagged for committee review rather than trimmed: because the ledger keeps the score at 0-0, the figure stays perfectly playable, so it is a prompt to look again rather than a limit. 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.
Where to find your numbers
Everything below is public — no login needed, and nothing is hidden behind the committee.
Your league ranking and averages
Games and sets won, win rate, current streak and where you sit in your division.
Open Player AveragesYour handicap rating, and every movement behind it
The number itself, whether it is still provisional, and the rubber-by-rubber history that built it — each entry linked back to the match card.
Find yourself on Player AveragesHandicap starts in real competitions
Cup and championship draws show the start for each tie, worked out from the two players actually drawn against each other.
Open CupsAny pairing, previewed
Use the calculator at the top of this page to see the start you would get against anyone in the league — before the draw is made.