Recent content by mikepage

Here are many 2025 tournaments listed by Harmonic Field Strength, a measure of how tough it is to go deep. Blue bars are the ones on Spartan's list. The discontinuous gap between China Open and International Open is interesting. Some tournaments are hurt by scheduling while others (like Peri...

You have a mental image of a "9-foot player" of a certain skill, say 600, who can go to a 7-foot table and adapt pretty easily. And of a somehow similar "7-foot player" who struggles on a 9-foot table because he has less transferrable skills. But those two players don't have the same rating...

There is nothing stopping us from using all the data, 7-foot, 9-foot, and simply creating separate ratings like people think we should do. Flattering expectations can help adoption in the short term. Producing the most reliable ratings is what sustains trust and value in the long term.

True. But I'm wondering...do you think we have some secret ulterior reason to mislead you on this issue?

You've cited several good examples Stu. An interesting contrast is Pia Blaeser, who as a 17, 18, 19, and 20 year old was performing in the 640-650 range, 30+ points below where Savannah and Sofia are now and about 80 points below a teenage Kristina Tkatch. She did get a new sparring partner...

I'm saying they're both performing near 680 now. Two years ago both were performing around 630s and 3 years ago both near 600. Their Fargo ratings (both in 650s now) lags behind. This is not a general problem. Fargo ratings are not too sticky. This is an issue only for a very small number of...

I am meaning more than simply comparing their ratings. Both are punching above their ratings by near 30 points and have been performing in the 680 range. I'm saying even when we break it down and estimate performance for 1000-game segments or 6-month segments or whatever, and difference in their...

We see their performance as pretty much indistinguishable over the last 3 years

I think it's a different person from MA (facebook says graduated HS in 1998) who plays about 650 speed. I think you are right the other Tony's old matches are in his record, but those games are basically ignored and have no effect on this guys rating.

Below is about what FargoRate predicts in terms of scores (heights are percentages). While 11-8 or so is the most likely score, it still has only about 10% chance of being realized. So more likely Europe wins 11 to 4-or-fewer than Europe wins 11-8 More likely USA wins than Europe wins 11-to-7...

This is from Iusedtoberich, post # 39. He was 480 with 87 games and then 547 when he reached 200 games a few months later

lol Started at Starbucks. Too many Mikes on the planet, and you notice it in a small crowd waiting for your Cappuccino with a name on the cup. So I thought I don't really need to be MIKE at Starbucks, I can choose a Starbucks name that is unique and easy to say. I chose Vito. Before long, the...

Answering your last question first, yes, ratings are more uncertain at any robustness when FargoRate doesn't know much about your opponents. But in "typical" situations, where we know most of your opponents but some are more unknown, the situation is about as follows: Let's say your rating is...

That's Vito who would enter THAT tournament ;-)

To the extent they have about 100 games, the preliminary ratings with starter-rating influence would be about halfway between the black and blue lines.