FargoRate and local league divisions? Ideas?

F

fathomblue

Rusty Shackleford
Silver Member
I'm attempting to convince my local league to switch to FargoRate.

However, one of the big selling points for getting players to join this league is the opportunity to play for a state division championship. Currently we have "Master", "A", "B", and, "C". There hasn't always been 4 divisions, but there's always been at least a couple and this league has been around about 35 years. So, there's a history here in the state of Arkansas.

So, going to FargoRate, it's inevitable that someone will have a rating that tickles between between "Master" and "A", etc. They'll bounce back and forth all season.

So, how do we keep divisions for state championships, yet take the smart route by using FargoRate?

How do you tell a player that's finishes the season as an "A" and played as one for half of their tourneys during the year......yet, was a "Master" half the year as well?

Seems that either you piss off the player, by bumping them up when they're clearly at the very bottom of the division.....or you piss off the lower division by letting a lower level Master play for their state crown?
 
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fathomblue said:
I'm attempting to convince my local league to switch to FargoRate.

However, one of the big selling points for getting players to join this league is the opportunity to play for a state division championship. Currently we have "Master", "A", "B", and, "C". There hasn't always been 4 divisions, but there's always been at least a couple and this league has been around about 35 years. So, there's a history here in the state of Arkansas.

So, going to FargoRate, it's inevitable that someone will have a rating that tickles between between "Master" and "A", etc. They'll bounce back and forth all season.

So, how do we keep divisions for state championships, yet take the smart route by using FargoRate?

How do you tell a player that's finishes the season as an "A" and played as one for half of their tourneys during the year......yet, was a "Master" half the year as well?

Seems that either you piss off the player, by bumping them up when they're clearly at the very bottom of the division.....or you piss off the lower division by letting a lower level Master play for their state crown?
Click to expand...

If in fact you will be using " Fargogate" then that plAyer will have a definitive, concrete # rating and your different divisions can be set up with a concrete set of numbers so there should really be no gray area.
 
But, what if you cut off the bottom level Master at a 625 and the player bounces from 620 to 630 all season?

With 200-300 players there might be a couple of players that this applies to.
 
BmoreMoney said:
If in fact you will be using " Fargogate" then that plAyer will have a definitive, concrete # rating and your different divisions can be set up with a concrete set of numbers so there should really be no gray area.
Click to expand...

This is true but I would further suggest breaking down the divisions by percentages of the field such as what the BCAPL is doing for nationals this year. In the case of the BCAPL Nationals they decided to go with four divisions for singles 8 ball for example, making the bottom division (bronze) the bottom 15% of the field, the next division up (silver) is the next 35% of the field, the next division after that (gold) is the next 35% of the field, and the top division (platinum) is the top 15% of the field.

This is a brilliant solution to the possibility of people that are right on the border between two divisions maybe wanting to sandbag a bit to make sure they make it into the lower division. Since they don't know exactly where the division lines will be there is almost no incentive to attempt to sand bag. I suggest the OP does the same thing with their divisions if they can. Instead of making the divisions based on specific Fargo Ratings, such as 550-615 etc, just make it percentages of the field instead. This also avoids the anger issues from the players whose fluctuating ratings might have had them flip flopping between divisions all year. Obviously he can have a different amount of divisions or whatever percentages of the field he wants in each division but make it to where nobody knows for certain what division they will be in until all the entrants are signed up and the brackets are being posted and each division is a percentage of the field that was announced way in advance.
 
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fathomblue said:
But, what if you cut off the bottom level Master at a 625 and the player bounces from 620 to 630 all season?

With 200-300 players there might be a couple of players that this applies to.
Click to expand...

Couple things - according what Mike Page just posted the other day it is way easier to move up in Fargo but it takes much longer to go back down. So, if this is the case I wouldn't think you would have too much " bouncing " , at least the way Mike described it the other day.

Secondly; and I know this will not always be the case, but you could put it to the players as such : well if you end up moving up a division then you should be proud of your accomplishment or if you do end up in a lower division you should be happy since that is to your advantage.

Playa9's idea sounds good too if you can easily implement it and maintain it as well.
 
BmoreMoney said:
according what Mike Page just posted the other day it is way easier to move up in Fargo but it takes much longer to go back down. So, if this is the case I wouldn't think you would have too much " bouncing " , at least the way Mike described it the other day.
Click to expand...

