Interesting FB post about FargoRate

[u12armresl]

From Texas Pool Players page.

WHAT WE (FargoRate) DID
Removed from FargoRate Eight TX tournaments called “Scooters 9-Ball” dated between April and July 2022.
Brackets: https://challonge.com/users/melissasmith22/tournaments

WHY WE DID IT
We judge the match data not credible.
EXPLANATION
Regular players in the tournaments include one with a history of thousands of games played around 450 speed (THE 450) as well as two well established players in the vicinity of 700 (THE 700’s).
In the Eight Scooter’s tournaments, THE 450 faces THE 700’s 27 times and wins 21 of the matches. Further, the match wins tend to be lopsided scores and the match losses tend to be close scores. This makes the game count even more egregious. Of the 250 games played between THE 450 and THE 700’s, THE 450 won 171 of them, a number expected of an 800-level player.
NOW WHAT?
Once again, we judge these results not credible, and we lack the necessary confidence moving forward to import data from this TD/Venue.

 

[alphadog]

Ratings are only as good as the information entered. Good for fargorate for . If the #'s are bogus , shame on Scooters.

 

[Fatboy]

I’m not knocking Fargo, but I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around a accurate rating system in pool. I’ve seen lots of them in the last 40 years and never one that wasn’t manipulated or sandbagged one way or the other.


Edit: I would imagine the top 50 players in Fargo have accurate numbers.

 

[alphadog]

I’m not knocking Fargo, but I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around a accurate rating system in pool. I’ve seen lots of them in the last 40 years and never one that wasn’t manipulated or sandbagged one way or the other.


Edit: I would imagine the top 50 players in Fargo have accurate numbers.

There are some problems but as the accurate info comes in the ratings accuracy increases. I feel fargorate helps to lend legitimacy to our sport.
And 80% of the people love stats.

 

[Woodshaft]

At the pro level, for data/ratings at the 700+ vs. 700+ matches, the ratings are pretty accurate imo.
But at the amateur level, no.
Way too many variables and inconsistencies come into play.
And don't even get me started about fargo-handicapped tourneys

 

[Tom1234]

There are some problems but as the accurate info comes in the ratings accuracy increases. I feel fargorate helps to lend legitimacy to our sport.
And 80% of the people love stats.

And remember this - 78% of all statistics are made up on the spot 47% of the time. Just sayin.

 

[Texas Carom Club]

glad that was noticed
I probably won't be playing leagues in a years time, sandbagging makes me puke

 

[PracticeChampion]

I’m not knocking Fargo, but I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around a accurate rating system in pool. I’ve seen lots of them in the last 40 years and never one that wasn’t manipulated or sandbagged one way or the other.


Edit: I would imagine the top 50 players in Fargo have accurate numbers.

I play a tournament every week where's there's a guy who's Fargo is 730, I looked it up. He plays pretty good but I consistently finish higher than him and I'm about a 580-90 . Was told it's because in another tournament he always plays against top tier guys and occasionally beats them so his Fargo jumps higher only because they are higher... Sucks for him I guess and thankful this tournament doesn't keep records . In this case definitely not accurate

 

[Island Drive]

I've seen league players intentionally do this. Big Surprise? Not at all when your dealing with money.

 

[Black-Balled]

I’m not knocking Fargo, but I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around a accurate rating system in pool. I’ve seen lots of them in the last 40 years and never one that wasn’t manipulated or sandbagged one way or the other.


Edit: I would imagine the top 50 players in Fargo have accurate numbers.

Any set of comditions/ circumstances/ rules can be gamed. Look at our tax laws.

Tell you what though, that is a helluva long game hustle, to have thousands of games and establish a credible 450, when you are a 700+.

Imo, we have to look at the games submitted and by whom they were submitted. Did 450 actually participate in the games submitted? If so, were the game all from same host?

I think it probable this occurrence involved multiple parties.

Or the guy did peyote that day.

 

[David in FL]

I learned everything I needed to learn about handicapping and sandbagging as a golfer for the past 50 years.

