Matma, I hope this clears things up:

points before flagging 2 possible points left for each player:
A: 1
B: 3.5
C: 4

After flagging at this point:
A: 1 (placed 3rd)
B: 4.5 (placed 2nd)
C: 6 (placed 1st)

elongating the game so that A wins and C loses:

A: 3 (placed 1st)
B: 4.5 (placed 2nd)
C: 4 (placed 3rd)

ELO is calculated based on expected score vs actual score. If you want to know the number of points put the expected score, (3 for each player since they all have 1500 rating), and the actual score into the ELO equation to get the real score.

As you can see above after A and B manipulating the game C still has 4 points. Higher than expected and will still gain points. No matter what A and B do these points can't be taken away.

"Tech, you seem to enjoy fiddling about with the English language a lot. Of course, creative writing should be encouraged, but this isn't perhaps the place for that. A text doesn't have to be overly complicated to look smart. But don't take offense, as your posts are generally very interesting from a linguistic point of view. Just out of curiosity, what is your first language?

(And yes, I'm actually working on an analysis on contemporary "international english", so that's why I'm interested in such a "boring" subject... Sorry for going so very far off-topic)"

Heh, *shrug* Just how I type I guess. That's what happens when you read lots of books, no? Actually, English is my first language, I moved to Luxembourg from Michigan.

(Now I went and gave away part of my mystique. :p)

Does Average Size == CONNECTED territories or TOTAL territories?

As far as i know total no. of territories.

In response to Sandy's scenario - and I posted about this in another thread - what if you ignore a change in places for the x and y rounds and just look at it like this:

round x
A: 10
B: 8
C: 7

round y
A: 15
B: 9
C: 1

Will the dominance points be different if, like Sandy said, B refuses to flag at x until C is further decreased. Or is it the same since the relative sizes stay the same.

We need the current algorithm.
Then we can better evaluate these type of situations and know exactly what to expect.

Given the following scenario:

All players 1500

Three players left:

Alice 15
Bob 14
Cindy 1

Assuming they *started the game* with these areas, what AS score would they have after:

1 turn.
5 turns.
10 turns.
25 turns.
100 turns.

Assume no areas change hands.

There is no need for he algorithm. Why? People are considered to play and to try different tactics. So again: You should dominate, not count points.

Great, here comes the flood of Alice/Bob/Cindy problems :)

thanks algios.

Everyone stop trying to analyze things and just play. Forget rating until you get an intuitive feel for it.