For a while I really dug in to multiple player (and teams-of-players) ELO calculations. I got into an argument with my friend about whether second place was any better than last place... specifically in poker, but applicable to multiple games (imagine chinese checkers [race to finish], or carcassonne/ticket-to-ride [semi-hidden scoring until the end]).

His POV was that "if you don't win, you lose" and my POV was "second place is better than last place". His response was: "if I play poker to get first place it's wildly different than playing for second or third place [and I may end up in last place wildly more often due to risk % or bad beats]"

I've been more used to "climbing" type performance games (ie: last place => mid-field => second place => first place) and in my gut I wanted my ELO to reflect that (top-half players are better than bottom-half players), however his very valid point was that different games have different payout matrices (eg: poker is often "top-3 payout", and first may be 10x second or third).

I think in my mind I've settled on EV-payout for multiplayer games should match the "game payout", and that maybe my gut is telling me the difference between "Casual ELO" (aka: top-half > bottom-half), and "Competitive ELO" (aka: only the winner gets paid).

Go is also winner take all. It's psychologically satisfying to have a big win, in the same way that it's psychologically satisfying to achieve a brilliant checkmate, but in any ordinary game or tournament (outside of certain gambling setups), a win by 1/2 point is the same as a win by 20+ points.