Whether the system is broken or not, you can't proclaim your calculations prove anything like you did a couple posts back, when you are admitting now that the calculations are not accurate.
That's the point... Yes we are done here.
Web page that calculates APA 8-ball rating from win/loss record
- Thread starter tomker
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Whether the system is broken or not, you can't proclaim your calculations prove anything like you did a couple posts back, when you are admitting now that the calculations are not accurate.
That's the point... Yes we are done here.
If you are truly not skilled enough, or not bright enough to make a decision as to whether making the ball is better than missing it or not (because it's never 50/50), then the innings you incur as a result are deserved, and this is not a manipulation of the system. If you end up winning the game, the innings-per-win is still clearly an indication of your skill level.
By the way, if you do somehow arrive at the conclusion that missing and making it are both equal (50/50), making the ball wins because you get to stay at the table, thus not giving your opponent a chance to get lucky or make a low percentage shot.
I am not sure if you are replying to me to make a point or not.
If you play in the APA then every single shot is the player "trying to pot a ball or playing D" and should be recorded properly.
If you are shooting and have no intentions of making the ball (even undecided ones) then you should announce Defense or Safety before shooting. If you "accidentally" make it after you announce then it won't get marked and you continue shooting.
However, if you take that same shoot without announcing and act like you wanted to make it or are upset because someone like me marks it as a safety, then you are indeed sandbagging and trying to manipulate the handicap. There is simply no 2 ways about it regardless of whether you are there to drink beer and have fun or are trying to show you are the greatest player in the world by never losing an APA match.
If making the shot wins, then it's not 50-50, is it?
Of course I take the disadvantage of giving up a turn into account.
And you have no idea if I'm rated correctly or not. I had almost a 100% win ratio last session. I think that clearly means I'm underrated but no matter who I beat or what I do, I can't move up. I make sure that every time I play a D, both teams write it down on their score sheets. If one team seems to have an extra inning or two, I will try to get it sorted out. And I still can't move up.
Is there a system that calculates how you play against various skill levels? Let's say someone is sandbagging. They can play one level against weaker opponents and stronger against better players. Which is usually what happens. Nothing worse than hearing a 3 say he is a 7 killer. Wonder why that is..
This would be easy enough to analyze and account for given the data. It wouldn't surprise me if the APA takes this into account. Since the rating system is a secret though, there's no way for us to know.
Huh? It's never 50/50. Either it's an advantage to keep your ball on the table and play safe, or it's an advantage for the ball to be off the table and you to be still shooting the next shot.
This indicates you just don't know how to make decisions in pool. You're just trying to win an argument now. You are never going to encounter a situation where making the ball and staying at the table is exactly as advantageous as missing the ball and playing safe. It's black and white, either you want to keep shooting and either run out or play safe later, or you want to lock your opponent up and keep balls tied up.
Again, I'm going to call bs here. You say you play pool for fun and to drink with friends, and don't care enough about pool to try your best. This is your ludicrous argument for your ridiculous strategy at the table.
Then, at the same time, you're willing to expend as much effort as is necessary to create programs and calculate statistics, argue on this forum no matter how ridiculous your points become, and you also are making sure all of your defensive shots are marked and the scoring is done to a T, but you are just drinking, not caring, and having fun. Seriously, dude?
And you also have 100% win record, and never go up.
Wow, everything you are saying seems to be perfectly tailored to whatever argument you're trying to make.
I'm starting to think you're just trolling. I think I'm done here.
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You accuse me of just trying to win arguments, nit picking, debating for debate's sake, and trolling, but then you say ridiculous argumentative nonsense like this.
Of course I didn't mean I'm lazy about shots that are literally exactly 50-50 in absolute terms and not 49-51 or whatever. Of course I can't evaluate shots with that degree of accuracy and precision. I don't think anybody can.
But even if you wanted to be nitpicky about this, your idea that no shot in pool is 50-50 is ridiculous. Are you seriously saying that of all the infinite possible arrangements of pool balls on the table and the infinite number of possible shots, there is literally no shot (out of infinity shots) where it doesn't make a difference to the outcome of the game if you make it or you don't? That's absurd on the face of it.