I admit, when FargoRate first came out I was pretty leery because of my experience with golfers and their ability to manipulate their handicaps.

However, over the past couple of years, I’ve come to appreciate that it actually does a pretty good job for the most part. Matches handicapped by FargoRate tend to be pretty fair, even with players of significantly different skill levels, and I‘ve found that most ratings pretty accurately reflect the relative ability of the players.

Having said that, I’m starting to see cases of sandbagging. Not necessarily so that one player has an advantage over another in a Fargo rate handicapped match/league, but because there are a lot of tournaments that limit entries based on FargoRate.

Some of these tournaments are pretty significant. An “under 600” tournament can easily have 64 players with payouts in the thousands of dollars and Calcuttas to match. When there’s several thousand dollars available for the top finishers, there’s a lot of incentive to keep your FargoRate under that 600 (or whatever) threshold if you can so you’re not excluded from the tournaments. That’s not too hard to do by dogging a few league matches. It can even be done pretty easily without affecting your league team standings with a little bit of care.

Should/could a league operator notice and manage these things? Probably. Maybe. Again, it can be pretty subtle.

Overall, I think FargoRate is the best handicapping system I’ve seen in pool. It pretty much does what it‘s supposed to do, and the ratings travel pretty well. Certainly much better than any kind of regional rating system that I’ve ever seen over the years. Sadly, any kind of system can be manipulated by an individual intent on doing so. About all we can do is keep an eye out for those individuals, and address them as aggressively as possible when they‘re found.

 

[alphadog]

I play a tournament every week where's there's a guy who's Fargo is 730, I looked it up. He plays pretty good but I consistently finish higher than him and I'm about a 580-90 . Was told it's because in another tournament he always plays against top tier guys and occasionally beats them so his Fargo jumps higher only because they are higher... Sucks for him I guess and thankful this tournament doesn't keep records . In this case definitely not accurate

Until a player has quite a few games in the system the fr can be be deviant.

 

[Jaden]

I play a tournament every week where's there's a guy who's Fargo is 730, I looked it up. He plays pretty good but I consistently finish higher than him and I'm about a 580-90 . Was told it's because in another tournament he always plays against top tier guys and occasionally beats them so his Fargo jumps higher only because they are higher... Sucks for him I guess and thankful this tournament doesn't keep records . In this case definitely not accurate

Me and my best friend have recently been discussing this and here's our take. Well first off, he lives in the DFW area and he knew these people and we've been talking about these 450's that played more like 650's the last couple of weeks and we knew that the TD's were in on it. It wasn't just this tourney, there are several where these same players are in cahoots. Several players have multiple profiles, etc...

But more related to your post. Fargo is great at establishing your relationship relative to the players you're playing against regularly; however, it will never truly be accurate as things sit and THIS is why.

Let's say you're rated 620. However, most of the players you play against where fargo scoring is done are 490-550.

You're pretty much maxed out on your fargo level.

You'll be playing giving them a spot, but the races are typically going to be 5-2, 5-3.

Even if you beat them 5-0, you're supposed to beat them 5-1 or 5-2, so you can't move up very far. Then there's always the chance that they're sandbagging or play above their speed or get lucky for a couple of racks and they beat you 2-0 or 3-1. They're not supposed to, but 1 or two racks can be easily won. Now you're going down artificially. You may have won the next 10 racks if you kept playing but you don't.

Then you have chip tournaments. I won't play chip tournaments any more, especially when they enter them into fargo.

Any given rack can be won by anyone and they get a 1-0 win over you or you get a 1-0 win over them. A 620 player beating a 500 player 1-0 and your score goes DOWN...

A 650 who plays against only 700+ players may go down quite a bit, or may end up being a 720 or higher player.

However, within the range you're playing compared to the players you're playing, it's pretty accurate.

Jaden

BTW, here's another thing. Why are there so many more 800+ players than there were just a couple of years ago? It's because there are MORE 800 players and they are playing each other all the time. They aren't better than they were, they're just playing against higher fargo players, so their scores go up as they play the same against each as they have been.

