Siming Chen vs Donny Mills

ShortBusRuss said:
Because the only players who count (the ones out actively competing on a regular basis in the biggest tournaments) ARE in Fargorate and have enough of a competition history for their Fargorate to be accurate.

Now, if you can demonstrate that there are a bunch of unrated women in that field that play champion speed because they practiced in their basement, and they hold under under the pressure of playing Siming, Allison, Kelly, etc...

Well, I am prepared to have my eyes opened. Unlike some dinosaurs in the forum.

The same thing happens in chess. An "unknown" player comes in and beats up on all the lower rated players and gets themselves a provisional rating. Yes, the established players may lose a few points, but if that player turns out to be a closet 2000 ELO player from Bulgaria, the rating will shoot up, and the algorithm accounts for this by awarding points back to the established players who lost to this player in their provisional period. The minnows will never lose that many points when they play a shark, regardless of whether the shark was previously unknown or not. If the "shark" blows through all the minnows and wins a sectional, then the minnows will lose minimal points, and the math all works out for both known and unknown players. I would assume the same applies to Fargorate.

I would assume that if a previously unknown player snaps off a U.S. Open and beats down Shane Van Boeing in the finals, Shane does not end up losing 50 Fargorate points.That's just not the way the math works. And the player being unknown before the tournament will not make much difference to the ratings of the other established players.
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I wasn’t saying that it’s just the women who are unrated. It’s the same way on the men’s side. There’s a ton of players who don’t have an accurate rating

These unrated players have to be out there competing sometime or their names wouldn’t be in the system. Take myself for example while I don’t consider myself a full time player I only play when not working and it’s close to home. Last year I played around 15 tournaments. I played 3 big open tournaments. I got 4th in one losing to Hennessee and Olinger. I played the Midwest Bar Table classic in March last year finishing one spot out of the money. I lost hill hill to a player with a 720 rating. I was out playing but not a single game was entered into fargorate. This year I have played one tournament, that’s where my 42 games came from. Despite the 583 preliminary rating I got from it I still finished 13-16th. Unfortunately fargorate gets a very small percentage of the actual events played.
 
9BallKY said:
Unfortunately fargorate gets a very small percentage of the actual events played.
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Yeah, but that doesn't matter to the math.

All the math cares about is your performance against the players in the field of the rated tournament... And if a large percentage of the players in that event are unrated, then they all kinda piggyback off the rating of the few in the field that are.

If an unrated player gets beat by Shaun Wilkie 11-5, then they are provisionally rated at "X" Fargo rate. If three other people get beat by him 11-7, 114, and 11-9, then they are rated "X", "Y", and "Z" rating... As they play more tournaments, their ratings solidfy, and their solidified ratings "back rate" their previously unrated opponents in previous events.

It does not matter at all if the vast majority of tournaments are unrated. This is equivalent to saying U.S. Chess Federation ratings are inaccurate for players who play most of their tournaments at their local school, and unrated. When they play their first rated event or two, the rating is gonna be fairly accurate. The math predicts this, and the math has been proved right over hundreds of thousands of followup games.

The only thing that skews this idea is junior players who improve very quickly in chess due to tactics study. But then again, I have seen the same fast improvement amongst junior players in pool. Chris Robinson was a decent player 3 years ago, but two months ago I saw him shoot Omar Al Shaheen's nuts in with a spot that you really wouldn't think he would get there with. He looked like he could have played Omar EVEN.

So, to sum up.. Unless you have a whole bunch of players sneaking around at 700 speed, but avoiding any and all Fargorate events, whatever ratings are there are accurate, as far as the robustness # attests. The very first tournament that player plays in and shows their speed, they are gonna get clocked by Fargrate to within 50 points or so of their true skill. Another 2-3 events, and their rating will be pretty close to spot on.

The math does not lie.

Oh, and one more point.. Your 583 preliminary rating seems pretty much spot on for 13-16th in a decent sized regional event. As well as the losing hill-hill to a 720 player. I've had about the same results and am about the same rating. The top 4 in a big regional is likely due to playing more, so last year, you were probably around 625-650 or so, and haven't played as much this year, and your game is showing a wee bit rust. Your rating looks spot on if the above is true. Your "best" game might be 650.... But if you are not playing as much, you are not playing your best game currently.
 
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mikepage said:
About 23,000
I think about 54 of the 64 players in the WPBA event have an established rating.
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Thanks That means only a very small percentage of players are actually established.

