The rating system

[Gustahl]

One thing that I would like to stress as well.

When one is promoted one still keeps his/her league points, so if you are playing against someone who is nr 7 in gifted, that might be someone who was highly ranked in Clever and was just promoted.
Hence you might actually be playing against opponents who are "just" good enough to be in gifted.
And since you are being matched against gifted players you are probably very close to promotion yourself so you and your opponent might be very evenly ranked (in the hidden skill ranking I mean).