 

[David in FL]

I play a tournament every week where's there's a guy who's Fargo is 730, I looked it up. He plays pretty good but I consistently finish higher than him and I'm about a 580-90 . Was told it's because in another tournament he always plays against top tier guys and occasionally beats them so his Fargo jumps higher only because they are higher... Sucks for him I guess and thankful this tournament doesn't keep records . In this case definitely not accurate

Until a player has quite a few games in the system the fr can be be deviant.

It takes 200 games to be “established”, but yep, the more the better.

When leagues or tournaments don’t report to FargoRate though, it definitely dilutes the data available for any given individual. I would strongly encourage any Tournament Director to begin doing so if they aren’t already.

 

[David in FL]

Me and my best friend have recently been discussing this and here's our take. Well first off, he lives in the DFW area and he knew these people and we've been talking about these 450's that played more like 650's the last couple of weeks and we knew that the TD's were in on it. It wasn't just this tourney, there are several where these same players are in cahoots. Several players have multiple profiles, etc...

But more related to your post. Fargo is great at establishing your relationship relative to the players you're playing against regularly; however, it will never truly be accurate as things sit and THIS is why.

Let's say you're rated 620. However, most of the players you play against where fargo scoring is done are 490-550.

You're pretty much maxed out on your fargo level.

You'll be playing giving them a spot, but the races are typically going to be 5-2, 5-3.

Even if you beat them 5-0, you're supposed to beat them 5-1 or 5-2, so you can't move up very far. Then there's always the chance that they're sandbagging or play above their speed or get lucky for a couple of racks and they beat you 2-0 or 3-1. They're not supposed to, but 1 or two racks can be easily won. Now you're going down artificially. You may have won the next 10 racks if you kept playing but you don't.

Then you have chip tournaments. I won't play chip tournaments any more, especially when they enter them into fargo.

Any given rack can be won by anyone and they get a 1-0 win over you or you get a 1-0 win over them. A 620 player beating a 500 player 1-0 and your score goes DOWN...

A 650 who plays against only 700+ players may go down quite a bit, or may end up being a 720 or higher player.

However, within the range you're playing compared to the players you're playing, it's pretty accurate.

Jaden

BTW, here's another thing. Why are there so many more 800+ players than there were just a couple of years ago? It's because there are MORE 800 players and they are playing each other all the time. They aren't better than they were, they're just playing against higher fargo players, so their scores go up as they play the same against each as they have been.

That’s kind of the point. If you‘re a 620, and beat a 450 5/0, you shouldn’t move up much, if at all. With any significant number of games in the system, a game or two one way or another from the “breakeven“ point of any match isn’t going to affect anyone’s rate very much.

What moves a rating one way or another pretty quickly, is either beating significantly higher rated players than you, losing consistently to lower rated players, or when you start to pretty consistently murder similarly rated players.

I‘m a 550ish banger with about 2000 games in the system now. I probably average 15ish games entered into FargoRate each week. It takes something pretty dramatic for me to move more than a point or two one way or another in any given month. And it takes that something to happen fairly consistently over a period of several months to see any real trend one way or another.

 

[Texas Carom Club]

That’s kind of the point. If you‘re a 620, and beat a 450 5/0, you shouldn’t move up much, if at all. With any significant number of games in the system, a game or two one way or another from the “breakeven“ point of any match isn’t going to affect anyone’s rate very much.

What moves a rating one way or another pretty quickly, is either beating significantly higher rated players than you, losing consistently to lower rated players, or when you start to pretty consistently murder similarly rated players.

I‘m a 550ish banger with about 2000 games in the system now. I probably average 15ish games entered into FargoRate each week. It takes something pretty dramatic for me to move more than a point or two one way or another in any given month. And it takes that something to happen fairly consistently over a period of several months to see any real trend one way or another.

I've beat two 600s and had a bnr on a 530 on a league night and only gone up 2 points , it's only when I go 5-0 it goes up say 5points
I've got over 400 games in , still don't really understand it much

 

[David in FL]

I've beat two 600s and had a bnr on a 530 on a league night and only gone up 2 points , it's only when I go 5-0 it goes up say 5points
I've got over 400 games in , still don't really understand it much

What’s your current rating? Just winning a handicapped league match, doesn’t mean your rating will change.

