I do think this is a healthy way to look at most things.
Advancement has benefits, and it has costs.
My post was meant to highlight what I see as some costs of FargoRate.
kollegedave
(Un)Popular Opinion on Fargo Rate
- Thread starter kollegedave
- Start date
Advancement has benefits, and it has costs.
My post was meant to highlight what I see as some costs of FargoRate.
kollegedave
Wayne Crimi
Member
The Florida Open and US open have convinced me that Fargo's rating approach is a tad too long term oriented. IMO it should weigh more recent efforts a little more than it does now.
Aloysius Yapp is rated 835 now. That's very high. With a rating like that he has a decent shot to win almost any major tournament. But 3 in a row is a pretty big longshot unless he was playing better than 835. I'm not sure how much the rating moved up over the last 3 tournaments because I don't have a historical list, but IMO it should be higher.
A player can have a single hot tournament and that doesn't necessarily reflect his true ability, but 3 Matchroom tournaments in a row against the best competition in the world should say a LOT about his current level and imo have pretty significant impact on his rating.
If I was gambling, right now I'd make Yapp the favorite over anyone other than Filler and Gorst and I'd need better than even money to be truly comfortable I had an edge with those guys. It's probably pretty close to even money. I realize that other players have sustained their elite form longer. That's useful information and should be part of the historical record also, but if we are trying to determine who is the best player right now, it's at least arguable that it's Yapp. We'll see in 6 months if he holds this form, but if he doesn't that should also be reflected a little quicker.
Aloysius Yapp is rated 835 now. That's very high. With a rating like that he has a decent shot to win almost any major tournament. But 3 in a row is a pretty big longshot unless he was playing better than 835. I'm not sure how much the rating moved up over the last 3 tournaments because I don't have a historical list, but IMO it should be higher.
A player can have a single hot tournament and that doesn't necessarily reflect his true ability, but 3 Matchroom tournaments in a row against the best competition in the world should say a LOT about his current level and imo have pretty significant impact on his rating.
If I was gambling, right now I'd make Yapp the favorite over anyone other than Filler and Gorst and I'd need better than even money to be truly comfortable I had an edge with those guys. It's probably pretty close to even money. I realize that other players have sustained their elite form longer. That's useful information and should be part of the historical record also, but if we are trying to determine who is the best player right now, it's at least arguable that it's Yapp. We'll see in 6 months if he holds this form, but if he doesn't that should also be reflected a little quicker.
So the flip side is did the opponents Yapp beat play under their Fargo?
and that is the same thing with the cue ball.
I've been bothered in general by technology ruining all the games and sports I love. I know FargoaRate is just a small part of this, but I throw it in the mix for all the reasons listed in the original post. We are just years, if not months away from massive technological innovation in any lucrative sport. A young golfer will get laughed off the local course if he doesn't first spend 6 months on the simulator perfecting his stroke. Perfect immediate feedback is right around the corner.
As a society, we are going to have to rethink our approach to sports, especially at the youth level.
What does that have to do with pool and FargoRate? I don't know, but I do know I've had fun the past few weekends playing on a beautiful Diamond table, that's setup in someone's barn.
No sitting around all day to play 2 matches.
No FargoRate.
No streaming.
No BS.
Still a little cash
It was Ames, Mister.
Agreed, I feel like the algorithm is way too sticky. I wish they would adjust it so that the weight given to past games dropped off faster. AFAIK, games after 3 years count half as much as a game played today, which seems too high. I feel like they should count closer to like 25% or something.
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The thing with pool is there is still a decent amount of luck. I'm sure one can go back to many of Yapp's recent matches and find instances where if a roll went slightly differently he would have lost. And guess what? At some point in the (likely near-) future he will have a bad run. If you tie Fargo too much to recent results then you are tracking luck as much as skill.
Now that doesn't mean that its current formulation is perfect, but I understand why it is as sticky as it is. And without access to full data, it would be difficult to come up with a recommendation for how it could be improved.
That said, I do think this stickiness can be quite deceiving when it comes to players at either end of the age spectrum. Junior/developing players might get a lot better a lot quicker than the system will recognize, and of course aging players or those who hardly play any more can/will have skill levels well below what is represented by Fargo. One possible improvement, therefore, might be to tie the stickiness as much to games played as time--as far as I understand it, games currently age based on time alone.
there's always the WNT rankings. money won doesn't lie. what has ameer ali won?
Many people don't internalize very well the role of fluctuations and regression to the mean. What I mean by that is that when you take a little run of unusual success, like Yapp now or Mickey Krause for a bit there or FSR a few years ago, what you're likely seeing is a chance alignment of three things, like a storm surge of high ocean water (the real signal) happening to arrive right at high tide (artificial boost) near full moon (another artificial boost).
With pool, we have actual performance boost (the real signal) combined with getting net rolls (artificial boost) combined with opponents falling short of their average execution (artificial boost).
Yes, it is unusual for these things to line up. But when we actually gravitate toward unusual runs of success, we're attracted to these chance alignments.
When we go the the next several tournaments, the first boost--an actual increase in performance--is still there. But the other ones --net rolls and opponents giving you a few extra chances--probably won't be there. And we come back to reality. That's the regression to the mean.
