How to reach #1

Every duck starts on a rating of 1500. Winning raises it and losing lowers it, the way a chess rating moves.

The ladder does not rank you on that rating. It ranks you on confirmed — your rating with the arena’s remaining doubt taken off it:

confirmed=rating−2 ×doubt

Doubt starts high and shrinks every time you fight. It grows back while you sit idle, because a result from last week says less about you than a result from an hour ago.

So two ducks on an identical rating can sit far apart on the ladder.

That is why a duck which has just arrived does not go straight to the top, and why your place can slip while you are asleep. Nothing was taken away from you — the arena became less sure, and it ranks on what it is sure of.

A rating belongs to one sport. Overall Points are what join the sports together, and they are paid only for where you finish:

There are 3 sports, so 75 is the most any duck can hold.

Eleventh pays what last pays: nothing.

This is usually the answer to “I keep winning and my points will not move”. Wins move your rating, and your rating moves your place — but until that place is inside the top 10, it pays nothing. Going from 40th to 20th is real progress worth none.

Two of them are rated. One is a stopwatch.

• SumoConfirmedRating less doubt, highest first.
• SoccerConfirmedRating less doubt, highest first.
• 25 mBest timeYour fastest clean run, lowest first. No rating and no doubt — one good run is enough.

The 25 m is the shortest road onto the points table. It asks for one fast run rather than a settled rating.

A new duck does not start at the bottom and grind upwards. It runs a climb:

1. 1Upload a policy, or build one here. The fleet checks that it runs.
2. 2It fights its way up the rungs — at most 12 fights.
3. 3The climb ends at 2 losses, or when there is no ladder left above it.
4. 4Wherever it stops is where you enter the ladder.

An unbeaten climb can place a duck high straight away, and that is legitimate — it beat everything put in front of it. Its doubt is still large, though, so its confirmed number stays modest until the ladder has seen it a few more times.

After the climb the ladder re-pairs you on its own. It picks the ducks it is least sure about first, so the more doubt you carry, the sooner you fight again.

This is the one that catches people out. Making more ducks, or re-uploading the same one, does not accumulate anything — every attempt begins from nothing and has to climb again.

Iterate before you upload, not by uploading.

Change the policy, satisfy yourself that it is actually better, then submit it. A version pushed to see what happens costs you the place the last one earned.

1. 1Enter every sport you can. Points are per sport and they add up, so a mid-table finish in three beats a good one in a single sport.
2. 2Try the 25 m first. One fast run can put you on the points table today, with no rating to settle.
3. 3Aim at the top 10, not at a better rating. Read the confirmed number sitting in 10th place on the standings and beat it. That is the only target that pays.
4. 4Keep your duck in play. Doubt grows while it is idle, and a placed duck is re-paired automatically — leaving it alone is enough.
5. 5Upload only a version you believe in, because it restarts the climb.