Vegas BCAPL 2016, fargorate problems

watchez said:

And Mike Page -- when are Fargo Ratings going to be locked in (if they aren't already --- so I assume these and many other players that walked away with the cash last year are 525 rated)? Cause it is now just about April and people are going to be buying flights to go out to Vega$. You can't look at things 45 days from now and say that Jesus Hernandez is now a 625 if he and his 4 teammates have paid for their trip.

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It is implied from the info in page 2 of the 2016 BCAPL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS ENTRY FORM that Fargo ratings WILL NOT be locked in. I think this is very important, especially in the early stages of Fargo system.

It is entirely possible that a league full of "unknowns" could do a data dump into the Fargo system that is comprised of years worth of games. All at once hundreds of players with 525 starter ratings could see their ratings scatter up and down, and many of the players go from 0 games in the system to being established players with more than 200 games.

Below is the info about changes in Fargo ratings between the time a team enters and the start of the tournament...

TEAM RATING CHANGES
There will be a 10-point per player “forgiveness cushion” if the team is eligible for a specific division when they register but one or more members’ ratings move up before the tournament to push them over the limit. If the team rating moves beyond this 50-point cushion, they will have the following options:

1. Play and accept a 1-game penalty in each match for every 50 points over the limit+ cushion.
a. Example: A Gold Team is below the 3,000 limit when they register but their combined rating increases to 3,093 (43 points over the team limit +the cushion) – they will incur a 1-game penalty in each match (their opponents will receive a 1-game spot). If their combined rating increases to 3,127 (77 points over the team limit + the cushion), they will incur a 2-game penalty in each match (their opponents will receive a 2-game spot).
b. Note: If both teams in a match have both been penalized due to being over the team limit, the penalty in that match will be the difference in the two penalties. For example, if Team A has a 1-game penalty and Team B has a 2-game penalty, Team B will incur a 1-game penalty in that match. If both teams have a 1-game penalty, there will be no penalty in that match.

2. Move up into the next division (not possible if already registered for Platinum)

3. Replace one or more players to get back within the rating limit
a. Note: team must still meet other requirements (i.e. original players, etc)

yelvis111 said:

This is a good post, but don't you suppose that the convergence point happens at around 200 games?

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I really have no idea. The single (biased) data point I have says it might be around 55. Mike has tons of data.

I would hope, at least, that they simply didn't take the yards of data they have acquired over the years and arbitrarily assigned the point at which they labeled a rating as being robust.

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They needed to make that choice, way before they had tons of data. It is a suspiciously round number. Fortunately, should analysis indicate, they can just change it, rerun everyone's rating, and it is fixed.

Also, I'm assuming that the starter ratings were set according the the mean/median of the correlating category group.

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Probably. It is another thing that they can revisit, and a quick change will fix any obvious problems.

They do have social issues with regards to the starting number. They could start all unrated players at 800, which would easily fix the issue of 'under the radar' players 'stealing' the tournament. But it would also have the effect of driving all unrated players away. Choosing these starting numbers needs to find a balance between these two competing (and presumably other) factors.

Thank you kindly.

sbpoolleague said:

Fargo ratings are recalculated daily, so even if you have no more new games in the system, it is possible to see your rating go up or down because your past opponents have been entering games into the system.

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YOU GOT ME BRO!!!! Not gonna lie, I sat there waiting and watching your guy stroking for a good 20 seconds to see him shoot the ball and see what happened lololol!!!

watchez said:

So you could pick almost any of these 3 players from TX (at least the top 2 players), put them with "there are three players (Ross Romero, Douglas Forgason, and Jesus Hernandez) that have no games in the Fargo system and all three have a 525 starter rating" and have a first place team again.

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I think it's safe to say, those 3 players will have a starter rating of 625, not 525.

tucson9ball said:

I really like the Fargo system, .......BUT! .. I wish they would have waited one more year before using it for Nationals. I would have liked to get more data in the system so more people had established ratings.

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What exact situation are you worried about that could happen given the Fargoratings, that WOULDN'T happen if they just kept the old system?

In other words, why would waiting produce a better tournament?

Thank you kindly.

tucson9ball said:

I think it's safe to say, those 3 players will have a starter rating of 625, not 525.

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Only because another poster looked at it and pointed it out. (btw they are still at 525)

* I do agree that the FargoRate will put unknown players in the same category as they would be under the old system. But any new player coming into the system should be at minimum a 625. Then if the player wants to have themselves reviewed they can.
My issue is with the known players -- they may not have played a singles match but if you got top 5% of the Open Teams, you should be at minimum a 625 and you are in essence a known player. Then, once again if you feel that you are rated too high, you can request for your status to be reviewed.

