My Fargo rating is a little over 500. Mostly played on Valley bar tables to get that rating. I recently played in a handicapped tournament that had all Diamond bar table. I got smoked. Question: Should your rating be the same on Valleys as Diamonds? Also should table size matter?
Fargo Rating? Valley vs Diamond
- Thread starter Belford
- Start date
I don't know how it's figured but it absolutely should matter. There is a big difference between a 7ft Valley and a 9ft Diamond. Even a terrible player like myself can get out a fair amount on a 7ft Valley.
You are not playing the table, you are playing the opponent. And since both of you are playing on the same table, your match results can be viewed independent of the table.
The theory is that if you play someone on a 9-foot table and lose 7-4 in a race to 7, then go play a race to 7 on a 7-foot table, you would STILL lose 7-4. The table is easier for you but it is also easier for your opponent.
I understand your point but honestly I disagree. Table conditions and table difficulty should matter on your rating. If you practice on a well maintained diamond 7 footer with procut pockets normally and go to a valley with dead cushions and bucket pockets there is a huge difference especially when you look at the actual playing area as well. The reverse is also true that if you practice on a valley table and go to a comparable sized diamond the cushions will be much faster and responsive and the pockets will be a lot tighter so you will have little chance of pocketing nearly as many balls as as you would on a valley. I don't think that table difficulty factor is part of any of the rating systems but it should be.
If you are playing your best game then you are not actually playing your opponent you are continually trying to improve your skills putting your best effort forward. You may even be oblivious to your opponent. If you get into your zone you are playing the table and running racks while your opponent watches.
If you are playing your best game then you are not actually playing your opponent you are continually trying to improve your skills putting your best effort forward. You may even be oblivious to your opponent. If you get into your zone you are playing the table and running racks while your opponent watches.
Bossman225
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How do you get a rating?
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Kevin -- Absolutely you--primarily--are playing the table. But the point is your opponent is playing the same table. So conditions that make it hard or easy for you also make it hard or easy for your opponent. So we can acknowledge that is way easier to make balls or run out on some equipment rather than others, and at the same time say that it largely makes no difference to Fargo Ratings.
You play in matches that are recorded in the system. All that is counted is the match score. If you beat someone consistently by a 2:1 ratio in games (not 3:1 and not 3:2) then you are 100 FargoRate points above them.
As for the topic of this thread, if you think about the paragraph above it's clear that there is no obvious connection between harder tables and different ratings. If I beat Old Joe by a 2:1 ratio (120 games to 60 games in all the matches we have played) on 9-foot Diamonds, how do you expect that ratio to change when we move to a 7-foot table? It might be a little different, but in which direction? Maybe Joe spends 5 nights a week on bar boxes and I never touch them, or maybe Joe spends 5 nights a week playing one pocket and I spent five years hustling in bars.
I believe AtLarge ran the stats on different size tables after one of the bar-box championships and there was no apparent difference in relative performance in the sense of the ratio stuff above.
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Mike,
Have you done any analysis on this point? I obviously agree that the table plays the same for both players, but that doesn't mean both players handle the table the same way. There is a conventional wisdom that some players are harder to beat on 7' tables than 9' table (say Dave Matlock or Keith; or in the modern era say Skyler or Bergman). Now conventional wisdom can be wrong, of course, but I would be curious to the see results if you could isolate Sky or Bergman's 7 results from their 9' results.
By the way, I'm not suggesting that you should be creating separate Fargo Ratings for table sizes, but I am curious.
Regards,
Gideon
So far every time we have dug deep into the data to test these conventional wisdom claims, the results have either been null or inconclusive.
These include
-XXX plays better on 7' vs 9' tables (or 9' vs 7')
-XXX plays better rotation games than 8-ball games
-XXX plays poorly against weak opponents
-XXX plays just has fun in league and doesn't perform as well as in a tournament
I'm not saying these effects don't exist at all. But I am saying that at the very least their magnitudes are exaggerated.
We don't have information on Matlock, but we have done this analysis (been a year or two now, so perhaps we are ready to do it again) for others, including bergman, skylar, jesse bowman, stan tourangeau, who are known to perform pretty well on 7' tables. What we have found is they fall about the same place in the pecking order on 9' tables.
Humidity and lighting really affect how the table plays. Fargo should take those into account. And whether I've been drinking. How accurate can this be without knowing how many drinks I've had?
I know you're being funny. But people have asked,
--what about the games I play drunk?
--what about the match I played after my dog died
--what about the time I was exhausted and didn't care
Don't those games going in skew my rating?
The answer is generally no. Suppose xx% of your games fall into these categories, where you were more likely to lose because of some externality. Consider that in something close to xx% of your other games, you played against a drunk opponent, or one who gave up, etc... and were more likely to win for those reasons. These things tend to come out in the wash...
unless you are drunk most of the time, that is...
Humidity and lighting really affect how the table plays. Fargo should take those into account. And whether I've been drinking. How accurate can this be without knowing how many drinks I've had?
Excellent point. Here's some more. How loud the music is, whether it's a league match or a match in the Nationals (ie. pressure level), type and quality of the balls, time of day, Diamond vs Valley vs Gold Crown vs Global vs..... I could go on and on.
Match conditions are the same for both players. These variables cancel out in the formula. Of course it's true that some players play differently in different conditions but there is absolutely no way to quantify this difference in play, and even if you could, there are so many different playing conditions that could be factored in that the formula would be unusable.
