How do individual match results actually move my rating up or down?

The calculation looks at your ratings coming into the match versus your opponent’s ratings.  If you are expected to lose a match but you do win, your ratings can go up anywhere from .050 to .100.  Likewise, if you lose a match that you are expected to win, your ratings will go down. The amount of increase or decrease is calculated by the size of the difference between the two scores.  Click here to see a PDF document showing a detailed example of match by match results.