FargoRate for handicapping all level tournaments

Rhea

Rhea

Retired Road Player
Silver Member
Local level Pool halls and leagues desperately need to adopt FargoRate for their ratings.

Here's why I believe our current way of rating players for handicapped tournaments is unbelievably bias or shows favoritism.

If player Five plays player Six playing even in long races for money quite frequently, and player Five & Six are close but player Five wins a lot more often than player Six, Why then do local tournaments stil rate player Six 1 skill level higher than player Five? This is where the logic does not compute.

Their main excuse for this is that although player Six plays in a lot more tournaments thus increasing their chances to eventually cash, and player Five does not play in near as many, they claim that because player Six has cashed in some of the tournaments, and player Five has not, then player Six is a whole skill level above player Five and must in the tournament give player Five weight.

This is illogical and unfair in my opinion especially since at best both players are identical skill level OR player Five is actually slightly stronger than player Six in money matches outside of the tournament.
 
Rhea said:
Local level Pool halls and leagues desperately need to adopt FargoRate for their ratings.

Here's why I believe our current way of rating players for handicapped tournaments is unbelievably bias or shows favoritism.

If player Five plays player Six playing even in long races for money quite frequently, and player Five & Six are close but player Five wins a lot more often than player Six, Why then do local tournaments stil rate player Six 1 skill level higher than player Five? This is where the logic does not compute.

Their main excuse for this is that although player Six plays in a lot more tournaments thus increasing their chances to eventually cash, and player Five does not play in near as many, they claim that because player Six has cashed in some of the tournaments, and player Five has not, then player Six is a whole skill level above player Five and must in the tournament give player Five weight.

This is illogical and unfair in my opinion especially since at best both players are identical skill level OR player Five is actually slightly stronger than player Six in money matches outside of the tournament.
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We will--in the not too distant future-- be releasing some options for handicapping tournaments with Fargo Ratings. The race that two players play, whether it is 5-4 or 6-4 or 5-5 or 5-3 or 6-3, etc depends on the rating difference

So compared to the usual scheme of A goes to 5, B goes to 4, etc. or race to your rating minus 2, where ratings are 6,7,8,9... you can expect some differences. For instance a high B and a low A might play with no spot because they actually play pretty come to one another. Whereas a high B might spot a low B, and so forth.

There will be three levels of handicap:

HOT Handicaps
MEDIUM Handicaps
MILD Handicaps

HOT is the aggressive one--it makes the races as close to "fair" as possible without actually giving the lower-rated player an advantage.

MEDIUM and MILD retain different degrees of advantage to the higher-rated player.

Stay tuned...
 
mikepage said:
We will--in the not too distant future-- be releasing some options for handicapping tournaments with Fargo Ratings. The race that two players play, whether it is 5-4 or 6-4 or 5-5 or 5-3 or 6-3, etc depends on the rating difference

So compared to the usual scheme of A goes to 5, B goes to 4, etc. or race to your rating minus 2, where ratings are 6,7,8,9... you can expect some differences. For instance a high B and a low A might play with no spot because they actually play pretty come to one another. Whereas a high B might spot a low B, and so forth.

There will be three levels of handicap:

HOT Handicaps
MEDIUM Handicaps
MILD Handicaps

HOT is the aggressive one--it makes the races as close to "fair" as possible without actually giving the lower-rated player an advantage.

MEDIUM and MILD retain different degrees of advantage to the higher-rated player.

Stay tuned...
Click to expand...

Please, please tell me that the BCA will have a mobile scorekeeping app for league play. That would make things so much easier and efficient.. Cheers. :thumbup:
 
bwally said:
Please, please tell me that the BCA will have a mobile scorekeeping app for league play. That would make things so much easier and efficient.. Cheers. :thumbup:
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Oh...Most definitely... mobile scoring app, games automatically in the system, ratings updated that night...
 
mikepage said:
We will--in the not too distant future-- be releasing some options for handicapping tournaments with Fargo Ratings. The race that two players play, whether it is 5-4 or 6-4 or 5-5 or 5-3 or 6-3, etc depends on the rating difference

So compared to the usual scheme of A goes to 5, B goes to 4, etc. or race to your rating minus 2, where ratings are 6,7,8,9... you can expect some differences. For instance a high B and a low A might play with no spot because they actually play pretty come to one another. Whereas a high B might spot a low B, and so forth.

There will be three levels of handicap:

HOT Handicaps
MEDIUM Handicaps
MILD Handicaps

HOT is the aggressive one--it makes the races as close to "fair" as possible without actually giving the lower-rated player an advantage.

MEDIUM and MILD retain different degrees of advantage to the higher-rated player.

Stay tuned...
Click to expand...