The question was brought up earlier in the thread whether Donny played better than expected or if Siming played worse than expected. How can this be determined with only 2 players? Someone posted that Donny missed 3 outs to win the 2nd set. By that I would assume he didn’t play up to his capabilities, We all do this sometimes.

I was working and didn’t get to watch the match.
 
9BallKY said:
Thanks That means only a very small percentage of players are actually established.
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Yeah, but again, that does not matter. If Fargo rate is anything like the USCF/ELO rating system, the ratings of established players who play nonestablished players only moves as the nonestablished player's robustness goes up.

An example would be if an unknown player drills Mike Immonen (who has not been playing much lately) in a regional event 11-2. Fargorate is not gonna just chop off a huge chunk of his rating. In fact, it likely will not move at all until unknown player's rating solidifies. When that happens, Mika may drop a fair few points, if the guy turns out to have a 580 FR.. He might drop only a point or two if the guys beats a bunch of champions and ends up with a 780.

That's just how the math works. The ratings algorithms give more weight to established ratings.
 
9BallKY said:
Thanks That means only a very small percentage of players are actually established.

The question was brought up earlier in the thread whether Donny played better than expected or if Siming played worse than expected. How can this be determined with only 2 players? Someone posted that Donny missed 3 outs to win the 2nd set. By that I would assume he didn’t play up to his capabilities, We all do this sometimes.

I was working and didn’t get to watch the match.
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That's the problem, you guys get all geared up about a single match or a few games and then determine that's how a player always plays. AVERAGE is not some mystical creature.
Jason
 
9BallKY said:
Thanks That means only a very small percentage of players are actually established.

The question was brought up earlier in the thread whether Donny played better than expected or if Siming played worse than expected. How can this be determined with only 2 players? Someone posted that Donny missed 3 outs to win the 2nd set. By that I would assume he didn’t play up to his capabilities, We all do this sometimes.

I was working and didn’t get to watch the match.
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As a summary of the match, in case you were interested:

Siming Chen shoots as straight as nearly all the top tier male players, and plays pretty durned good safes, and kicks well. Her accuracy and shotmaking likely had Donny dogging it a little. But, you could just tell that Siming's fundamentals were much more sound.. Donny chicken winged a few shots, and his stroke was very forceful and "frammy", not the smooth stroke we are accustomed to seeing. This affected both his shotmaking and speed control.

All that being said, I, and a few others, don't believe that second set was nearly as close as it looked. Donny caught a period where he soft broke, managed to conform to the break rules to avoid illegal breaks, and managed to get straight in on the 1 for something like 6 out of 8 racks. That was the main component to coming back from like 6 or 7 games down.

And when he butchered a shot or two while closing on the finish line, the OB would sail around and get real tough.

Donny could have easily lost the second set 21-16 if he didn't make a hero run at the end, or if he didn't get as lucky on 1 or 2 missed shots.. And hero runs are not what you base your game on when matching up.
 
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ShortBusRuss said:
Any excuse works for the chauvinist crowd.
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I think you might be the woman hater because you want women to have to compete for a limited amount of prize money with the top men.

That's not doing the top woman players any favors. Saying Ms. Chen is subsidized by her nation does not mean that I am a chauvinist it merely is an observation and players in the West have no such support.

To say this support is not a serious benefit is for you to deny reality. This second match with Donny tended to vindicate the Fargo Rating but it did not in any way settle whether the top men and woman can compete on an even playing field.

When Jay was saying how great Ms Chen played I was skeptical but after watching her play I conceded she is a real talent. I am a one pocket player and don't play much nine ball and don't play in leagues and didn't know much about the FR.

All that being said I've heard how woman will be able to compete with men in pool at the highest level for like 30 years and it has not happened yet.

If it does happen, I could care less. In my pool room the top female player gets 12-5 from the top male player in one pocket and can't win.
 
ShortBusRuss said:
So, to sum up.. Unless you have a whole bunch of players sneaking around at 700 speed, but avoiding any and all Fargorate events, whatever ratings are there are accurate, as far as the robustness # attests. The very first tournament that player plays in and shows their speed, they are gonna get clocked by Fargrate to within 50 points or so of their true skill. Another 2-3 events, and their rating will be pretty close to spot on.

The math does not lie.