Nope, I try my best to WIN THE GAME. At my skill level I see that as different from trying my best on every single shot. At my skill level, where people aren't routinely running out in 0 or 1 innings, there's a difference between games and shots.
Good, although I wouldn't be surprised if you replied anyway.
I guess I'll bite.
There's nothing ridiculous about that argument.
Why do you do that... You are the one insinuating that each shot is equally as advantageous, which is why you resort to not trying for a specific one.
So clearly you are perceiving it as 50/50 with not even a very slight advantage one way or the other. I'm not in any way saying you are trying to actually calculate the odds.
You sure seem like you think you can gauge it pretty well, given that you claimed that you take all factors into consideration, even the disadvantage of losing your turn at the table, and somehow it still comes to 50/50 in your mind.
I'm not the one being nitpicky here or taking everything literally. This is what you're resorting to to try win this argument.
Since the outcome of the game depends on other factors than the shot you are shooting now (such as how your opponent responds in the event you miss the shot), it's impossible to know before hand how any of the infinite number of possible shots will affect the outcome of the game.
This is why when everything else is equal, you choose to make the shot, because then you aren't allowing for the unpredictability of how your opponent may respond if they get a chance at the table.
This is why I say no shot is 50/50, because most of the time the situation is clear whether or not making the ball is the better choice. And in the event it is unclear (they both look equal), since you can't possibly predict the result of your opponent's shot if you miss, it means making the ball and staying at the table is best way to go.
Well that makes absolutely no sense.
You've already made it abundantly clear that you just drink and have fun, and do not try your best.
Since a game is the culmination of the shots you play, it would seem that trying your best to win the game would equate to trying your best on every shot.
You simply didn't try your best to win if there are shots you could have tried harder on.
You like chess analogies. Do you think any decent chess player has ever evaluated two moves to be exactly the same, and then just randomly chose one?
Because that's exactly what you seem to be suggesting. Each move serves an entirely different purpose and leads to an entirely different path. How can they possibly be considered equal?
Even if a chess engine evaluates the two moves as equal in strength, both moves accomplish different strategic goals, so it makes no sense to not make a strategic decision one way or the other and choose one.
There's nothing ridiculous about that argument.
Why do you do that... You are the one insinuating that each shot is equally as advantageous, which is why you resort to not trying for a specific one.
So clearly you are perceiving it as 50/50 with not even a very slight advantage one way or the other. I'm not in any way saying you are trying to actually calculate the odds.
You sure seem like you think you can gauge it pretty well, given that you claimed that you take all factors into consideration, even the disadvantage of losing your turn at the table, and somehow it still comes to 50/50 in your mind.
I'm not the one being nitpicky here or taking everything literally. This is what you're resorting to to try win this argument.
Since the outcome of the game depends on other factors than the shot you are shooting now (such as how your opponent responds in the event you miss the shot), it's impossible to know before hand how any of the infinite number of possible shots will affect the outcome of the game.
This is why when everything else is equal, you choose to make the shot, because then you aren't allowing for the unpredictability of how your opponent may respond if they get a chance at the table.
This is why I say no shot is 50/50, because most of the time the situation is clear whether or not making the ball is the better choice. And in the event it is unclear (they both look equal), since you can't possibly predict the result of your opponent's shot if you miss, it means making the ball and staying at the table is best way to go.
Well that makes absolutely no sense.
You've already made it abundantly clear that you just drink and have fun, and do not try your best.
Since a game is the culmination of the shots you play, it would seem that trying your best to win the game would equate to trying your best on every shot.
You simply didn't try your best to win if there are shots you could have tried harder on.
You like chess analogies. Do you think any decent chess player has ever evaluated two moves to be exactly the same, and then just randomly chose one?
Because that's exactly what you seem to be suggesting. Each move serves an entirely different purpose and leads to an entirely different path. How can they possibly be considered equal?
Even if a chess engine evaluates the two moves as equal in strength, both moves accomplish different strategic goals, so it makes no sense to not make a strategic decision one way or the other and choose one.
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I'm glad you brought this up and it's an excellent analogy. And one that I can speak to since I work on a chess engine for a living.
