Do you need to hammer your weaker opponent to maintain your level?

In the world of SquashLevels, there is a misconception that better players must hammer their lesser opponents in order to maintain their rating, however, this is simply not the case. In fact, the algorithm automatically takes the difference in playing level between players into account and actually expects the better player to take it easy on their lesser opponent. They won’t lose any level at all unless they play a whole lot lower level than that – and even then, they won’t lose much.

The lower level player, however, has much to gain. The system already expects the better to be playing down so if they can do better than expected – with the better player playing down – then they actually have a chance of increasing their level!

The misconception that better players must hammer their lesser opponents to not drop their rating on SquashLevels is simply not true. The algorithm includes behavioural modelling and has been built to account for these playing level differences which is how we provide such accurate ratings for players.