What is the most effective Handicapping System that is easy to understand?

336Robin

336Robin

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I'm playing a weekly (In House) 8-ball league and I never look at my handicap, I just play
my match. The handicap is in the number of balls you make/points. So you'll have a
personal handicap and your team has a collective handicap. It works great but its
beyond my pay grade as to how it works.

I was thinking about it yesterday and I know there is a spreadsheet and a formula this is
run by and I know its evolved over time and I was thinking your average person
wouldn't come with all of that so.

How would you handicap 8- ball or 9-ball in a way that made sense, worked well and
wasn't so complicated that it required a spreadsheet?

Does anyone have the easy magical potion?
 
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Bob Jewett

Bob Jewett

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The FargoRate site has a tool that shows handicaps according to Fargo ratings. They are game spots, so a 500 might play a 600 at 7-4. You do need ratings for all the players but it is not so hard to set those for players who don't have an official rating.

Alternatively, you could use the NPL system which is a lot like the FargoRate handicapping but all the rating maintenance and adjustments are local. It is simple enough to do on paper. If you win, your rating goes up. If you lose it goes down. Spots are from a table according to the rating difference of the two players. Players know exactly why their ratings changed.
 
LowRight

LowRight

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Bob Jewett said:
The FargoRate site has a tool that shows handicaps according to Fargo ratings. They are game spots, so a 500 might play a 600 at 7-4. You do need ratings for all the players but it is not so hard to set those for players who don't have an official rating.

Alternatively, you could use the NPL system which is a lot like the FargoRate handicapping but all the rating maintenance and adjustments are local. It is simple enough to do on paper. If you win, your rating goes up. If you lose it goes down. Spots are from a table according to the rating difference of the two players. Players know exactly why their ratings changed.
Click to expand...

Either FargoRate or NPL is the way to go. I play in an NPL league and it works great. FargoRate now has league management software as well.
 
Sealegs50

Sealegs50

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For 9-ball, I have played in a race to 5 tournament where the race starts out with no handicap. When a player is ahead by 1 game, the opponent gets the 8. If the leading player goes ahead by 2 games, the opponent gets the 7. If the leading player goes ahead by 3 games, the opponent gets the 6. And if the match is 4-0, the opponent gets the 5. As the opponent wins and narrows the gap, the spot goes back up according to the difference in wins described above.

The better player usually wins, but there are very few skunked matches. Even much weaker players will win a game or two against a strong player. Giving up the 5 or 6 is a pretty hefty handicap. Players that are a level or two apart often go to a hill-hill match. The format is fun and there are no records to keep. Sandbagging doesn't do any good.
 
336Robin

336Robin

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Sealegs50 said:
For 9-ball, I have played in a race to 5 tournament where the race starts out with no handicap. When a player is ahead by 1 game, the opponent gets the 8. If the leading player goes ahead by 2 games, the opponent gets the 7. If the leading player goes ahead by 3 games, the opponent gets the 6. And if the match is 4-0, the opponent gets the 5. As the opponent wins and narrows the gap, the spot goes back up according to the difference in wins described above.

The better player usually wins, but there are very few skunked matches. Even much weaker players will win a game or two against a strong player. Giving up the 5 or 6 is a pretty hefty handicap. Players that are a level or two apart often go to a hill-hill match. The format is fun and there are no records to keep. Sandbagging doesn't do any good.
Click to expand...

Now that's interesting. I'll have to think about that some. What I like about
it is the simplicity of not having do paperwork. I think that is where a lot of rooms
would benefit from something like that. Do people seem to respond well to it?

Not being familiar with Fargorate or NPL in my area has me at somewhat of a loss.
 
336Robin

336Robin

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Bob Jewett said:
The FargoRate site has a tool that shows handicaps according to Fargo ratings. They are game spots, so a 500 might play a 600 at 7-4. You do need ratings for all the players but it is not so hard to set those for players who don't have an official rating.

