TEAM MATCHING

• US 20070265718A1
• Filed: 11/17/2006
• Published: 11/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Graepel, Thore, Herbrich, Ralf
• Granted Patent: US 7,846,024 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/91
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/32 for games, toys, sports, or amusements
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3276 wherein the players compete, e.g. tournament

Abstract

Players in a gaming environment, particularly, electronic on-line gaming environments, may be scored relative to each other or to a predetermined scoring system. The scoring of each player may be based on the outcomes of games between players who compete against each other in one or more teams of one or more players. Each player'"'"'s score may be represented as a distribution over potential scores which may indicate a confidence level in the distribution representing the player'"'"'s score. The score distribution for each player may be modeled with a Gaussian distribution and may be determined through a Bayesian inference algorithm. The scoring may be used to track a player'"'"'s progress and/or standing within the gaming environment, used in a leaderboard indication of rank, and/or may be used to match players with each other in a future game. The matching of one or more teams in a potential game may be evaluated using a match quality threshold which indicates a measure of expected match quality that can be related to the probability distribution over game outcomes.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

a) receiving a first score including a first mean and a first variance representing a distribution associated with a first team;

b) receiving a second score including a second mean and a second variance representing a distribution associated with a second team;

c) determining a quality of a match between the first team and the second team based at least on at least one of a group comprising the first mean, the first variance, the second mean, and the second variance;

d) determining a match quality threshold;

e) matching the first team with the second team based on comparison of the quality of a match and the match quality threshold; and

f) providing an indication of the match to the first team and/or the second team.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining the first score including the first mean and the first variance from a plurality of player means and a plurality of player variances, each player mean and player variance being associated with one of a plurality of players of the first team.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a quality of a match includes determining a probability of a draw between the first team and the second team.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining the probability of a draw includes removing a dependence of a fixed draw margin from the probability of a draw and the probability of a draw is based at least on a fixed latent score variation parameter.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein determining the match quality threshold includes determining a probability of a draw based at least on a score mean difference of approximately zero, a score variance of approximately 2 times an initialized value of variance, and the fixed latent score variation parameter.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein determining the match quality threshold includes determining probability of a draw based at least on a difference between the first mean and the second mean, a score variance of approximately zero, and the fixed latent score variation parameter.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying the second team based on a range comparison of the first mean, second mean, the first variance, and the second variance.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the range comparison includes determining if the first mean is less than a sum of the second mean μ

_B and a square root of a logarithm of an inverse of the draw quality measure q* less the second variance

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the range comparison includes determining if the first mean is greater than a difference between the second mean μ

_B and a square root of a logarithm of an inverse of the draw quality measure q* and the second variance

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the range comparison includes determining if the first variance σ

^A is less than a difference between an inverse of the draw quality measure q* and the second variance

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a score estimate of at least one player of the first team based on a difference between the first mean and a conservative level indicator multiplied by a square root of the first variance.

12. One or more computer readable media including at least one computer storage media, the one or more computer readable media containing computer readable instructions that, when implemented, perform a method comprising:

a) receiving a first score of a player on a first team, the first score including a first mean and a first variance;

b) receiving a second score of a player on a second team, the second score including a second mean and a second variance;

c) determining an expected score gap between the first team and the second team;

d) matching the first team with the second team based on a comparison of the expected score gap and a match quality threshold; and

e) providing an indication of the match to the first team and/or the second team.

13. The computer readable media of claim 12, wherein determining the expected score gap includes calculating a difference between the first score of the player on the first team and the second score of the player on the second team.

14. The computer readable media of claim 13, wherein the match quality threshold can be defined by a user.

15. The computer readable media of claim 12, wherein matching the first team with the second team includes determining the match quality threshold by determining a probability of a draw based at least on a score mean difference of approximately zero, a score variance of approximately 2 times an initialized value of variance, and a fixed latent score variation parameter.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein matching the first team with the second team includes determining the match quality threshold by determining a probability of a draw based at least on a difference between the first mean and the second mean, a score variance of approximately zero, and a fixed latent score variation parameter.

17. One or more computer readable media containing computer executable components comprising:

a) means for updating a first score of a first team and a second score of a second team based on an outcome of a game between the first team and the second team, wherein each of the first score and the second score is modeled as a distribution;

b) means for matching the first team with a third team based on the first score, a third score of the third team, and a match quality threshold; and

c) means for providing an indication of the match to the first team and/or the third team.

18. The computer readable media of claim 17, further comprising means for identifying the third team from a plurality of teams available for playing a game with the first team.

19. The computer readable media of claim 18, wherein the means for identifying includes means for filtering the plurality of teams based on a range check of the score of the third team.

20. The computer readable media of claim 17, wherein the means for matching includes means for determining a probability of an outcome of a game as a draw between the first team and the third team.