This is why we can't have nice things

Cory in DC said:

People always come into threads like this to say that handicaps are for wimps and to just play even up tourneys. Thing is, in my 30+ years of playing pool, the large majority of the action I've seen is handicapped. It just so happens to be handicapped in the form of one-on-one tournaments.

Why is it perfectly fine to use weight to generate action in individual matchups, but somehow wrong to use weight to fill up a tournament?

If playing even is super-cool no matter how long the odds, then where is the line of players looking to play Dennis, or even the local shortstop, even up for $100 or $1,000 a rack?

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Well, Cory, we all have our own opinions and I wouldn't have it any other way. But, Comparing handicapping in tournaments to private gambling matches is apples to oranges or maybe even apples to bricks because when I match up with someone, its only me and my opponent that has to agree to the terms that "we" come up with.

On the other hand, in a tournament, you/me/we don't have a say-so in the matter. In a tournament, as we all know, those decisions are made by just a few or even one individual and I've witnessed that being brutal to the players on the up and up.

As far as playing pros even up, well, I'm all for even matches with "some" of the pros but, when playing a "mid-level" to "top tier" pro, there should be weight unless you are crazy.

I understand about room health and handicapped tournaments. Yeah, I get it but, I don't have to like it.

I just feel like I'm being cheated when I have to give some azzhat weight just because they don't put more effort into their game because they "know" it will be made even by "HANDICAPPING".

Hell, maybe we should all just stop practicing. That way everyone would suck and no handicapping would be needed, right? Lol.....naw, even then, there would be at least a few crybabies doing their "cry baby dance".

On a side note:

One of the rooms I visit ever so often calls the bar boxes "cry baby lane".....it's suitable IMO.

Jeff

ShootingArts said:

Stu,

I chuckle a little when I read about toy tables and toy table players. I doubt seriously if the people talking like that have tangled with a short track artist like Dave. Run racks, leave you with an almost impossible kick, run some more racks. After somebody has chilled in a chair a few hours having never gotten a real shot in that time they may sing a different tune!

I hope Dave and Keith manage to get together. Even both way over the hill it might open a few eyes.

Hu

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Hu,

When I talk about toy table players, I'm not talking about killers.....lol....

I wonder if Dave or Kieth can play on 9' tables? Do you think they can?...lol...of course they can. They were killers on 9'ers too.

Again, if a person is a killer.......well, their a killer on all tables.

Another case of apples to oranges.

Jeff

I play in a handicapped tournament even though I’m not a big fan of them. The TD does a good job of rating the players. There’s 2 or 3 players that are a little questionable, but none of them have ever won it. Around here most of the tournaments are restricted to where I can’t play or they are handicapped. Not much to choose from if I want to play. I don’t complain about the handicappes. If there is someone who I feel is really under ranked I try to buy them in the auction and cash in with them.

sbpoolleague said:

Never happened. Never will.

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So did the APA team that got disqualified after winning a spot in the finals for $25K in Las Vegas sandbag or did the just get cheated by the APA?

couldnthinkof01 said:

Every sandbagger in the country should be on their way to
Griffs.
$1000 entry
580? and below.
This is what you've trained for!!!!

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When is that? I'm the best 580 in the country!

sixpack said:

When is that? I'm the best 580 in the country!

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September 28-29, 2019.
Get on out there and get that $$$$!
https://www.griffslv.com/upcoming-tournaments.html

newcuer said:

So people are working their 40 hours a week job which for most is not of great joy. So on top of that, they play in weekly tournaments (drive there and take time being there) where they purposely sandbag in something I presume they enjoy as a hobby but not that they are sandbagging, probably don't enjoy.

All to...wait for one to four times a year to play at an advantage??? Doesn't sound like fun nor very profitable.

Why not just take all that time sandbagging the weekly tournaments and get a part time job where you don't just increase you chances of winning but are guaranteed of getting money?

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Maybe I'm all wet behind the ears as I'm a new player, but I tend to agree with this.

Take one of the bigger local amateur tournaments as an example. $5,000 first prize with these breakdowns for handicaps: Fargo 0-519 (C players) play to 6, 520-619 (B players) play to 8, and 620-685 (A players) play to 10. Above 685 ineligible.