For every 100 points difference in FargoRate, the expectation is a 2/1 difference in games won.

So, as an example if you’re a 500, playing a 600, the expectation is that you’ll win 3 games for every 6 games that the 600 wins. If you’re playing a FargoRate handicapped league match, you might only need 3 games to beat him in the match, but if he still won 5 or 6 games to your 3, neither of your ratings is likely to move…

Break and runs, table runs, win zips, or anything else that individual leagues might track, don’t matter at all. FargoRate looks at games won versus games lost. Nothing else.

 

[Texas Carom Club]

What’s your current rating? Just winning a handicapped league match, doesn’t mean your rating will change.

For every 100 points difference in FargoRate, the expectation is a 2/1 difference in games won.

So, as an example if you’re a 500, playing a 600, the expectation is that you’ll win 3 games for every 6 games that the 600 wins. If you’re playing a FargoRate handicapped league match, you might only need 3 games to beat him in the match, but if he still won 5 or 6 games to your 3, neither of your ratings is likely to move…

Break and runs, table runs, win zips, or anything else that individual leagues might track, don’t matter at all. FargoRate looks at games won versus games lost. Nothing else.

Ok had no idea, we don't do any kind of races in the bca leagues I play, just the one game . Is that what's more common? Races?

 

[David in FL]

Ok had no idea, we don't do any kind of races in the bca leagues I play, just the one game . Is that what's more common? Races?

It depends on the league. Some are games, some races, and some points.

Here’s an example of points used in a USA pool league...

In eight ball, a game won results in 14 points for the winner, and the loser gets one point for each ball of their own pocketed.

By handicap let’s say one player needs 65 points, while the lower rated player only needs 34. If the high rated player wins the first 4 games (56 points), but the lower rated player made five of his balls in each of those games (20 points), that lower rated player could win just the fifth game and win the match with his 34 points. A nice league match win, but ultimately he only won one game against the 4 that the higher rated player won.

Since FargoRate only looks at the games won versus lost, nobody is likely to move.

 

[easy-e]

Me and my best friend have recently been discussing this and here's our take. Well first off, he lives in the DFW area and he knew these people and we've been talking about these 450's that played more like 650's the last couple of weeks and we knew that the TD's were in on it. It wasn't just this tourney, there are several where these same players are in cahoots. Several players have multiple profiles, etc...

But more related to your post. Fargo is great at establishing your relationship relative to the players you're playing against regularly; however, it will never truly be accurate as things sit and THIS is why.

Let's say you're rated 620. However, most of the players you play against where fargo scoring is done are 490-550.

You're pretty much maxed out on your fargo level.

You'll be playing giving them a spot, but the races are typically going to be 5-2, 5-3.

Even if you beat them 5-0, you're supposed to beat them 5-1 or 5-2, so you can't move up very far. Then there's always the chance that they're sandbagging or play above their speed or get lucky for a couple of racks and they beat you 2-0 or 3-1. They're not supposed to, but 1 or two racks can be easily won. Now you're going down artificially. You may have won the next 10 racks if you kept playing but you don't.

Then you have chip tournaments. I won't play chip tournaments any more, especially when they enter them into fargo.

Any given rack can be won by anyone and they get a 1-0 win over you or you get a 1-0 win over them. A 620 player beating a 500 player 1-0 and your score goes DOWN...

A 650 who plays against only 700+ players may go down quite a bit, or may end up being a 720 or higher player.

However, within the range you're playing compared to the players you're playing, it's pretty accurate.

Jaden

BTW, here's another thing. Why are there so many more 800+ players than there were just a couple of years ago? It's because there are MORE 800 players and they are playing each other all the time. They aren't better than they were, they're just playing against higher fargo players, so their scores go up as they play the same against each as they have been.

I bolded the sentence I'm asking about. Are you sure about that? I played in a chip tournament not long ago and my rating went up two points by beating people 1-0.