The FARGO ratings seem to have been updated a lot recently. Not sure how this new category "Starter Rating" is being used. For example, a player with robustness of 162, has a starter rating of 525, and a Fargo rating of 588. Which of these numbers will be used by the BCA when entering state or regional tournaments?
You can look up players at farrmatch.fargorate.com. This is a beta version of what will become a mobile app.
Let me explain the new "starter rating" thing. Nothing has changed about our optimization, and all players with greater than 200 games in the system (robustness of 200+) see the same thing they saw before. What has changed is what we display for unestablished players (those with no games or with up to 199 games in the system).
First, let me explain how the optimization itself treats unestablished players. Suppose you, a new player, play your friend, an established player, 500 games. Your friend wins 400 to 100. The optimization will say your rating is 200 points below the rating of your friend. This is fine.
But suppose you as a new player instead play only 5 games against a different friend with an established rating, and you lose 4-1. The optimization in this case will also put you 200 points below your friend (because you lost at a 4 to 1 ratio). But in this case your robustness is only 5, and your rating is likely unreliable. It's more likely you're closer to your friend than that and we are seeing a statistical fluctuation. The performance rating from the optimization is volatile for players with only a few games. We used to display "?" for players with fewer than 35 games and the actual performance rating for players with 35 or more games.
Now we have assigned every unestablished player a "starter rating." This is 525 for most people. Then what is displayed in fairmatch for unestablished players is a transitional rating; it is a weighted average of the starter rating and the performance rating. If a player has 20 games (10% of the 200 required for an established rating), the starter rating is weighted 90%. If a player has 180 games (90% of the 200 required for an established rating), the starter rating is weighted 10%, i.e., is almost forgotten.
The bold ratings below are the established ratings. These players have more than 200 games in the system.
Duane Hole has 179 games, so his displayed transitional rating of 544 is determined almost entirely from performance. For Bobby Yolo and Michael Cometsevah, the ratings are determined about half from the starter rating and half from actual performance. Notice these two have starter ratings different from the most common 525. This is because Bobby Yolo was classified "master" and Michael C was classified "leisure" by CSI.
Male Open and female Advanced are given starter ratings of 525. Male Advanced 625; female open, 425, etc. The default for everyone else is 525. As people unestablished play more, the rating becomes more and more based on performance and eventually is is based entirely on performance
