I love this new rating system because it frees me from having to decide how good a game is, which is a subjective judgment anyway, and lets me focus on how much it makes me want to play it, which much more concrete and useful at the same time. For instance, I can rate Ra 4 and Go only 2+ without having to worry about slighting such a deep, subtle, elegant, and history-steeped game. If these ratings were “poor”/”awful” to “great” and I had to rate Ra an A+ and Go a C, I wouldn’t feel right doing that.

In related news, after my second play, Coliseum gets a 2+. Frustrations: It’s not very apparent how how well you do in the early rounds helps your final score; you can’t do very well unless you sit down near the beginning and think about your complete 5-turn plan; and relatedly, there’s a lot of potential for analysis paralysis, not only regarding your score but also other players’ scores and when it’s safe and unsafe to trade with them.