Totally disagree. A player than can give me 3 games to 8 on a big table with tight pockets cannot give me that game on a bar box with buckets.
If you play a majority of your league play on bar tables, your Fargo rating will be higher than someone you should play even that plays their league on big tables.
I think what the original poster is really trying to ask is how can any rating or handicap system be accurate without standards in equipment. Granted both players in a particular match play on the same table. However, different areas of the country have different concentrations of specific equipment. Put those people in a tournament on a different type or quality of a table against a player that is used to playing on that type of equipment. Therefore, in order for any handicapping system to be truly accurate we need a standardization of the equipment and level of maintenance of said equipment. Sadly, that is not likely to happen as that has been a major roadblock to pool becoming a full fledged sport.
The BCA at one time had a good start on laying it out. I remember them requiring a 1 inch thick slate minimum in the past. Yet I consistently see tournaments with less then one inch thick slate today. I'm not even sure which manufacturers still have full one inch thick slate (Not 15/16) available.
The BCA at one time had a good start on laying it out. I remember them requiring a 1 inch thick slate minimum in the past. Yet I consistently see tournaments with less then one inch thick slate today. I'm not even sure which manufacturers still have full one inch thick slate (Not 15/16) available.
i don't see why your rating would be higher from playing on 7-footers than 9-footers.
I can believe that if you are a 600 who always plays on Valleys, and your opponent is a 600 who always plays on 9-footers, and now you're playing on a 9-footer, I seriously doubt it would be even. I know Mike Page has run stats on pros - who probably play on both a lot, and play on 9-footers enough to be comfortable with them - and found no effect of table size. But I wonder about the league player who's never played on a 9-footer and now is in a tournament that uses them.
You can have 1000 games in Fargo and all of them can be on 7-ft tables and you will still be accurately ranked with players that are mostly 9-ft table shooters.
That's because Fargo takes into account your opponents results and their opponents results etc. With enough games in the system, a Fargo rating will be accurate no matter what table you play on.
Ok but who wins if you both play with no handicap?
I think that the better player wins more often on both tables. You might have a slightly better shot at beating the stronger opponent on the easier equipment but over distance the stats probably even out with not too much difference.
I do agree that this is one MAJOR point with any rating system in pool. The disparity in equipment is something that is surely hard to account for in some situations. I have to think that Joe Average bar box player is going to have better performance stats on bar boxes than he does on big tables. If he plays 100 games on the big table he will likely lose a higher percentage of them than he loses on the bar box.
But how big a percentage difference? Enough to really matter?
In chess and just about every other sport the playing conditions are close to the same. Even in tennis which has grass and clay there are only two main surfaces. In pool you have 7, 8, 8.5, 9, 10ft tables with many different pocket cuts and depths, different cloth types....to ignore all that and say that a player is the same player on all equipment is naive. It's simply not true. I have beaten several pros and several shortstops on bar boxes in short races. I have never beaten a pro in a serious match of any length on a big table.
I would NOT gamble against the pros and shortstops on bar boxes and certainly not on big tables. I have donated....but despite having a bit better chance to win games I still have little chance to win sets.
Right now my established Fargo rating is 25 points higher than another local established player who is a good two balls better than me. Mine primarily comes from a round robin tournament several months ago where I won a lot of games against players my speed and higher.
I expect that this has to even out and our ratings to be more reflective of our real skill disparities as we both play more games. At least in our case 200 games has not been enough to accurately rate us.
I agree for the most part but if the table is ridiculously tough to the point it's tough to the higher level I think that gap actually shrinks because the racks last longer ,, it's like a mud track for horses where it brings the group closer together
A mabe not so good example of this would be Shane against Earl and Shane against the Russian ,, Shane was out of his comfort zone , a lessor player would always be outside thier comfort Zone when the guy is breaking and running racks but I would like the lessor player more on a gaff table or with rules tweeted that made it a putt putt game
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To my point, league players who get out regular with 5 balls on the table but struggle with 6 on a 7' table go to Vegas to play in the BCAPL. They play someone with the exact same Fargo rating who also gets out regular with 5 balls and struggles with 6, but plays their league on a 9' table. The 9' player has the advantage. I think the success of the NYC female players in that tournament has a lot to do with the fact that we play on big tables in NYC, they go there and beat people up because the tables seem easy.
I don't really think that is the factor here. What seems to be going on here is that you have a player who "specializes" in one type of table. They go play on a different type and do badly. While I agree the Fargorate shouldn't be affected, there is an obvious difference in projected performance. "Familiarity" is the most important "table condition". Playing on a difficult table that you are used to may well result in better performance than playing on an "easy" but unfamiliar table. Saying the conditions are the same for your opponent is a profound oversimplification. If I'm used to playing on a tight gold crown 9 footer, and I have to suddenly play on a 7' Valley with giant buckets, it is going to impact my game WAY more than a guy who plays on those Valleys every day. The table is most certainly NOT equal for both of us, because we are not computer controlled robots. We are people with varying levels of confidence and abilities to adjust to different circumstances.
There is a guy around me that used to insist on using the regular sized but super heavy bar cue ball. He played unbelievable with that ball. Yet you stick a regular cue ball in there and he barely notices the difference, and seems to play just as well. For me I could never make that adjustment. They are night and day different for me. If we matched up with one ball or the other, it would have an impact on the outcome for sure, even though we are both playing the same equipment.
Make sense?
KMRUNOUT