Oh, and one more point.. Your 583 preliminary rating seems pretty much spot on for 13-16th in a decent sized regional event. As well as the losing hill-hill to a 720 player. I've had about the same results and am about the same rating. The top 4 in a big regional is likely due to playing more, so last year, you were probably around 625-650 or so, and haven't played as much this year, and your game is showing a wee bit rust. Your rating looks spot on if the above is true. Your "best" game might be 650.... But if you are not playing as much, you are not playing your best game currently.
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I beat a player with a 650 established rating 6 out of 7 sets. Actually he was at 679 at the time but he hasn’t played much lately so he has dropped some. So if you add 50 to mine it still makes him favorite over me.

My buddy beat a guy with a 660 rating and over 600 games in the system 35-23 for 5k. The last 4 sets I’ve played against my buddy I won 3 of them. 9-3 9-4 9-7. He won 9-6 the other set. I actually play probably a little better now than last year. My rating could be accurate though as I’m a terrible tournament player.
 
9BallKY said:
I actually play probably a little better now than last year. My rating could be accurate though as I’m a terrible tournament player.
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Yah, I can see that. I've always been a tournament player who didn't gamble much, but if players within a certain skill level close to mine barked too much, I would tend to jump up and play much better than in tournaments just to shut them up.

When I was younger, I was really all about winning every single game that I could, doing whatever I needed to do to win. So I didn't tend to shoot at lower percentage shots if I overran position. I think that is one of the biggest assets to a tournament player. Grinding out every game. Some don't like to play that sort of game and need to get into the "flow".
 
mikepage said:
99.997% of the people on the planet do not have an established fargo rating, and yes we are quite sick about this...
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I like your system and wish more tournaments used it. For example my son plays in a monthly C tournament and there’s a guy who plays in it who has a 700 preliminary rating. Now this is just crazy. However he has never won it.
 
ShortBusRuss said:
Yah, I can see that. I've always been a tournament player who didn't gamble much, but if players within a certain skill level close to mine barked too much, I would tend to jump up and play much better than in tournaments just to shut them up.

When I was younger, I was really all about winning every single game that I could, doing whatever I needed to do to win. So I didn't tend to shoot at lower percentage shots if I overran position. I think that is one of the biggest assets to a tournament player. Grinding out every game. Some don't like to play that sort of game and need to get into the "flow".
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When I said I didn’t play full time anymore I probably should have said I don’t compete full time I play at home about everyday just because I like to play. I was just pointing out that fargorate can be misleading in some cases.
 
overlord said:
I think you might be the woman hater because you want women to have to compete for a limited amount of prize money with the top men.

That's not doing the top woman players any favors. Saying Ms. Chen is subsidized by her nation does not mean that I am a chauvinist it merely is an observation and players in the West have no such support.

To say this support is not a serious benefit is for you to deny reality. This second match with Donny tended to vindicate the Fargo Rating but it did not in any way settle whether the top men and woman can compete on an even playing field.

When Jay was saying how great Ms Chen played I was skeptical but after watching her play I conceded she is a real talent. I am a one pocket player and don't play much nine ball and don't play in leagues and didn't know much about the FR.

All that being said I've heard how woman will be able to compete with men in pool at the highest level for like 30 years and it has not happened yet.

If it does happen, I could care less. In my pool room the top female player gets 12-5 from the top male player in one pocket and can't win.
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I guess YOUR poolroom determines the playing ability of all women. You really cant make this stuff up...or can you
Jason
 
9BallKY said:
When I said I didn’t play full time anymore I probably should have said I don’t compete full time I play at home about everyday just because I like to play. I was just pointing out that fargorate can be misleading in some cases.
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Yeah, I know what you mean.. My Fargorate is around 580, and that is based on being severely overweight (60+lbs), and a severe lack of practice. I don't even have the energy to practice, even though I have a table at home in Germany.

Cleary talked a little bit of shit about "knowing how I play". That, and DCC this year is just enough motivation to get me off my arse and working out. I am lucky enough to still have that burning hatred of losing, even though I am in my 40s.
 
ShortBusRuss said:
Yeah, I know what you mean.. My Fargorate is around 580, and that is based on being severely overweight (60+lbs), and a severe lack of practice. I don't even have the energy to practice, even though I have a table at home in Germany.

Cleary talked a little bit of shit about "knowing how I play". That, and DCC this year is just enough motivation to get me off my arse and working out. I am lucky enough to still have that burning hatred of losing, even though I am in my 40s.
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Wow, you're old! I also remember my 40's....vaguely. :rolleyes:
 
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