Alternatively, you could use the NPL system which is a lot like the FargoRate handicapping but all the rating maintenance and adjustments are local. It is simple enough to do on paper. If you win, your rating goes up. If you lose it goes down. Spots are from a table according to the rating difference of the two players. Players know exactly why their ratings changed.
Click to expand...

I should look more into fargorate. I don't know of anyone in my area that uses
it but having a tool to help with the system might make it easy to use.
 
Sealegs50

Sealegs50

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336Robin said:
Now that's interesting. I'll have to think about that some. What I like about
it is the simplicity of not having do paperwork. I think that is where a lot of rooms
would benefit from something like that. Do people seem to respond well to it?

Not being familiar with Fargorate or NPL in my area has me at somewhat of a loss.
Click to expand...

It has been quite a few years since I played in those tournaments, but I do not recall anybody complaining. The entry fees were pretty cheap, so it was just an evening event where you got to play people you would not normally match up against.
 
iusedtoberich

iusedtoberich

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I never understood how you could handicap 8 ball with a balls pocketed spot. Maybe it works for bangers and D players that just try to make everything every inning at the table, and can’t run 3 balls anyway. But at a C and above level, I think that system breaks down completely. The 1 times in 25 years of playing I ever played in a handicapped 8 ball league, two players were C/B level and the rest were all D and bangers. So maybe it’s ok if that is the typical player in a handicapped 8 ball league.

Funny story, I was gambling pretty high with a very seasoned gambler. He was about the 7 or 8 better than me in 9 ball, and 10-7 in one hole. He was a mid B player, and I was a strong C at the time. I said to him let’s play 8 ball, and I get to pick 4 of your balls off after the break. Now, neither one of us probably ever played 8 ball since we were bangers. And we both knew this gimmick. But, he was quite a bit better than me, so he took it. I think I ended up winning about 1k from him this session. But I was nervous as hell at the pressure of I sure as shit better run out when I attempted to, or the spot would be worthless.
 
336Robin

336Robin

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Sealegs50 said:
It has been quite a few years since I played in those tournaments, but I do not recall anybody complaining. The entry fees were pretty cheap, so it was just an evening event where you got to play people you would not normally match up against.
Click to expand...

Exactly and another part of what is good about it. It's more about the fun and less about the other stuff.
 
C

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
336Robin said:
I'm playing a weekly (In House) 8-ball league and I never look at my handicap, I just play
my match. The handicap is in the number of balls you make/points. So you'll have a
personal handicap and your team has a collective handicap. It works great but its
beyond my pay grade as to how it works.

I was thinking about it yesterday and I know there is a spreadsheet and a formula this is
run by and I know its evolved over time and I was thinking your average person
wouldn't come with all of that so.

How would you handicap 8- ball or 9-ball in a way that made sense, worked well and
wasn't so complicated that it required a spreadsheet?

Does anyone have the easy magical potion?
Click to expand...
We keep it simple for our 8-ball and 9-ball weekly tournaments. I, as TD, know how all our players play and I handicap all the players. For new players, it doesn't take long for me to tell, and I tell them beforehand that I reserve the right to change their ranking between matches, if I feel I've mis-ranked them. All spots are games on the wire spots for the lower ranked player. Players are ranked AAA, AA, A, B, and C. For 9-ball double elimination, all races are to either 3, 4, or 5 games. Smallest spot is 1 game on the wire in a race to 5 (AAA vs AA) and largest spot is 2 games on the wire in a race to 4 (AAA vs C).

For 8-ball, same handicapped ratings (5 different rankings), all races are to either 3 or 4 games.
Smallest spot is 1 game on the wire in a race to 4 (AAA vs AA) and largest spot is 3 games on the wire in a race to 4 (AAA vs C).

You know the handicaps are accurate when all the players are complaining - the good players feel they are giving too much of a spot and the weaker players feel they are not getting a big enough spot!
 
