IPSC ELO rating

An Elo based rating system for IPSC

About IPSC ELO rating

Using IPSC match results from level 3 matches and above, all shooters with a minimum of 3 match results for a IPSC division in our database will recieve an Elo rating relative to all the other shooters performances.

Elo rating systems in general estimate the skills of players participating in a common activity. The specific Elo-MMR algorithm we use is designed for activities in which moderate to large numbers of players are ranked at competitive events, and results cannot be standardized across different events because each event features novel challenges, such as in obstacle course races, rock climbing, and academic olympiads, or the contestants are evaluated relative to others at the same event, perhaps by a panel of judges with some degree of subjectivity, as in competitive ballroom, figure skating, and gymnastics. Just like in IPSC.

In these settings, it's often useful to quantify how good a player is. Ratings could be used to track a player's progress over a training programme, set motivational objectives, predict likely champions, create invitational beginner-only or expert-only events, or select top ranked players for a regional or national team. Two properties of Elo-MMR make it particularly well-suited to these aims:

The main challenge of doing this in the IPSC world is accumulating and processing the match data. There is no standard in the different scoring system software products, which mostly produce some form of PDF file that are hard to read back into a database. There is also no global and public unique ID for a IPSC shooter, so matching the names in a match result to the database is a very fuzzy thing to do, and therefore error prone. However, we try to match shooter first-names, last-names and region the best we can from match results with our database. If you consistently sign up in matches with exactly the same name, we will find and match your data much better.

Also, we are sadly not perfect, just like the data we recieve. We might shoot a mike here or there in matching shooter names, or in getting all the match data. Please be gentle, don't DQ us, because an error in the Elo rating is not a safety violation, even when feelings might get a little hurt sometimes. Just contact us to help us fix errors, or support us with sending in match results. If you want to support this effort otherwise, please also contact us direclty!

Questions and Answers

The site and the rating algorithm are operational. Further refinements and user interface changes are being developed and released.

The Elo-MMR rating algorithm is settling in with the given matchdata now, and the rating placemnts of shooters should be as accurate as this rating system allows it to be.

We have 2-4 years of matches in our database and rating now, depending on region and data availability. We will still be adding old matches for regions where we have not yet gotten any results. Please assist us by sending any missing matches. The more match data we have, the more accurate the ratings will be.

Shooter ratings will change when older match results are added, as more shooters form new regions will enter the ratings. After we stop adding old match results and new regions, ratings will only change when a new match has been added, as it should be.

As a tip: The regional rating in your country should be much more stable, so use the filters to check and compare your rating timelines with other shooters from your region.

Yes and no.

  • No, because the best IPSC shooters are determined by the IPSC World Shoot, held every 3 years. (Check the results of the last one in Thailand here)
  • Yes, because the IPSC Elo rating also reflects everything that happens in between IPSC World Shoots (which is a lot!).
  • Yes, because the IPSC Elo rating is rating shooters for their performace over time in relation to all the other shooters, recalculted "live" after every newly added match, not by the performance of a shooter in a single match.
  • Yes, because the IPSC Elo rating reflects almost all IPSC shooters, not only IPSC World Shoot participants.
  • No, because this is not a official site and rating of the International Practical Shooting Confederation.
  • No, because we don't have all the worldwide match results available for us to include in the rating.
  • Yes, because we, together with the shooters and stats officials who send in match results do our best to get as many matches into the system as we can. And this gives us the unique ability to have a worldwide rating sytem and to show that this Argentinian IPSC shooter is about as good as this Czech and this Thai and this Australian one.

So you decide!

Usually after a new match has been entered. You can see if the match has been processed by the Elo algorithm by the checkmark in the match list.

You can subscribe to our RSS feed with your favorite RSS reader. The feed will keep you informed whenever a new IPSC Elo rating has been calculated, and which matches have been addad into the database.

You can also check our Site news page for updates.

Ratings are always determined by your placement in a match relative to other ranked shooters. If you finish ahead of a shooter who is ranked higher than you, your rating will increase. Conversely, if you finish behind someone ranked lower, your rating will decrease.

For more detailed information about the Elo rating system, please refer to the section further down on this page.

To improve your rating you have to compete, and beat the shooter(s) ranked above you.

We get our data from publicly available match result data, that has been published openly on the internet.

Yes! We have added all these IPSC match types to the ratings. There is way less available match data and division participation in these match types. If you have more data, please send it in, and help to create a more accurate rating.

No, we were just sad seeing it disappear. Since IPSC is such a competitive and stats-driven sport, a rating system is a much needed and fun thing for us shooters to have!

We don't have nearly as much historical match data, and also the rating system we use might be a bit different. Also, we try to include a broarder and more complete set of match results and therefor more shooters in our rating.

  • To be included in the rating you must have competed in matches for which we have gotten and processed the match results.
    We include matches from level 3 and up in our ratings.
  • You have to have competed in at least 3 matches in a division at level 3 matches to be included in the ratings. This is to get a good and solid rating of you as a shooter when you first enter the ratings.
  • If you participated in high level events (level 4 and level 5 matches) you will be immediately included in the ratings.
  • Level 4 and 5 matches are weighted more heavily in the ratings to reflect their importance.
  • All match results that are in or database will be processed in the ratings. However, if you stop competing, you will be dropped from the rankings 4 years after the last match you competed at. This timespan of 4 years should include two IPSC World Shoot events, and also many continental level 4 matches so top shooters should be represented well in the ratings.
  • A rating is done for each match IPSC type (Handgun, Rifle, PCC, ...) and each division of these match types. Therefor shooters can have multiple Elo ratings, one per division.
  • 0% and 0.0000 points match results are not included in the rating, as these are most often shooters which were not present and did not compete in the match but still are listed in the official results.