If we look at just recent performance (last 6 months) Gorst and Filler are tied and 20 points above anyone else. These are based on only 600-1000 games and so have a fair amount of slop in them and aren't as reliable as the Fargo Ratings. But they do perhaps give a hint of the direction things are going.
boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
Yes and no. It's useful for matching up. It's useful for keeping big fish from slaughtering guppies in tournaments. It's bad if you're a big fish, less tournaments. It's bad if you get worse because it's long term. Worse in a way because it takes some of the mystery out.
You used to think you might beat that guy and tried harder. Now you realize hes 150 FR higher than you and there's not point in trying without the absolute nuts of a spot. If you're better you have to find somebody dumb as hell to match up even. Is it good or bad? Depends who you are, if you like making easy money, or if you like getting robbed with no chance.
Wayne Crimi
Member
You can certainly argue about a match here or there, but that's always part it. You and your opponents are going to have some matches where you play over your head and some under (or get the better of the rolls) . And that would be very important over a single tournament, but 3 tournaments is a LOT and IMHO reflective of a form change that is not quite fully reflected in the ratings.
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Wayne Crimi
Member
I hear everything you are saying, but to me anything over maybe 18 months is probably close to irrelevant as long as the player is active. Players have good and bad years depending on what's going on in their lives and to some degree luck, but they don't really have fully lucky or unlucky years. Their form changes. My point is that 3 tournaments almost certainly contains some luck. It far from tells the whole story, but it tells quite a story and should be enough to move the rating noticeably. It wasn't mostly luck. He beat enough great players fair and square to think he's simply playing great.
Wayne Crimi
Member
I'm highly sensitive to what you are saying because I'm a gambler and need to do exactly what you are saying. I just do it subjectively because I don't think a formula can capture form changes correctly (young players improving, old players declining, personal problems impacting performance short term, higher dedication leading to sudden improvment etc..) I am subjectively suggesting Yapp is probably the 3rd best player in the world at the moment and Fargo is recognizing that too slowly. However, I will concede I don't know how long it will last. Filler and Gorst have susteanied what Yapp is doing for longer. That makes them more likely to continue playing at that super elite level
Wayne Crimi
Member
I'll make one last point. I'm not a chess player, but I follow the game and ratings. I would assume Fargo ratings were developed to be similar to chess ratings. Chess ratings move around much faster than Fargo ratings even though the top players take turns beating each other just like in pool (other than Carlsen). Maybe they should move faster than pool because there's a bit less luck in chess, but I think there's probably something to be learned from that.
I had the same problem, I took a lesson with a certified PBIA billiards instructor, one of the first things I learned is finding my vision center, the worst thing about not knowing your vision center is the shot looks the same whether you are lined up properly or not, a small adjustment of where your head is can make a world of difference, it's been 7 months now, it will take some time to make it feel natural to you but I know I would not have advanced as much as I have without learning this, I still have much to learn but it has helped every aspect of developing my game.
And maybe there is something to that. There is probably opportunity to statistically analyze the data and come up with a threshold past which games don't matter. It probably would have to be based on game count more than time (eg, the last 3000 games or what have you). Are the games Filler or Gorst or whomever played years and thousands of games ago really adding anything to our evaluation of the players they are today? Or might those old games, played against others who are also different/evolved players today, be holding down that evaluation?
Some decay for players inactive in the system should likely exist, as well. Currently we have dead players who have had their rating increase. Of course, rating decay would then introduce more possibilities for shenanigans and gaming the system, but probably nothing that couldn't be reasonably dealt with.
But none of that is likely to happen since the folks in charge just seem to want to focus on selling and justifying the product as-is.
I closed out my circle track season with four wins in a row one year. I got very very lucky on the pool table too. The reason was simple, after having a good job for years a recession hit and I was out of work! People found out there was a world of difference between Hu fat and complacent and Hu lean and hungry. I had an old jacket/coat with the pocket liners torn that sometimes had enough to buy a nice new car in the lining.
Other ways to gamble becoming prevalent, ATM's and bank cards keeping many people from carrying money, these things have hurt pool worse than fargo rating. Anyone asking my fargo rating is just told I don't have one and we move on, it hasn't been a big issue for anyone. The gray in my hair and the age in my eyes means more to the youngsters than any fargo I might have.
I think most fargo tournaments should have limitations on lower players too. two or Three range brackets should be enough for most tournaments, 700 fargos shouldn't have to waste time playing with bangers. Of course bangers pay entry fees too and often the main part of a purse comes from entry fees of no hopers.
Fargo is more like Pandora's Box than a Genie let out of a bottle. There is a lot of potential for unintended consequences.
Hu
Other ways to gamble becoming prevalent, ATM's and bank cards keeping many people from carrying money, these things have hurt pool worse than fargo rating. Anyone asking my fargo rating is just told I don't have one and we move on, it hasn't been a big issue for anyone. The gray in my hair and the age in my eyes means more to the youngsters than any fargo I might have.
I think most fargo tournaments should have limitations on lower players too. two or Three range brackets should be enough for most tournaments, 700 fargos shouldn't have to waste time playing with bangers. Of course bangers pay entry fees too and often the main part of a purse comes from entry fees of no hopers.
Fargo is more like Pandora's Box than a Genie let out of a bottle. There is a lot of potential for unintended consequences.
Hu