igormally

That worked. Thanks jillybean.

For some reason when I type :-) it is not converted into a smiley even though I have the emoticons option set in my profile. Anyone know why this might be ?

In my experience there is very little dispute in chess about ratings. It is the accepted measure of any player's skill. The other widely used measures are the titles such as International Master or Grandmaster and ratings are also the basis for gaining one of these titles. Those titles are awarded based on achieving a minimum result in several tournaments. The minimum result needed is calculated based on the strength of the opposition as determined by the ratings of the opponents.

Has anyone ever considered creating an ELO rating system for bridge similar to that used in chess ? Some info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system There are more variables to consider but I would have thought some such system could be built particularly for an online environment where all the comparison data is readily available.