Patent ID: 8538910

Claim:
A method comprising: determining an indication of the relative skill of at least a first player and a second player of a game based at least in part on the outcome of one or more such games involving those players via operations comprising: (i) for each player, accessing statistics describing a probability distribution associated with belief about skill of that player; (ii) receiving information about the outcome of one of the games, the information comprising, for at least one player; ordered ranking information that indicates a relative finishing order of the players according to rules of the game and indicates performance for the player; and an indication of a length of time that the at least one player participated in the one of the games, the length of time being less than a total game time of the one of the games, the statistics for the at least one player being updated on the basis of the indication, the one of the games triggering a single update of the relative skill of the plurality of players participating in the one of the games, the single update including an update of the ranking of the at least one player based on the updated statistics; and (iii) forming a factor graph comprising nodes, said graph being formed using the received information about the outcome, and instantiating at least some of the nodes with the statistics; and updating the statistics associated with each player by using message passing techniques over the factor graph such that, for each player, the probability distribution indicating the belief about the skill of the player becomes based at least in part on the outcome of the game.