You probably are a revolver shooter (lone gunman) and alone in the revolver category (or any category) in this match. Although you made 1.st place and 100%, there is nothing and nobody in this competition to compere against, so a rating can't be done. This is also true if you are the only ranked shooter in a division.

Yes! If you find yourself in the ratings after the minimum of 3 match results in a division, go to your rating / profile view and look for the button in the bottom.

You can then enter you email adress and all your profile data. We will manually activate your profile the first time you create it to avoid false profile registrations. You will get notified by email when your profile has been activated. Afterwards, you can always change your profile yourself by requesting a edit link to you email adress by again pressing the button in your profile view.

Yes! First of all, you can create and manage your shooter profile by using the button in your rating / profile view.

We have also added some direct links, allowing you to jump right to the important information. Watch out for the buttons above the elo division ranking tables, in the match results division tables and in the shooter info dialog. You can directly link and jump to all of those. Pressing the buttons will copy the link to your clipboard.

All filters are stored in this link as well, so you can create browser bookmarks from the copied link to quickly get to your custom filtered view.

You can also use these links in your Instagram story, Facebook post, WahtsApp message to your local IPSC group or on your Homepage.

The best way is to send us links to regional IPSC websites where matches and their results are listed regularly. This is the easiest for us to keep up with.

If you send in match results by mail to matchresults@ipscelo.com, please include the following data:

  • Match name
  • Match date
  • Match location, Shooting Range (Google maps link would be perfect)
  • Link to result website, or PDF file of result with the match overall division results included

Thank you for your help!

Your profile image, and your gun images should at best be square or landscape, and at least 1024x1024 pixels in size.

You can upload a gun image for each division you compete in. The image will be shown in your division rankings.

If you don't have or don't want to post a picture of yourself, how about posting a profile image of your cool custom IPSC jersey?

Images must be below 2 MB, and allowed image formats are: jpg, png, gif and webp

Of course! Any help, comment or suggestion is very much appreciated. You can send in match results, report incorrect data or help out otherwise. Just contact us!

The Elo class system

What are Elo classes (short: EClass ), why do they exist, and how are they calculated?

We got quite a few requests from shooters to implement a class system based on the rating data that we have. We have got the Elo rating points, but having a system that devides them into blocks of skill levels that one can recognize more easily, talk about better and also aspire to, makes a lot of sense. What would be the next best thing to shooting standardized qualifier stages for direct shooter comparison, which are not held and aren't even available worldwide? What would a good approach be, given the amount and type of data we have?

After giving it some thought, we came up with a somehow familiar but quite different approach to a class based system:

So our Elo classes are much more long term in scope. This is in our view the most accurate representation of a shooters accumulated skill, and at the same time taking into consideration the experience of shooters formerly at the top of the ratings.

There are other approaches to class systems like using match percentages of the last 3 or 5 matches, but we feel that they are way more inaccurate and dependant on match participation of more skilled or more lower skilled shooters. Also shooters formerly M or GM class will loose the class in such systems quite quickly that way, but they are in our view still experienced members and masters of the sport.

You can view the Elo class as a "earn to keep it" system. Once you achieve a class you generally keep it until you either achieve a higher class or drop out of the ratings due to inactivity. At the same time the Elo points and rank will still reflect the shooters current skill level in the ratings. The other way to lose a class level is, if the percentiles required for a class level change due to their dynamically calculated nature, but this should be generally quite stable due to the normal distribution of shooters skills.

Achieving a rank/class through shooting standardized qualifier stages with a good comparison system behind it, is a good way to measure short term skill, quite motivating for shooters to improve by training such stages, and is by no means discouraged or discredited by our approach. We just took a longer term view and approach with the performace data that we have availbale derived from match results of the shooters.

We also acknowledge that this is yet another class system, but please be aware that other class systems are not available worldwide, hard to get into, or have a very different way of defining the shooters performance. This is why we called our system "Elo class" oder "EClass" to make it clear this is something different.

The Elo class levels

Following are the calculated percentiles and minimum needed Elo ratings for all IPSC divisions and Elo classes.

More information about the Elo rating system

Thanks

We want to thank the whole IPSC family for being such a good and welcoming community!

Special thanks go out to:

Contact

Are you ready?

Steffen Burmeistersteffen@ipscelo.com (website- and stage-planning)
Sabine Rennersabine@ipscelo.com (data-, socialmedia- and recoil-management)

Send match results, name- or category corrections to: matchresults@ipscelo.com
Please send us links to regional IPSC websites, where matches and their results are listed regularly. This is the easiest for us to keep up with.

If you send in match results, please include the following data:
  • Match name
  • Match date
  • Match location, Shooting Range (Google maps link would be perfect)
  • Link to result website, or PDF of result with all the overall division results included
Thank you for your help!