* Waiting to put forth the FargoRate into the BCAPL doesn't matter. You have to start sometime. One more year of data isn't going to do anything. If you wait, then next year people will just say wait one more year.

Corwyn_8 said:

What exact situation are you worried about that could happen given the Fargoratings, that WOULDN'T happen if they just kept the old system?

In other words, why would waiting produce a better tournament?

Thank you kindly.

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Well, there's stuff like this

sbpoolleague said:

...I just checked all the players on last years Men's Open champion team (G.N. Hitmen from the Dallas/Fort Worth Pool League), and there are three players (Ross Romero, Douglas Forgason, and Jesus Hernandez) that have no games in the Fargo system and all three have a 525 starter rating. I would have hoped to see these men placed in last year's Advanced Player list, which should have upped their starter rating to 625.

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This was discovered because a small group of us were casually discussing the possible effects that Fargo ratings will have on the BCAPL Nationals. I'd bet that there will be at least one other unforeseen consequence of this magnitude that will rear its ugly head at Nationals.

Let me reiterate, I'm a HUGE proponent of Fargo ratings. I just believe they should have taken a test run at this year's Nationals to see what sort of situations, like the one above, presented themselves.

You're very welcome.

Taek

watchez said:

So you could pick almost any of these 3 players from TX (at least the top 2 players), put them with "there are three players (Ross Romero, Douglas Forgason, and Jesus Hernandez) that have no games in the Fargo system and all three have a 525 starter rating" and have a first place team again.

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I should point out that what we are talking about here is unrated players. There has been a presumption in the past that if a player is on the roster of a team that finished high, that person is probably a reasonably strong player. This assessment has been made without player-specific evidence. Sometimes it is true. Sometimes it is not.

I was on a team that finished high a few years ago, and we all got bumped up. Our ratings are all well established as 642, 630, 611, 605, 560. There are many people in the former OPEN division that play stronger than the bottom three from our team.

Also, you should not assume that because a starter rating is not bumped up in FargoRate that it is not bumped up in the CSI database for registration.

You're doing great work with Fargo rate, Mike. I love the idea that there's a systematical and mathematical approach being applied to to pool.

mikepage said:

Also, you should not assume that because a starter rating is not bumped up in FargoRate that it is not bumped up in the CSI database for registration.

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Oughtn't this be shared with the rest of us? Perhaps sooner rather than later?

Thanks,

Taek

mikepage said:

Also, you should not assume that because a starter rating is not bumped up in FargoRate that it is not bumped up in the CSI database for registration.

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Never thought of that! Thanks Mike.

mikepage said:

I should point out that what we are talking about here is unrated players. There has been a presumption in the past that if a player is on the roster of a team that finished high, that person is probably a reasonably strong player. This assessment has been made without player-specific evidence. Sometimes it is true. Sometimes it is not.

I was on a team that finished high a few years ago, and we all got bumped up. Our ratings are all well established as 642, 630, 611, 605, 560. There are many people in the former OPEN division that play stronger than the bottom three from our team.

Also, you should not assume that because a starter rating is not bumped up in FargoRate that it is not bumped up in the CSI database for registration.

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So you could have two separate ratings? I'll be blunt - that is idiotic.

And in the past - if you finished high in the Open Teams, you were bumped up but then could make an inquiry to have your rating lowered back to Open if your Singles play thru prior years established that. Same should be now using FargoRate.

watchez said:

So you could have two separate ratings? I'll be blunt - that is idiotic. [...]

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I don't understand why the harsh tone.

No there are not two separate ratings. I mean only that the CSI database is the "master" for these starter ratings, and if a change is made to a starter-rating it will be reflected in FargoRate only after it is pushed out in a syncing process. In the meantime, a player trying to register with the lower rating will not be able to do so because the registration will see the changes starter rating.

mikepage said:

If I might put this comment in perspective, the following 8 players were on either the first or second place teams from last year (both from TX as you said). Yes there are a couple for whom we have no information. But people should not think that is the norm.

Sonny Bosshamer, 634 (251 games)
Brent Thomas, 667 (456 games)
Billy Sharp, 686 (64 games)
Leon Contreras, 634 (49 games)
Brent Forster, 641 (81 games)
Coy Nicholson, 666 (52 games)
Juan Parra, 596 (717 games)
Greg Sandifer, 651 (894 games)

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I'm one of the guys from the Hitmen mentioned by Mike's post (Juan). Obviously, we knew that we played a super tough team from TX in the finals and played some dam good teams from Colorado along the way too. We've known the Big Tymers for years from our state event. And we all said back in April, during the state tournament, that we felt we did not have a better team than this team. My capt encouraged us to forget about our opponents and play the table. The Fargo Ratings pretty much confirm what we were thinking. Did we have a good team? Yes. But we never tried to sneak in to the Open thinking we had the best of it. In fact, the best we did with a few different players was 13-16 about 4 years ago. Ross and myself were on that same team.