Why not just have open tournaments and whoever is best wins ? Not talking leagues , just open local tournaments .
 
Because eventually you will only have 5 guys playing in it, all A players and above. Pool needs to be for everyone, like golf and other sports that have a system where everyone can compete. There are plenty of tournaments for top level players, and could always be local tournaments for top level players. This is for everyone else, and definitely helps pool to grow instead of dying. I sincerely hope that it continues to improve and get perfected, and that the majority of leagues and most tournaments eventually adopt it.
 
FargoRating

I like it and I don't like it and here are my thoughts. First, our league is dual sanction BCA and VNEA. BCA side of the house is trying to use the Fargo system and is trying to go back in time and get those scores in to the system. The problem is they can not get the VNEA state and nationals information to add to the system. Because of that you can not really rate all the players where they should be rated. And if you really want to know how good someone is, you need to look at how they perform in tournaments. Leagues were established for the establishments not for the players. League and league scores mean nothing. We must play league to get to the tournaments! Period! So until, you can get all the leagues to pony up their score sheets, the ratings are lop sided. And should not be used by any tournament. It is a great idea, but without all the scores, they are just numbers!

Second player A used to play really good, played several time a week and could beat most people. Now, his life has changed and pool is not that important to him. So he does not play at that level, but his rating is so high that anyone that can put a pair of pants on will give him all he wants.....
 
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Mike,

Have you had any conversations with APA about adopting Fargo? I would hope they have records of previous matches, so could dump that data into Fargo and everyone could quickly have a rating. The actual data transfer would be an automation challenge.

I would think the LO's would appreciate a rating system that takes them out of the loop. No more fielding complaints from players about their SL. And less complaints about sandbagging, since innings are not a factor.

Jeff
 
jeffj2h said:
Mike,

Have you had any conversations with APA about adopting Fargo? I would hope they have records of previous matches, so could dump that data into Fargo and everyone could quickly have a rating. The actual data transfer would be an automation challenge.

I would think the LO's would appreciate a rating system that takes them out of the loop. No more fielding complaints from players about their SL. And less complaints about sandbagging, since innings are not a factor.

Jeff
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Careful...garbage in, garbage out.

Aim for integrity, at least as best you can.

@Mr. FargoRate -- you don't strike me as a short-term thinker. You know pool isn't going to make you rich anytime soon. Money or quick adoption can't be much of a motivator here. Unless you've suffered head trauma since retiring from a respectable career.
 
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jeffj2h said:
Mike,

Have you had any conversations with APA about adopting Fargo? I would hope they have records of previous matches, so could dump that data into Fargo and everyone could quickly have a rating. The actual data transfer would be an automation challenge.

I would think the LO's would appreciate a rating system that takes them out of the loop. No more fielding complaints from players about their SL. And less complaints about sandbagging, since innings are not a factor.

Jeff
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Ya it's pretty amazing the APA and thier over 1/4 million players has survived this long with out it :rolleyes:


1
 
jeffj2h said:
... Have you had any conversations with APA about adopting Fargo? ...
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Ummm.... The APA is rumored to have banned the use of Diamond tables in APA events. If that's true, the logical conclusion is that the APA will never, under any circumstances touch FargoRate.
 
Bob Jewett said:
Ummm.... The APA is rumored to have banned the use of Diamond tables in APA events. If that's true, the logical conclusion is that the APA will never, under any circumstances touch FargoRate.
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any idea why they would ban diamond tables?

my guess is the level of difficulty diamond pockets carry over a usual bar box creates a lot of complaints from the APA crowd.
 
First things first:

Handicapped tourneys are for handicapped players. Who would want to play a game if the result can supposedly be determined by a simple coin flip?

98% of the time that handicaps are talked about people say how someone isn't rated correctly or fairly. If someone wins they 'outran the nuts', if someone loses their opponent was underrated.

Before anyone says it, yes, handicaps in gambling is BS, too. If you can't beat someone even, you can't beat them, but you may be able to cheat them...with a handicap. When people on this site talk about the 'great' hustlers they talk about how they knew how to make a game...which means that they were confidence men (read: con men) who could understate their abilities and sell a bad game. High praise indeed.

Next, if APA banned Diamond tables, it is the first thing they have done that I agree with. Why would anyone want to play on a table that doesn't play like any other table? They aren't doing it right while everybody else is doing it wrong...by definition, the standard was set by everything that came before.
 
KMRUNOUT said:
So...um...what table costs WAAAAY less than a Daimond 7 footer and plays "correctly"?

Gotta say I can't wait for this...

KMRUNOUT
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A valley is less than half the price and the banks aren't short...

Gotta say, I couldn't wait for you to ask.

I'm sure you'll tell me how junky valleys are and how big the pockets are...blah, blah, blah.
 
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