performance variance

[hang-the-9]

.... snip ....

Fargo is great but I think it's easier to assess a particular performance with TPA. I know if I make a successful shot 1 additional time in 10 shots my TPA goes up .100. I have no idea how many Fargos that is.

TPA measures how how you do in a single match, Fargo is an overall skill rating over a long time. You would need to average out the TPA rating over a period of like 10 tournaments to get a good average of the rating of a player, which is what Fargo does. But Fargo does not care about the actual shots you miss or make or errors in an event like TPA, it only cares if you won or lost, by how much and who you played. Since a high TPA usually means wins, that means a good TPA in an event equals the player being high ranked in Fargo. Anyone that can shoot in the .900 range consistently would be an 800 Fargo player. In the 80s and 90s playing at an .850 TPA would translate in to "world class speed", these days I think you need to be around .900 for that to keep up with the players like Filler, Shaw, Gorst, et...

So your note about TPA mapping with Fargo, it's not really possible to do a one-to-one comparison, because TPA measures your skill with the cueball during a match, and Fargo measures wins/losses vs known player skills. The two are linked in a way that less mistakes and more balls made should equal more wins, but also not linked in the way that you say you are a 600 Fargo because you missed 10 shots of 50 and missed 3 kicks, it just means that you beat players that are 590 and lost to players that are 610.

 

[tomatoshooter]

TPA measures how how you do in a single match, Fargo is an overall skill rating over a long time.

Yeah, from a career perspective I can see that Fargo is more useful, TPA reflects performance in a particular match. TPA will also vary with the table but Fargo will probably be consistent. Where Fargo comes up short for me is if I'm shooting, I can calculate my TPA and have a value I can compare to a known value. Depending on how much I play and improve, my Fargo could lag considerably behind my skill level. Also, with TPA, when I take a game from a 600, I can compare if I had a good night, or he had a bad one. With Fargo, that's built into the normal variance of the rating, it could be the 1 game in 4 that I'll average, or I may be on fire. They are different tools that different purposes.

 

[skip100]

TPA would have wayyy more predictive power than Fargo ratings if it were widely available. The problem is it’s extremely labor intensive to get TPA data.

 

[westcoast]

A "normal" swing in ability day to day is 50 pts +- in Fargo skill rating. Which means about half a skill level, so a B can play like a C- or a B+ on various days but still be a B. Also keep in mind that layouts after the break can mean good or bad feeling racks. You can get a few tricky racks and not run out or take several innings, or get an easy rack and run out and feel like a pro.

The better one gets just means that the "bad" days can still be good play compared to others. A C player having a bad day can mean they look almost like a beginner, while an A player having an off day can still run out a rack, just maybe with some worse position play.



There is no way someone can play 100 points over their skill rating over a whole tournament, and very very unlikely over even a race to 7. But... if in a match one player is shooting at their top ability and the other is playing on the lower end, it may look like there is a larger difference between their skill. For example I have watched Immonen almost lose to a B player in a race to 7, he was down like 5-2 or 5-3, just takes one to be playing good and the other to be playing bad.

To most players a 700 and an 800 can look almost identical if you think about it. All they see is someone making a ton of balls, the difference is when they get to the hard shots, kicking, banks, safety play. A 650-700 Fargo can string several racks, an 800 can string several racks, to some random player they look to be the same skill level unless they watch closely or for a long time comparing the players.

Exactly- there was a match I saw in which Joey Dupuis played very well and almost beat Earl who was almost 100 Fargo points above him

 

[westcoast]

Mike's not playing a lot. But he is playing. We have 5 events in ME and RI over the last year, and he has performed at 804 speed for those.

Dechaine should consider playing more again- he is still probably the second best player in the US in terms of talent

 

[tomatoshooter]

TPA would have wayyy more predictive power than Fargo ratings if it were widely available. The problem is it’s extremely labor intensive to get TPA data.

I think Fargo would be a good predictor for next month's match but TPA may be good for predicting the next round, based on the last round. Sort of like in the basket ball standing they have season, streak, and last 10.

 

[couldnthinkof01]

Thanks for the link. I think i understand that. And from the link, 6 year old games are rated at 1/4 of present day games, so a 3-year half-life.

That link you provided led me to the FargoRate Facebook page.

They do provide this graph showing the changes in the world's top four.

View attachment 665929

Shane's consistency is unreal.
I'd like to see his 15 yr graph.

 

[gerryf]

Shane's consistency is unreal.
I'd like to see his 15 yr graph.

Yeah, the long-term view would be very interesting for a bunch of players. Not mine though. You wouldn't want to look at that.

 

[hang-the-9]

TPA would have wayyy more predictive power than Fargo ratings if it were widely available. The problem is it’s extremely labor intensive to get TPA data.

I don't think so it would, unless you track TPA over a long time and do an average, then you pretty much do what Fargo is doing. Long term patterns of winning mean TPA would be higher over time than the opponents since it's rare to win a match but make more mistakes. Tracking TPA over time would very likely end up lining up with the Fargo rating down to a few percentage points, different numbers but the players would still be floating in the same range of skill ratings compared to their opposition.

The benefit of tracking TPA in a match is more to see the stats of the player broken down, to made/missed balls, safety play, breaking stats, etc... Buddy Hall always said that he loved having his stats tracked so he knew what he needed to work on. Fargo just cares if you win, not how you win, TPA shows you how you won, for the most part. You can for example play a really bad match in the beginning, then get in gear and play really well the second half, win the set but shoot a TPA lower than your opponent.