Jesus is currently my teammate on the team that we plan on playing with next week at our state event and in Vegas. Needless to say, we've been watching the Fargo ratings pretty closely assuming that his rating would go up. In fact, he received an email from the BCA on Monday asking a few questions about his team history. So I'm sure the BCA and Mike are working on it, but w/ so much data to input, it'll take some time.

I actually think the ratings are a good thing. Personally, I've never made it to the big board on the national level, even though I've tried my hardest to do so. I've only placed in the top 5 twice at the state level out of all the years I've played in the singles event. Yeah, we're going to have some hiccups for the first few years, but it's only going to get more accurate and will let players/teams be competitive when they normally wouldn't be. Which in turn, should bring more turnout to state/national events. Isn't the goal of any league to promote and have good player turnouts?

mikepage said:

I don't understand why the harsh tone.

No there are not two separate ratings. I mean only that the CSI database is the "master" for these starter ratings, and if a change is made to a starter-rating it will be reflected in FargoRate only after it is pushed out in a syncing process. In the meantime, a player trying to register with the lower rating will not be able to do so because the registration will see the changes starter rating.

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How can I view the CSI database for the starter ratings? I am putting together a team and want to see if we are under the 3000 threshold. I checked everyone on FargoRate and we all have made plans to go to Vegas but now from your comments our plans could be up in the air.

See the issue???

watchez said:

How can I view the CSI database for the starter ratings? I am putting together a team and want to see if we are under the 3000 threshold. I checked everyone on FargoRate and we all have made plans to go to Vegas but now from your comments our plans could be up in the air.

See the issue???

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1. Go to the CSI Tournament sign-up page
2. Log in or Signup if you don't have an account.
3. Choose 2016 BCAPL National Championships
4. Scroll down and select M8GT Mixed 8-Ball Gold Team.
5. Push the "Sign-Up" button
6. Select your league from the pull-down menu (if your play in more than one league) and press the "Check Eligibility" button
7. If you are eligible, press the "Register" button.
8. Enter team members names and/or BCAPL ID and press the "Lookup Player" button
9. Your team member's Fargo Rating in the CSI database will be listed

FYI your league operator can do this same procedure and he or she will be able to see the entire league and their Fargo ratings in one list.

watchez said:

How can I view the CSI database for the starter ratings? I am putting together a team and want to see if we are under the 3000 threshold. I checked everyone on FargoRate and we all have made plans to go to Vegas but now from your comments our plans could be up in the air.

See the issue???

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You will (from what I read here) still be able to play as a team, even if all your players went up 100 points due to adjustments of starter ratings. Do you have reason to suspect that any of your players are drastically underrated? If not, no worries. If so, and you are hoping to win based on that, you might be disappointed.

How many games do your players have in FargoRates? A change in starter rating will only affect their rating by 1/2 the number of games shy of 200 they are. For example a FargoRating with 50 games will only go up 75 from an increase of 100 in starter rating. 150 games, only 25.

You could always make sure you don't have a problem by getting some rated games in.


Thank you kindly.

yelvis111 said:

Well, there's stuff like this

This was discovered because a small group of us were casually discussing the possible effects that Fargo ratings will have on the BCAPL Nationals. I'd bet that there will be at least one other unforeseen consequence of this magnitude that will rear its ugly head at Nationals.

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So what would happen if we waited a year? This year those three would be able to compete in the open division. So EXACTLY the same thing as what you are complaining about. In fact, the ONLY reason that something might be done about it, is because of FargoRates. So you should be rejoicing that FargoRates is already improving things.

Thank you kindly.

Corwyn_8 said:

So what would happen if we waited a year?
Thank you kindly.

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It's not the mathematical soundness of Fargo rate that might lead to its rejection, it's the loss of credibility that Fargo rate suffers from when bugs, like this one, are discovered and then socialized to the relatively-uninformed masses.

We've had this discussion already.

Q.E.D.

You're very welcome.

I am looking forward to hearing how the players feel after Nationals in July. Will be interesting, as the first round of anything new brings challenges as well as working out any kinks, along with the allure of learning something new and different.

I think it will take some time, but in the end, it's the way of the future, no?