In fact, a chess engine's strategic understanding of the game is folded into its evaluation of moves. It's impossible to say that one move is better, worse, or the same as another move without taking strategy into account. (Otherwise, what do you even mean when you say one move is better than another, if you don't mean strategically?)
So if a chess engine evaluates two moves to have the same score, then it really is a coin toss. There is no "making a strategic decision" to decide between the two, as you describe it. The engine has evaluated that even though each move might result in different strategies, they both have equal probability of winning, so it doesn't really matter which move is made.
This happens fairly often, too. It's not unusual at all for two (or more) moves to have the same score, or scores so close to each other that the difference is basically noise.
(Sorry if this bursts any illusions you might have had about chess engines always making moves very deliberately according to some particular strategic plan.)
Pool can be thought of in exactly the same way. A pool table corresponds to a chess board and shots correspond to moves. And people instinctively evaluate the probability of each player winning for any given situation and choose shots accordingly, just like a chess engine chooses moves based on its evaluation of subsequent positions.
Now what I'm saying is that I get into a lot of situations where I'm trying to make a ball (and get a particular leave), but if I make the ball it doesn't result in a higher probability of me winning the game (in my estimation) than if I don't make the ball.
I don't know why you think it's impossible for such situations to occur, when in fact they're fairly common in pool. How often have you seen someone miss a shot and walk back to the table and just shrug his shoulders because he didn't see an out after that shot and he left his opponent with a tough shot? Because where I play, that happens kind of a lot, to almost everybody.
This is the most BS you have yet to post, and as I'm typing this I'm really wondering why I'm taking the time to reply at all, but o well. I don't know who you're trying to fool, but I'm a chess player, and a computer science graduate who has created a rudimentary chess engine as part of a class project. I know how they work, and it is absolutely laughable that you are claiming you work on them for a living.
Chess engines rank chess moves based on raw calculation (with the help of table bases for openings and end games). Engines use brute force by analyzing the tree of possible moves and responses. They are not capable of strategic planning and analyzing the position of a board the way humans do.
For instance, a player may be developing a king side attack by mobilizing all of his pieces toward the king side. An engine has no idea of this type of planning. It simply evaluates every single possible move, and uses brute force through all the possibilities to come up with a relative evaluation of the strength of each move. Therefore, even though it's possible for the engine to evaluate two moves as being the same, one of the moves will be better strategically when considering the player's goal of a king side attack.
Chess engines still haven't solved chess, so their evaluations are not perfect. They can only see to a certain depth, so their evaluations are still just estimations. Humans can't calculate like computers, but they still have certain advantages in their ability to see the board as a whole and evaluate positions. Humans can't see all the way to the end of the game either, so they use strategic planning through each phase of the game to figure out how to coordinate the pieces.
You completely dodged my question, and the whole point of the analogy. Chess players don't ever evaluate two moves as equally strong and then choose one randomly. They have a strategic purpose for every move, and it's deliberate.
What you are describing now is simply a two-way shot, and since you are trying to make the ball, it's clearly not defensive. What you were describing before, which is what makes absolutely no sense, is not making a decision to make the ball or not, and lazily hit it toward the pocket, not trying for either outcome.
You, and everyone else, is not capable of calculating the odds of winning the game, just as chess players aren't capable of seeing all of the possible chess moves to determine their probability of winning.
If making the ball doesn't help your opponent and doesn't hurt your position, it's the right choice. Not making a ball, and playing safe, is only for certain situations where you would either be making it easier for your opponent to run out later, or if you are attempting a very hard shot you might play safe so that you don't risk missing and giving your opponent a really good opportunity.
The point is that missing the ball and making the ball accomplish two very different things, and this is why you can't evaluate both shots as being completely equal. The only reason you are evaluating them as equal is because you can't see the advantages and disadvantages of each shot, not because they don't exist. As with any other game, you should always make deliberate moves/choices, and not leave the result of the shot up to chance.
Ya that does happen often, and the reason the person is shrugging is because he didn't plan for it to be a two way shot. He went for the shot, missed it, and then saw after the fact that it didn't hurt him. Maybe he should have chosen to miss the ball on purpose, or maybe he should have played a deliberate safe without shooting a ball towards the pocket, or maybe he should have made a different ball or played shape better. No matter what the situation, it's never correct to just not make a decision and let chance dictate the outcome.