If you were solidly in the B bracket and wanted to "adjust" your rating down to a C, you'd have to lose a lot to lower rated players. Let's say as a conservative estimate you'd have to flunk 30 far less competitive tournaments against lesser players to achieve your goals. I suspect the number would be much higher than that, but still.

At an average entry of $10 a pop, and maybe 3 hours each including travel and play time, you'd spend $300 and 90 hours trying to gain a 2 rack advantage for 1 shot at $5,000. Even if you value your time at just $15 an hour, which you could probably make Ubering instead, that's a total of $1,650 to gain 2 on the wire.

That's not even taking into account the bad habits that would be getting ingrained by deliberately losing games, habits that you'd have to suddenly drop and bring your 100% best game come the big one. Or the strong likelihood that a decent prize like that would bring out the local shortstop who could spot you 6 in a race to 10 and still beat you like a rented mule.

Seems like a pretty foolish way of doing things to me when that time and money could be spent practicing and playing to win instead, no?

Edited to add: An honest player doing the reverse i.e. playing to win would be unlikely to bump their rating much if they were beating up on weaker opposition. Plus they might win 5 of those 30 tournaments and turn a profit vs entry fees, and more importantly develop good habits. Nothing breeds winning like winning after all.

Under many slightly different contexts, the issue of handicapping has need discussed here, ad nauseum.

How many weeks in a row are you going to play an event that you don't cash in?

Bob Jewett said:

One feature of Fargo is that they can look for sandbagging. If a player has a much better record in big-money events than in smaller events, it can be detected. They know exactly where you played well and who you were playing for every game in the system.

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Does an alarm/alert go off or appear near a players name automatically in the system or does it require the human intervention of someone saying "I think this person might be cheating".

If it's the latter, how is it then investigated and handled? Is there an office staff back at Fargo HQ that handles these requests? After too many times, what happens to the player? Are they barred from Fargo events? Do they get a permanent "*" next to their name?

jrctherake said:

Of course they play better on a BB. It's because they spend almost all their time on toy tables so they can feel good about those "seemingly" hard outs, when in general, those outs are in reach for everyone but complete beginners.

I love it when a toy tabler wonders over to the big tables. Lol....it don't take many games or even just a few shots before you hear "lets move to the 7'er".... then, after a few games over there...lol...we hear, "I need soom weight". Thats usually when I tell them "nope, you need some practice or actually, a lot of practice and maybe even a coach".

Jeff

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Read it again.
We/they spend all our/their time on 9 footers. That's where our fargos got established. Then we play in BB events and are underrated. This isn't done to cheat, it's just how it happens.

This applies most when speaking of the big handicapped tournaments like state BCA tournaments played on the bar boxes. Sure, once enough games are in the system it should even out. The point is that 100% of my games in Fargo were from 9' Diamonds. I played in a large BB event and finished 5/6th or better in three of four events. After the tournament my Fargo was raised 30pts. The adjustment was made but I was still able to cash in that week due to the lower rating.

As far as running no handicap tournaments, have fun with your 6 man fields and meager payouts. The days of paying just for the experience are long past. I donated to the large Chicago tournaments that had pros regularly in attendance for many years. At best there may have been one game on the wire to 11 for guys my speed when playing against a known pro. The new generation wants everything to be fair in all things. Outcome equality without effort equality.

DJ62 said:

So did the APA team that got disqualified after winning a spot in the finals for $25K in Las Vegas sandbag or did the just get cheated by the APA?

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How would I know? I'd rather have a barbed wire enema than play APA. APA sucks.

For as long as it takes to raise or lower a Fargo rating, a person would spend a lot of time and money in smaller tournaments hoping to make a score in a bigger tournament

BryanB said:

For as long as it takes to raise or lower a Fargo rating, a person would spend a lot of time and money in smaller tournaments hoping to make a score in a bigger tournament

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Would be a pretty neat little concept, though.....


Go to the smaller tourney, go two and out on the lemon.

Wait around practicing(not FargoRated of course) until the tourney is over, stick the guy who won for all the cash. And all his buddies who saw you go two and out.

Wash, rinse, repeat on all the little ones until the big one comes, and be at a huge advantage against anyone playing fair.