Good point. If the top end of one division is 624, and the bottom of the next division starts 625, there are almost certainly some who will move up or down to the other division over the course of a season but I think you are right in that the chances the same person flip flops back and forth repeatedly between two divisions is fairly small and probably would not be an issue. Having the divisions be a percentage of the field does take care of the guy who is a 626 and wants to try to sandbag his way down to being a 624 though. That may not happen as much as some might guess either and may not have been a big problem but the percentage of the field thing pretty much makes sure that it can't happen at all since nobody knows exactly where the cutoff line will be.
 
fathomblue said:
I do like that % idea. Seems like it would work.
Click to expand...

Here is the page for the 2016 BCAPL National Championships where it shows what the percentage breakdowns will be for the different events so you can see some examples (I presume that the more people that are expected to play in an event the more divisions they can create for it). If you watch the FargoRate video on that same page (I also included a direct link to it below) Mike Page explains some additional benefits to having the divisions based on a percentage of the field instead of having divisions based on whether a player was considered open or advanced or A, B or C etc.
http://www.playcsipool.com/2016-bcapl-national-championships.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gvIiaDbbaw
 
Poolplaya9 said:
Here is the page for the 2016 BCAPL National Championships where it shows what the percentage breakdowns will be for the different events so you can see some examples (I presume that the more people that are expected to play in an event the more divisions they can create for it). If you watch the FargoRate video on that same page (I also included a direct link to it below) Mike Page explains some additional benefits to having the divisions based on a percentage of the field instead of having divisions based on whether a player was considered open or advanced or A, B or C etc.
http://www.playcsipool.com/2016-bcapl-national-championships.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gvIiaDbbaw
Click to expand...

I think this is the winner. We also have situations here where people are trying to run events using Fargo Ratings but ratings change weekly. So I proposed a cut off date before an event to use as the "event rating". If it's a 550 and below event and you are 549 one week before the event then you can play. If you're a 551 you can't.

But I like the idea of having events that are distributed instead. Hold handicapped events and distribute the players by percentage based on where they fall on tournament day....if I understood the video properly.

I don't know...it's a good question. I think you could go ether direction....for leagues I might trend towards using the league software mentioned that updates ratings in real time and thus the rating you finish league at is the rating you are at for the state championships. I would demand a certain # of league plays to qualify though.
 
BmoreMoney said:
Couple things - according what Mike Page just posted the other day it is way easier to move up in Fargo but it takes much longer to go back down. So, if this is the case I wouldn't think you would have too much " bouncing " , at least the way Mike described it the other day.



Secondly; and I know this will not always be the case, but you could put it to the players as such : well if you end up moving up a division then you should be proud of your accomplishment or if you do end up in a lower division you should be happy since that is to your advantage.



Playa9's idea sounds good too if you can easily implement it and maintain it as well.
Click to expand...



I would be careful with your first statement. Re-read his post, I think you missed his point.

If you were trying to sandbag to lower your rating you would need to enter more tournaments to get as many games in compared to winning. It wouldn't be cost effective to do.

Here his post


'Not a few good "scores," but a few good "tournaments." This is a distinction that actually matters for the point you are trying to make about manipulation. First, yes Alex has gone up 10 points of so in the last six weeks. But in that six weeks, he has played 42 matches totaling about 700 games (shown below). He is now world top 8; he is playing that strong.

But let's imagine Alex instead wanted to try to go DOWN 10 points because he thought being 780 instead of 790 would give him some sort of advantage. Well here is the deal: if Alex threw the matches in these tournaments in an attempt to lower hist rating, he would not have played 42 matches and 700 games. Instead he would have played 12 matches (there are six tournaments here). With 12 matches instead of 42, his rating would not have moved so much. And he would have paid the entry fees and spent the time.

Even low-life cheaters tire of this strategy pretty quickly."



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fathomblue said:
I'm attempting to convince my local league to switch to FargoRate.

However, one of the big selling points for getting players to join this league is the opportunity to play for a state division championship. Currently we have "Master", "A", "B", and, "C". There hasn't always been 4 divisions, but there's always been at least a couple and this league has been around about 35 years. So, there's a history here in the state of Arkansas.

