Finally, the inaugural LMI Puzzle Ratings are up. You can also reach the ratings from the home page, by clicking on Puzzle under Ratings.

A total of 359 players from 40 countries are included in the inaugural LMI Puzzle rating list. Apart from India, the top five countries in terms of number of participating players are USA, Germany, Japan, Poland and UK. The LMI puzzle ratings will be updated next in mid-December 2010.

Its a neck and neck race for the No 1 spot between Thomas Snyder (motris) and Hideaki Jo (deu). Ulrich Voigt (uvo) is currently ranked third. The top 10 is dominated by the Germans and the Japanese, occupying 8 of the 10 places.

Amit Sowani, Rohan Rao and Rajesh Kumar are the top 3 Indians in the list, and the only ones in the Top 50.

You can check out the LMI Sudoku Ratings page now. Arrows are now included to indicate the change in rank (from previous rating list). The exact changes in the ranks and ratings are explicitly indicated as well.

Looks good. May be an explanation of what the arrows indicate?
It looks like a jump of 10+ ranks is indicated by Up arrow.

You are right. The arrows are largely self explanatory. As of now, we have used five arrows in three colours to indicate the changes in ranks, as below:

- The green arrow indicates that the player is on the up, and has made major gains (10+) in the ranks as compared to last ranking list.
- This arrow indicates that the player has made minor gains in ranks (1-9).
- The right blue arrows indicate that there is no change in the rank.
- This arrow indiates that the player has dropped 1-9 ranks.
- The red arrow indicates that the player has dropped 10+ ranks.

It's great !

This is cool Rakesh!

Thanks for explaining.
So there is no 'major' jump (in either direction) in top20.
But I would think that cpickerel and willwc cases are significant jumps.
The point i'm trying to make is a jump of 5 ranks in top20 or jump of 10 ranks in top50 or a jump of 20 ranks in top100 should be considered as major.

Jump or Drop you mean :)

Blue is my favourite colour, so I wanted more of blue .
Actually, with the current thumb-rule, it is less likely that we'll see a green or red arrow in Top 20.

I think you meant a drop for cpickerel. Thanks Rishi.
But you have got a very valid point here. Since you want to see a more colourful rating list, we can definitely think of a context based definition of 'major'. Lets have more views on this and we can refine this further.

Yes - I used jump for both the directions. drop is the correct word.

Change would be the best word since drop only signifies a downword trend :D

As some of you have already noticed, the LMI Puzzle Ratings have now been updated after the two recent puzzle tests - LMI Screen Test 1 and Puzzles & Chess.

A total of 223 players from 36 countries find a place in the ratings, including 43 new players. Players who have missed the three most recent puzzle tests have not been included in the rating list.

Apart from India, there are 10+ players from USA, Germany, Japan, UK and Poland on the rating list.

The top 3 are now separated by only 20 points, comfortably ahead of the next 3.

Another Observation....
In top 10 all players have played 5 or more tests out of 8 rated. This shows playing consistently will keep u high in the rating..........

The rating system is really cool, thanks for doing this. One issue though, on both 'change' columns, when you sort by that column, it doesn't quite sort correctly. For instance all numbers starting with 1, whether it's 1 digit, 2 digits, or 3 digits are all grouped together. (it sorta goes 1, 10, 100, 11, 110, 111)...

The sorting works the way it does because of the square brackets around the numbers.
Rakesh, any reason why the numbers have to be bracketed?

The square brackets are not necessary. They can be done away with, if that helps in sorting on the 'Change' column.

The LMI Sudoku Ratings are now updated after the December test. Overall, 258 players from 41 countries are included in the rating list now.

The LMI Puzzle Ratings have now been updated after Puzzle Jackpot.

A total of 236 players from 38 countries find a place in the ratings, including 11 re-entries and 19 new players. Players who have missed the three most recent puzzle tests have not been included in the rating list.

The Top 6 remain the same. motris continues to lead the ratings at 996. The highest gainer has been Alberto who gained 186 points. Amongst the Top 50, pixl has been the highest gainer, gaining 151 points. The highest ranked new player is Valezius at #99.

The LMI Sudoku Ratings have now been updated after the January Monthly Sudoku Test "Prime Exotica".
A total of 268 players are included in the current rating list, including 31 new players and 7 re-entries.

Thomas consolidated his #1 position with a top performance, and remains the only one with a four digit rating. Rishi lost 34 points but remained in 2nd position.

None of the Top 10 gained any rating points. WaterlooMathie was the only new name (re-entry) in the Top 20 at #16. David McNeill gained 17 rating points to move up to #15. Fred76, who tested Prime Exotica, gained 2 ranks as others around him lost a few rating points.

TiiT is the highest ranked new player at #71. Valezius gained 50 ranks to move to #70. In the Top 50, jonm, karin and Psyho were the major gainers.

The LMI Sudoku Ratings have now been updated after the February Monthly Sudoku Test "Double Delight". A total of 231 players are included in the current rating list.

The Top 3:
1. motris - 997
2. purifire - 913
3. jaku111 - 911

WaterlooMathie, the Double Delight winner, continued his rise with a gain of 60 points and 3 ranks. TiiT and bskbri were the two biggest gainers in the Top 100.

Top 3 from India:
1. purifire - 913
2. Rohan rao - 860
3. gauravkorde - 676

Overall, 37 countries are represented in the ratings. A distribution of the countries with the maximum rated participants is shown below:

I notice I'm missing from the rankings now. (I think I've done only one test since November.) How do you determine whether someone is 'active' or not? How long before you get removed?

If you miss three consecutive tests then your name is temporarily dropped from the ratings. You will again enter in the list as soon as you play another test.
Sudoku tests / ratings and Puzzle tests /ratings are totally different entities....and are not mixed together.

Further if you have missed two consecutive tests then you will be shown as N... which is an indication that your name will be dropped in the next list if you dont play the next test.

Hope to see you back in the next ratings update. All your previous scores WILL be considered while calculating the new ratings.

Awesome, thanks. Maybe now I'll have the motivation to do better!