The importance of little yellow squares

I've been playing quite a bit of othello on Kurnik just lately, and trying to stop my rating from plunging to new depths. For the uninitiated, your rating goes up when you beat someone and down when you lose, and how much it goes up and down by is based on the rating of the person you're playing. It got down as low as 1399 today, which is horrible. I try to keep it above 1500, because then you get a little yellow square next to your username instead of a green one. Of course, if you're even better than that you can get a little orange square or even a red one like Ben Seeley, who was hanging out there today, but I think that kind of lofty goal is beyond me at the moment.

I generally only play people rated over 1500 so as to get a good game, but since my rating's so low at the moment most of them don't want to play me, so I've lowered my standards. Meanwhile, my tournament rating has been quite good just lately - you get a separate rating for games in official tournaments, and for some reason or other that's generally lower than normal ratings. Mine struggled up just above 1250 in time for the exclusive 1250+ tournament on Tuesday night, which was brilliant. Like being allowed to play with the cool kids. But now it's dropped back down to lowly levels again. Ah well.