So, going to FargoRate, it's inevitable that someone will have a rating that tickles between between "Master" and "A", etc. They'll bounce back and forth all season.

So, how do we keep divisions for state championships, yet take the smart route by using FargoRate?

How do you tell a player that's finishes the season as an "A" and played as one for half of their tourneys during the year......yet, was a "Master" half the year as well?

Seems that either you piss off the player, by bumping them up when they're clearly at the very bottom of the division.....or you piss off the lower division by letting a lower level Master play for their state crown?
Click to expand...

You will ALWAYS have players on the bubble no matter what rating system you choose.

Fargorate is by far the best. Why would settle for any less?
 
robsnotes4u said:
I would be careful with your first statement. Re-read his post, I think you missed his point.

If you were trying to sandbag to lower your rating you would need to enter more tournaments to get as many games in compared to winning. It wouldn't be cost effective to do.
Click to expand...
Unless I misread his post I think what he was referring to when he said "way easier to move up" and it "takes much longer to go back down" was that it takes more bad tournaments to get the same amount of rating movement that you get from good tournaments even though he didn't specify exactly what he was referring to and perhaps should have been more specific. Assuming he was talking about the number of tournaments as opposed to something else, and I was guessing that is what he was referring to especially since he referenced that he was going off of what Mike posted, it sounds like you are in agreement and trying to say the same thing but I could certainly be the one misreading.
 
Poolplaya9 said:
Unless I misread his post I think what he was referring to when he said "way easier to move up" and it "takes much longer to go back down" was that it takes more bad tournaments to get the same amount of rating movement that you get from good tournaments even though he didn't specify exactly what he was referring to and perhaps should have been more specific. Assuming he was talking about the number of tournaments as opposed to something else, and I was guessing that is what he was referring to especially since he referenced that he was going off of what Mike posted, it sounds like you are in agreement and trying to say the same thing but I could certainly be the one misreading.
Click to expand...



Yes I think we are thinking he same, and saying it differently. I just don't want people to read it. When you play an individual your rating goes up more for one game won than it goes down for a loss.






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JB Cases said:
I think this is the winner. We also have situations here where people are trying to run events using Fargo Ratings but ratings change weekly. So I proposed a cut off date before an event to use as the "event rating". If it's a 550 and below event and you are 549 one week before the event then you can play. If you're a 551 you can't.

But I like the idea of having events that are distributed instead. Hold handicapped events and distribute the players by percentage based on where they fall on tournament day....if I understood the video properly.

I don't know...it's a good question. I think you could go ether direction....for leagues I might trend towards using the league software mentioned that updates ratings in real time and thus the rating you finish league at is the rating you are at for the state championships. I would demand a certain # of league plays to qualify though.
Click to expand...

If you only have a single division tournament, like say a 650 and under weekly tournament (which may have formerly been called a B and under tournament), then you obviously can't have a percentage breakdown since there is only one division. In such case having a cutoff date you make known well in advance as you suggest where you go by their rating on that particular day whether you chose to use a date a week before the tournament, or the date of the event itself, or whenever it is, is obviously a good idea.

But if there is to be more than one division, I can't think of a good reason to break the field into specific FargoRating spreads rather than into percentages of the field. It seems that breaking the field down into divisions by percentages rather than specific FargoRate spreads (top 50% and bottom 50% instead of up to 600 and 601 and above as examples) has many advantages and eliminates several problems that using spreads such as "up to 600" and "601 and above" would have.

The only real possible disadvantage I can think of in making the divisions according to certain percentages of the field is that some players may decide not to play at all if they have no way to know ahead of time which division they will for sure end up in. I'm guessing that there won't be that many who choose not to play at all for this reason but we don't truly know yet and will have our first indication at this years BCAPL Nationals.

All in all I still think the many advantages for breaking up the divisions by percentages far outweighs that one single disadvantage and the few that wouldn't play the event the first time around since they didn't know what division they would fall in will likely play it the next time around once they see for themselves that the advantages of doing it that way (such as fewer out of place monster players in their division, and nobody sandbagging to try to make the known cutoff for the lower division, etc) far outweighed that single perceived negative (not being able to know which division you will be in before signing up).
 
Give gift cards or prizes for the lowest person in the division. Mike does this at Fargo Billiards. I received one once it equaled the entry


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