Well this is an amusing turn of events.
My identity isn't a secret. If you follow the link I posted to start this thread, you will see that I'm Tom Kerrigan. I'm a fairly well-known chess engine developer. My engine was beating titled players online back in the mid-90s. You said that you created a chess engine as part of a class project--if you did your degree anytime after 1997, I can almost guarantee that you used TSCP as a starting point, or that it was provided to you as part of your course materials. (It is for most courses that touch on computer chess.) Well, the T in TSCP stands for Tom Kerrigan because I made it. So it's pretty funny that you're calling BS on my post and as evidence you're (probably) using your experience learning from my own engine.
I'm not even going to bother to read the rest of your post. It is obvious that you need a very serious re-think about your position and attitude.
Look, squirrel!!!
I don't know either of the posters at all with the whole chess engine things but this could be the best retort of a thread ever on here, what do you know about chess engines? Well for starters I wrote the one you probably were tought in school LOL
I think aside from the APA scoring system being hidden from the general rubes like us for company trade secret reasons (like all those really strange airfare prices), they keep it hidden(ish) so that the sandbaggers don't have a clear way to cheat if they know exactly what counts and how. If I knew that even though I will win, but if I missed 2 more balls and played one less safe that would keep me at my level or drop me down, what sandbagger worth the name would not?
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Yes, definitely this is the motivation for the APA. Instinctively it seems very good and I can see why they think this way.
It's sort of like making an encryption algorithm for a computer. The obvious thing to do is make it secret, because if you don't tell anybody how it works then it seems like it'll be almost impossible to break. This is known as "security through obscurity."
But what decades of experience have taught us is that such thinking is flawed. Secret things are often easier to break and often have more flaws because they're secret. If you make something open, then hundreds or thousands of people are likely to review it and find flaws and suggest methods to deal with said flaws and the end result is much stronger and better than a secret system. It is a little bit painful to watch the APA maintain that their secret rating system is better than an open system but they seem to have their minds made up. Anybody who is too upset with it can switch leagues I guess.
My degree was well after 1997, and I've never heard of TSCP.
I couldn't care less who you are. When you start talking about chess engines using strategic planning, it's clear you have no idea what you're talking about.
Your inability to think beyond the surface, your grade school statistics, and your ignorant and disillusioned sense of knowing everything is indicative of a freshman in college.
There's nothing new, clever. or accurate about anything you've added to this topic, and for your sake I truly hope you are a freshman computer science major rather than someone with an established career. Then everything you've posted would be normal, and you would have years of maturity ahead of you to figure things out.
This is exhausting. This isn't a closed-source vs. open source debate. There are plenty of successful closed-source systems, such as Microsoft Windows. Just because some systems achieve their security through being closed, doesn't mean that's what the APA is relying on. Being closed source is not proof of security through obscurity. Get off that please.
If you have the most rudimentary understanding of chess engines, you will know that they search for the sequence of moves (principal variation) that is most likely to maximize their material and positional advantage as encoded in their evaluation functions.
If you look up the word "strategy," you get "a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim."
In other words, all a chess engine does is come up with a plan of action to achieve an aim (which is to maximize its evaluation function, which hopefully leads to winning, depending on how good the eval function is). Boiled down even further, all a chess engine does is strategize. So if you think chess engines don't "use strategic planning" as you put it, you're going to have to explain exactly what you mean by that.
But whatever. I think you need to step back and take stock of your situation. You clearly think you have some understanding of a subject (computer chess) but your understanding is so poor that you can't recognize when somebody is an expert in the field (regardless of credentials) and you are unwilling or unable to understand the points said expert is communicating. Doesn't this seem like kind of a big problem to you?
And I have to step back and take stock of why I'm having an internet message board fight with somebody like you. So we both have some work to do.
If you have any questions about chess or chess engines and you ask politely I will be happy to explain whatever you want to know.
You can have a closed-source piece of software and rely on public algorithms for security. Microsoft doesn't use any closed-source algorithms for security.