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BRussell

BRussell

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336Robin said:
I'm playing a weekly (In House) 8-ball league and I never look at my handicap, I just play
my match. The handicap is in the number of balls you make/points. So you'll have a
personal handicap and your team has a collective handicap. It works great but its
beyond my pay grade as to how it works.

I was thinking about it yesterday and I know there is a spreadsheet and a formula this is
run by and I know its evolved over time and I was thinking your average person
wouldn't come with all of that so.

How would you handicap 8- ball or 9-ball in a way that made sense, worked well and
wasn't so complicated that it required a spreadsheet?

Does anyone have the easy magical potion?
Click to expand...

Fargo is definitely the best rating system, but if you’re looking for something simple and transparent, the way a lot of leagues do it is something like this: You win a game, you get 10 pts, if you lose you get the number of your balls that are down. Let’s say 4-person teams, round robin, so each player plays 4 games. Then you get an average based on your scores each night. With a max of 40 (4 games, 10 pts max per game), a 35 avg would be a good player, a 20 would be a weak player.

Then they add up the averages for each team, so a good team might have a 140 handicap, and a weak team might have 80. From there each team might race to their handicap, or they could give the lower team the difference in pts: Play all 16 games, add up pts, weaker team gets +60, whoever has most pts wins.

Some leagues will divide the handicap into the 4 rounds. So if there is a 60 pt difference, the weaker team gets 15 pts/round, and they count rounds won rather than total pts.
 
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336Robin

336Robin

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ChrisinNC said:
We keep it simple for our 8-ball and 9-ball weekly tournaments. I, as TD, know how all our players play and I handicap all the players. For new players, it doesn't take long for me to tell, and I tell them beforehand that I reserve the right to change their ranking between matches, if I feel I've mis-ranked them. All spots are games on the wire spots for the lower ranked player. Players are ranked AAA, AA, A, B, and C. For 9-ball double elimination, all races are to either 3, 4, or 5 games. Smallest spot is 1 game on the wire in a race to 5 (AAA vs AA) and largest spot is 2 games on the wire in a race to 4 (AAA vs C).

For 8-ball, same handicapped ratings (5 different rankings), all races are to either 3 or 4 games.
Smallest spot is 1 game on the wire in a race to 4 (AAA vs AA) and largest spot is 3 games on the wire in a race to 4 (AAA vs C).

You know the handicaps are accurate when all the players are complaining - the good players feel they are giving too much of a spot and the weaker players feel they are not getting a big enough spot!
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have something that's working for you but I don't
understand what you're saying when you say races are to 3, 4 and 5? Are you
having different races within the same tournament based on the handicap? If so how
is that determination made?
 
mikepage

mikepage

AzB Silver Member
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BRussell said:
Fargo is definitely the best rating system, but if you’re looking for something simple and transparent, the way a lot of leagues do it is something like this: You win a game, you get 10 pts, if you lose you get the number of your balls that are down. Let’s say 4-person teams, round robin, so each player plays 4 games. Then you get an average based on your scores each night. With a max of 40 (4 games, 10 pts max per game), a 35 avg would be a good player, a 20 would be a weak player.

Then they add up the averages for each team, so a good team might have a 140 handicap, and a weak team might have 80. From there each team might race to their handicap, or they could give the lower team the difference in pts: Play all 16 games, add up pts, weaker team gets +60, whoever has most pts wins.

Some leagues will divide the handicap into the 4 rounds. So if there is a 60 pt difference, the weaker team gets 15 pts/round, and they count rounds won rather than total pts.
Click to expand...

Here is the gist of the FargoRate version of this. For simplicity, let's say the winner of a game gets 10 points and the loser gets 4 points.

So if you are an average player in your league, you are expected to win 2 of your 4 games and lose 2 of your games. So your "rating," i.e. your expected score, is 10 + 10 + 4 + 4 = 28.

