Note: None of this is my work. Full credit goes to username 와이엘 (YL) within the Fomos forums, who apparently did all this work by himself (using previous Kespa rankings) to figure out exactly how the Kespa ranking points are calculated (His OP is the link above). His post was written January 4, 2010, presumably immediately before the January Kespa ranking was released, and he predicted that Jaedong’s Kespa points in Jan 2010 would be 2806.0 points. Sure enough, he was correct, down to the decimal. Since then, Kespa hasn’t confirmed or denied the validity of his methods, but it seems to be more or less considered truth, since it’s now stood the test of time for four months and has not yet failed.
If anyone just wants a general idea, but not the rather tedious details, I’d just read up to the <Fundamental Rules> section.
In brackets are my interpretations of what he says, because some of them are kind of confusing. If anyone finds better explanations for those, let me know and I will change it if I think you're right.
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<Leagues that are counted towards the calculation of Kespa points>
• Individual Leagues: OSL, MSL, Survivor, Offline Qualifiers (Including the now non-existent Dual Tournament, StarChallenge)
• Team Leagues: Proleague [including Winners League], Post-Season (including WL PO)
<Fundamental Rules>
• Points are only added; there are never any subtractions
• For Individual League points, whether or not they advanced is all that counts. It doesn’t matter if someone advanced 3:0, or if they only barely advanced through Wild Card or something; as long as you advance, you get the points.
• Team League Points depend only upon the number of wins.
• The past three months’ results count 100%, each month after that go down by 10% at a time, so that the 12th month past counts 10% [and any months prior, 0%].
• There are no other factors.
• The points displayed in the Kespa Homepage are the points that have been rounded to the 2nd decimal.
<Team League Points>
• A win is worth 30 points.
• Ace match and Post-Season (including WL PO) match wins are worth 45 points (30pts * 1.5).
• Post-Season ace match wins are worth 67.5 points (30pts * 1.5 * 1.5).
• The players with the most wins after a proleague season [i.e. Jaedong and Flash from 08-09, etc] get an additional 100 points (Other awards seem to not count, but this may be different every season).
• Games that were in a certain month count towards that month’s calculations.
<Individual League Points>
[This section will be fairly confusing for those who don’t know the structures of OSL and MSL very well, including myself. Consulting the [R&S] threads for each league will probably help some.]
• Basically, if you make it to RoXX, then you will be awarded YY points. Therefore, even if you don’t show up to a game, there is no effect on the points you have already accumulated for that league.
• Points are awarded starting with Offline Qualifiers Ro8; anything below doesn’t count.
• If you are seeded into a certain point of a league, then you are accordingly awarded points for all levels below your seeded point in that league, same as if you had played and won up to that point (Points are awarded when all members of that equivalent seed have been decided, [i.e. if there are 12 seeds into the Ro36, then points for seed into Ro36 are awarded only when all 12 seeds have been confirmed.])
• If equivalent level matches are played through the course of a month, then points are awarded when the all equivalent matches have been played. [I’m not completely sure what he means here, but my interpretation is: e.g. hypothetically, if Semi-Final A for OSL is played on the last week of January and Semi-Final B for OSL is played on the first week of February, then the winner of Semi-Final A for OSL will not receive points until the March Kespa ranking.]
• The points awarded for each level are as follows:
Offline Preliminaries Ro8: 5.625
Offline Preliminaries Ro4: 11.25
Offline Preliminaries Finals: 22.5
OSL Ro36 round 1, Survivor: 37.5
OSL Ro36 round 2, MSL Ro32: 75 (37.5 * 2)
OSL/MSL Ro16: 112.5 (37.5 * 3)
OSL/MSL Ro8: 75
OSL/MSL Ro4: 112.5 (75 * 1.5)
OSL/MSL Finals: 187.5 (75 * 2.5)
OSL/MSL Champion: 150 (75 * 2)
• In the case of OSL, when the Ro8 ends, points for seeding into the next OSL Ro36 (37.5 + 75 = 112.5) are awarded to those who dropped out at the Ro8/16. Also, those who advanced to the Ro4 are awarded points for seeding into the next OSL Ro16 (37.5 + 75 + 112.5 = 225). [This, I think, is mainly the reason for the huge inflation of points for those who make it deep into the leagues.]
• In the case of MSL, when the Ro16 ends, points for seeding into the next Survivor are awarded (37.5) for those who made Ro16/32 but not Ro8. Likewise, those who advanced to the Ro8 are awarded points for seeding into the next MSL Ro32 (37.5 + 75 = 112.5). [As many expected, I’m sure, points for seeding into MSL are lower than for OSL.]
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Applying the above criteria, let’s analyze Jaedong’s December 2009 points.
Total: 2549.0 / Individual League: 1395.0 / Team League: 1154.0
<Individual Leagues>
Nov 09: None
Oct 09: None
Sep 09: None
Aug 09: MSL Ro4(112.5) + OSL Finals(187.5) + OSL Champion(150) = 450 * 90% = 405
Jul 09: MSL Ro16(112.5) + MSL Ro8(75) + MSL Ro36 Seed (37.5+75) + OSL Ro8(75) + OSL Ro4(112.5) + OSL Ro16 Seed (37.5+75+112.5) = 712.5 * 80% = 570
Jun 09: None
May 09: MSL Ro32(75) * 60% = 45
Apr 09: OSL Champion(150) * 50% = 75
Mar 09: OSL Finals(187.5) + OSL Ro4(112.5) + OSL Ro16 Seed (37.5+75+112.5) = 525 * 40% = 210
Feb 09: OSL Ro8(75) + Survivor Seed (37.5 - MSL16 ended this month) = 112.5 * 30% = 33.75
Jan 09: OSL Ro16(75+112.5 - OSL Ro36 rounds 1,2 calculated simultaneously) + MSL Ro32(75) = 262.5 * 20% = 52.5
Dec 08: OSL Ro36(37.5) * 10% = 3.75
405 + 570 + 45 + 75 + 210 + 45 + 75 + 33.75 + 52.5 + 3.75 = 1395.0
<Team League>
Nov 09: 3W(90) + Ace 2W(90) = 180
Oct 09: 2W + Ace 1W = 105
Sep 09: None
Aug 09: PO2W(90) * 90% = 81 -> It should be PO1W + PO Ace1W = 112.5, but it seems Kespa made a mistake
Jul 09: 1W + Most Wins (100) = 130 * 80% = 104
Jun 09: 7W + Ace 2W = 300 * 70% = 210
May 09: 5W + Ace 1W = 195 * 60% = 117
Apr 09: 2W + Ace 1W = 105 * 50% = 52.5
Mar 09: 1W + WL PO 7W = 345 * 40% = 138
Feb 09: 13W = 390 * 30% = 117
Jan 09: 4W = 120 * 20% = 24
Dec 08: 4W + Ace 3W = 255 * 10% = 25.5
180 + 105 + 81 + 104 + 210 + 117 + 52.5 + 138 + 117 + 24 + 25.5 = 1154.0
If the points are calculated in the same way for January 2010,
Jaedong’s Kespa points should be… IL: 1650 / TL: 1156 / Total: 2806 points.
[This is correct in all three counts.]
Edit: Just looked up liquipedia and apparently this was more or less already known. Nevertheless, if anyone for some reason wanted the specific numbers, well, here they are.