Talk:Elo rating system/@comment-41.218.172.95-20110225023000/@comment-3358335-20110225225405

The ranking goes for all automatching games, but it is only visible for Ranked games.

In regular Automatched normal games it is used to try and keep games of equal caliber. The evidence of this is the streakiness of the games. You ussually win a bunch in a row, then lose a bunch in a row while your overall win/loss ratio is about 50% +/- 10%.

The reason that you are losing can be because a) You have now playing against players who's caliber is high enough to know how to counter your usual tricks. b) You have gotten matched up with 1 or two people that have managed to get carried to this level. Or most likely 3) The game was pretty evenly matched the other team managed to capitilize on a few mistakes or players out of position which caused waves of repercussions later in the game. Just so happened that you had a few of those in a row, because statistically it is more likely than not.