If you are 100 points below average, you are expected to win one third of your games (4/3 games total) and you are expected to lose 8/3 games. So your "rating" is 4/3 * 10 + 8/3 * 4 = 21.

If you are 100 points over average, you are a 32.

If you use ACTUAL Fargo Ratings, i.e., let LMS take care of the math, it can give you a rating against this particular team because it knows who your opponents are. It is a better way of doing it that just the old "averages."
Another advantage is these point ratings are reasonable right away because they can take advantage of starter guesses and last years games and tournament games and the like.
 
Dan_B

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Sealegs50 said:
For 9-ball, I have played in a race to 5 tournament where the race starts out with no handicap. When a player is ahead by 1 game, the opponent gets the 8. If the leading player goes ahead by 2 games, the opponent gets the 7. If the leading player goes ahead by 3 games, the opponent gets the 6. And if the match is 4-0, the opponent gets the 5. As the opponent wins and narrows the gap, the spot goes back up according to the difference in wins described above.

The better player usually wins, but there are very few skunked matches. Even much weaker players will win a game or two against a strong player. Giving up the 5 or 6 is a pretty hefty handicap. Players that are a level or two apart often go to a hill-hill match. The format is fun and there are no records to keep. Sandbagging doesn't do any good.
Click to expand...

when the opponent gets the 8 , 7 or such, are saying the loosing player wins on the 8, 7 and so on?
So if the leader breaks and runs too the 8, giving the 7, looses the match on the miss shot on the 8?
 
Sealegs50

Sealegs50

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Dan_B said:
when the opponent gets the 8 , 7 or such, are saying the loosing player wins on the 8, 7 and so on?
So if the leader breaks and runs too the 8, giving the 7, looses the match on the miss shot on the 8?
Click to expand...


If a player who is behind by 2 games gets the 7, that player can win off the 7 or the 9, but not the 8. If that player wins the game and is now only behind by one game, s/he can win off the 8 or 9 in the next game.

The additional game ball is racked behind the 1 ball. Either player wins from sinking the 9 on the break. I don't recall if the trailing player sinks his/her additional game ball if that ball just stays down or is spotted, but it is not a win.
 
Tin Man

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Everyone playing even is pretty simple. Handicapped by hard work and preparation.

Couldn’t help myself. The real answer is Fargorate.
 
9BallKY

9BallKY

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Rank your best players as a 9 then the players who play just below them a 8 then the players just below them a 7 and so on down to the worst players, no one should be ranked below a 3. Make a list with each players rank beside their name so they know what they are ranked.

Each player has to race to their rank. Example if a 9 is playing a 5. The 9 has to win 9 games and the 5 has to win 5 games. A 6 playing a 4 would be a 6-4 race.
 
336Robin

336Robin

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Sealegs50 said:
If a player who is behind by 2 games gets the 7, that player can win off the 7 or the 9, but not the 8. If that player wins the game and is now only behind by one game, s/he can win off the 8 or 9 in the next game.

The additional game ball is racked behind the 1 ball. Either player wins from sinking the 9 on the break. I don't recall if the trailing player sinks his/her additional game ball if that ball just stays down or is spotted, but it is not a win.
Click to expand...

I have to wonder if Dr. Dave has this ball spot system explained. Seems it needs to written down somewhere. I wonder if it is.
 
mikepage

mikepage

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Tin Man said:
Everyone playing even is pretty simple. Handicapped by hard work and preparation.

Couldn’t help myself. The real answer is Fargorate.
Click to expand...

--a time for every purpose under heaven... I'm running and playing in a small weekly tournament right now

The range of players is big, with 11 players rated 435, 497, 514, 533, 549, 586, 608, 621, 664, and 722. So the top player is more than 100 points over all but one other player. The 497 just got to the hotseat match by beating the 722. The race was 2 to 6, and he won 2 to 4.

These players just would not be laying down $15 week after week in an open tournament. Here they will, and they also talk and learn and interact and generally get juiced up about the game.
 
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