Level Change Simulator — why your number moved
Set the four levels, say how settled your rating is and how the match went, and this estimates how far a level system would move you — and why the move is that size. A new rating shifts roughly three and a half times as far as a settled one on the same result. It is a model, not any platform’s algorithm: every constant is printed here, because no booking app publishes its own.
Your side
Systems of this kind hold a confidence figure alongside your level and use it to damp the change. A new account moves several times as far as a settled one on the same result.
The other pair
The result
- A win can barely move you. The model only pays for the part of the result it did not already expect. Beat a pair it had you beating and there is almost no surprise left to price, so the number hardly twitches. That is the mechanism working, not a fault.
- A clear loss as the favorite takes the most. Confidence is what makes a correction expensive. The system was sure, the court disagreed, and it cuts hardest exactly where it was most certain — which is why the worst nights are the ones you were supposed to win comfortably.
- Low reliability swings both ways. A new rating is allowed to move several times as far, because the system is still guessing at you. Once it is established the same match barely registers — the number gets stable and stubborn at the same time.
This is a model of how questionnaire-seeded, reliability-damped level systems behave — not any platform’s private algorithm. No booking app publishes its formula, so this page uses its own constants (a 0.075 base step, a reliability multiplier of 1.6, 1.0 or 0.45, and a margin multiplier of 0.75 or 1.2), prints them, and shows a range rather than pretending to a decimal it cannot know. If your app moved you by a different amount, your app is right about itself.
The band name in the explanation — club regular, strong club — comes from the same approximate level map the level test and the converter on this site use. No official conversions exist between level systems, so treat it as a description of how a pair plays, never as a translation of anyone’s number.
How the model works
This is a model of how questionnaire-seeded, reliability-damped level systems behave. It is not any platform's algorithm, because no platform publishes one — and every constant it uses is printed here so you can argue with it.
Your side's level is the mean of you and your partner; the other side's is the mean of the two opponents. The expected result is 1 ÷ (1 + 10 ^ ((opponents − you) ÷ 0.86)), which is the Elo curve moved onto a level scale. The 0.86 is the level-scale analogue of Elo's 400: if 0.1 of a level behaves like roughly 40 rating points then a whole level is roughly Elo's reference gap, and dividing by 0.86 rather than 1.0 makes the curve slightly steeper, which is closer to how these systems price a half-level mismatch.
The change is then base × reliability × margin × (result − expected), with result 1 for a win and 0 for a loss. Base is 0.075 of a level. Reliability is 1.6 for a new rating, 1.0 for a settling one and 0.45 for an established one — a new account moves roughly three and a half times as far as a settled one on the identical result, which is the single biggest reason two people can play the same match and see different-sized changes. Margin is 0.75 for a close result and 1.2 for a clear one.
The answer is deliberately shown as a range, from 0.7 to 1.3 times that figure, rather than a single decimal. The real systems are private; printing one number to two decimal places would claim knowledge this page does not have. Base, reliability, margin, the spread and the 0.86 are all our figures, chosen to reproduce the behaviour these systems visibly have. None of them is published anywhere, by anybody, including us until now.
Where this comes from
- How the Playtomic level system works Playtomic player help centre
- The Glicko system — rating uncertainty, and why a new rating should move further Mark E. Glickman, Harvard University
Rivals is not affiliated with any padel federation and nothing here is coached, reviewed or official. Where a number is our own judgement rather than a published figure, the note above says so and cites nothing. Method last checked 21 August 2026.
Why your level moved that far
Two mechanisms explain almost every “why did it move like that” complaint, and neither of them is a conspiracy. The first is the team average: these systems rate the pair, not the person, so a night where a strong partner carried you against a weak pair can leave your number flat or lower even though you played well. The second is expectation — you are paid for the difference between what happened and what the system already believed would happen, which is why a comfortable win over a weaker pair is worth almost nothing.
The third mechanism is damping, and it is the one people notice last. Platforms like Playtomic describe a reliability percentage that damps changes as you play more — the lower the percentage, the more your level moves on a single result (their help center sets this out). A new account is allowed to swing because the estimate is a guess; a settled one hardly moves, because it is defending an estimate with evidence behind it.
The arithmetic on this page is Elo’s, rescaled for levels: 0.1 of a level behaves like roughly 40 rating points, so a whole level is roughly the 400-point reference gap Elo uses, and the expectation curve here divides the level gap by 0.86 instead of 1.0 to sit slightly steeper. That is a modelling choice, printed openly so you can disagree with it — which is more than any platform offers about its own.
Questions
Why did my padel level drop after a win?
Why does a new account swing so much?
Can I raise my level by beating weaker players?
Is this the real algorithm?
How is a crew-local rating different?
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A rating your crew fully understands
Rivals shows the whole calculation for every match: the expectation, the margin, and the exact points each of the four players moved. No hidden reliability figure, no algorithm to argue with.
Free for a crew of four. Nothing inside is metered.