Sounds good on paper........ haha

jason said:

9 ft are a lot easier to run out on. There is less congestion. The shots are longer, but rarely the creative breakouts needed. As long as you shoot straight, not so hard.

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Are you high?? Gotta be the dumbest thing i've ever heard on here and that's saying something. FIRST and ONLY time in 40yrs of playing i've heard ANYONE say that 9ft. tables are easier to run out on. Are you really serious or just failing badly at sarcasm?

I see everyone is now seeing what some of us in the esports world have been annoyed at for years now. When it comes to handicap systems, keep it in the background. Once players see those numbers next to their names, it's all downhill from there.

JolietJames said:

Read it again.
We/they spend all our/their time on 9 footers. That's where our fargos got established. Then we play in BB events and are underrated. This isn't done to cheat, it's just how it happens.

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The notion that you are underrated because your score comes from play on 9' tables is incorrect. Why would your fargo be lower from playing on a 9'? Do you lose to players on a big table that you would beat on a bar box? The table size doesn't matter it's about your win rate. These guys that you beat in BB events you would probably beat at the same rate in big table events I'm guessing. Fargo Rate is about your skill and it is derived from your win rate against other established players. Your skill doesn't change from table to table. You may not run out as much on 9's, but neither will the other guy therefore your win rate will be the same and your fargo's will be accurate despite the equipment change. Would love to hear Mike chime in on this.

Cory in DC said:

I wish the OP were wrong, but he's probably not. I think it's fixable.

For players with established ratings, FargoRate could present stratified ratings based on records in tournaments with low/medium/high stakes. A tournament director could then pick the rating for each player that corresponds to the type of tournament being run. That way, a player would have to dump multiple high-stakes tournaments in order to get an edge in the next one, but that wouldn't be profitable.

If FargoRate were able to track the stakes of entered matches, that could also be in input into the algorithm. It already puts more weight on more recent matches than on older matches; it could use the same basic approach to also weight higher stakes matches more. The weights would be set to maximize the predictive accuracy.

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15-25 points one way or the other won't make much difference and what you describe is well within those margins.

Just leave it alone, let it mature and enjoy!

hang-the-9 said:

Players are gaming the Fargo ratings with dumping cheaper events to cash easier in the larger tournaments.

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This is not that easy or cost-effective to do, IMO.

When you dump in a cheaper tournament, you're going to be out of the tournament quickly. The best would be to lose all of your games, so let's say you're two and out, 5-0 and 5-0. You've lost your $25 and that's only 10 games. So you probably need to enter a bunch of those tournaments, losing $25 for only 10 games every time. Do it 10 times to get 100 lost games in the system, and you're out $250.

Then you go to the big money tournament. They're going to have longer races and lots more players. You might need to win 40 games to get in the money and win $200, which doesn't even make up for the $250 it cost to lower your rating. To win the 1st place $800 it might require 60 games if you go through the winner's side, 100 if you go to the left side early.

You've made a couple hundred dollars, but you can only do that once in your life because you've now lost your low Fargo rating, and on top of it all you're a miserable little nit who spent weekend after weekend losing to grandmas so you could have one winning weekend. And now everyone knows it.

BRussell said:

This is not that easy or cost-effective to do, IMO.

When you dump in a cheaper tournament, you're going to be out of the tournament quickly. The best would be to lose all of your games, so let's say you're two and out, 5-0 and 5-0. You've lost your $25 and that's only 10 games. So you probably need to enter a bunch of those tournaments, losing $25 for only 10 games every time. Do it 10 times to get 100 lost games in the system, and you're out $250.

Then you go to the big money tournament. They're going to have longer races and lots more players. You might need to win 40 games to get in the money and win $200, which doesn't even make up for the $250 it cost to lower your rating. To win the 1st place $800 it might require 60 games if you go through the winner's side, 100 if you go to the left side early.

You've made a couple hundred dollars, but you can only do that once in your life because you've now lost your low Fargo rating, and on top of it all you're a miserable little nit who spent weekend after weekend losing to grandmas so you could have one winning weekend. And now everyone knows it.

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This! I say let the sandbaggers sandbag, Oh your only a 540 bro? Sucks to be you.