Any thoughts on bca vegas

[9Ball_JJ]

Here are the winners from this year.

MIXED GOLD Rating Robustness
1) John Bustamante - not found - N/A
2) Juan Parra Jr. - 614 - 2785
3) Jeff Nystrom - 607 - 697

MIXED SILVER
1) Travis Kuenzel - 623 - 211
2) Geoff Gelinas - 573 - 157
3) Subh Mukherjee - 556 - 61

MIXED BRONZE
1) Louie Souza - 548 - 195
2) Bryan Patino - 469 - 287
3) Steve Villarreal - 484 - 250

I didn't put platinum because they have high ratings and it is impossible to sandbag in that division. But you can see the disparity between 1st and 2nd place finishers by ratings. Not sure what the cutoff was to be in Gold and I'm guessing that when John Bistamante's rating come in, it will be in the Platinum category.
Judge for yourself.........JMHO

Just wanted to correct you on the winner's name for the 8ball gold. His name is Adrian Bustamante, from NM. He originally had a robustness of 4 before the event.

I had a few takeaways from BCA Nationals:

1. Regardless of how it's stated in the video, I had thought the reason behind Fargo was for transparency of players skill levels. Even if league operators do not have the updated LMS, I'm assuming there's a way they can enter information just as we do in our city for almost every single tournament. Playing a player that has a rating but has absolutely no robustness does not make an established player feel like it's fair. The winners Fargo rates are shown in post #10. When I looked at the entries, it was easy to determine the cutoff Fargo for each division. The video does not address how Bustamante (not found in Fargo-Gold), John Parra Jr (614-Gold), Travis Kuenel (623-Silver), Geoff Gelinas (573-Gold), Subh Mukherjee (556-Gold) and Louie Sousa (548-Bronse)...ended up in their respective divisions as they are all higher than the cutoff for the respective division. This topic has been pretty much beat to death on Facebook. Ultimately, players were disappointed that they ended up playing someone with absolutely no robustness but you must be a BCA league player in order to play nationals.

A few takeaways from my experience at the BCA this year...This was my 14th year going to this event. It's always been a great event, but the fields seem to be getting smaller for the past few years. I'm sure the CSI players not being allowed to play in the BCA events took some players away, but you could definitely tell there were dwindling numbers just from looking at the open tables during some of the events, especially in the 2nd room.

The food/drinks were expensive just like always. But with limited options, there's not much we could do.

I think the Fargo ratings did well this year, and will only get better. There's not going to be a perfect system, but with more data in the system, it'll definitely get better with time. There was 1 player in particular that I played against, who was bragging how he snuck into the 8ball gold and was forfeited. Things like that just help put a little more faith in Ozzy and crew.

I actually went back and plugged my pre-event Fargo and my opponent's pre-event Fargo in the "find match odds," on the Fargo website. I only ran into 3 guys that were unestablished. My result in the match and Fargo's predictions are below:
- Terrence Lee (579): Won 6/3. Fargo says I win: 63.8%
- Troy Patten (546): Won 6/3. Fargo says I win: 77%
- Houa Lee (606): Won 6/5. Fargo says I win: 51.4%
- Joey Bourgeois Jr (573 Unestablished): Won 6/2. Fargo says I win: 66.4%
- Mike Andre (609): 6/1. Fargo says I win: 50%
- Andrew Crews (565 Unestablished): Won 6/1. Fargo says I win: 69.7%
- Tom Joyce (640): Lost 6/5. Fargo says I win 35.8% ----- This is the opponent that was forfeited
- Adrian Bustamante (546 Unestablished): Lost 6/5. Fargo says: 77%
- Jeff Nystrom (596): Won 6/4. Fargo says: 56.1%
- Finals: Adrian Bustamante (546 Unestablished): Lost 6/2. Fargo says: 77%


@Bandit, for the record, I believe the cutoff for the 8ball gold division was 613. My established Fargo before the event was 609. After Mike entered the stats for the event, my Fargo is now 614 as you mentioned. Being that my robustness is so high, I figured it would go up a little bit. Oh, and my name is Juan Parra Jr, not John. :smile:

 

[nine_ball6970]

Just wanted to correct you on the winner's name for the 8ball gold. His name is Adrian Bustamante, from NM. He originally had a robustness of 4 before the event.




A few takeaways from my experience at the BCA this year...This was my 14th year going to this event. It's always been a great event, but the fields seem to be getting smaller for the past few years. I'm sure the CSI players not being allowed to play in the BCA events took some players away, but you could definitely tell there were dwindling numbers just from looking at the open tables during some of the events, especially in the 2nd room.

The food/drinks were expensive just like always. But with limited options, there's not much we could do.

I think the Fargo ratings did well this year, and will only get better. There's not going to be a perfect system, but with more data in the system, it'll definitely get better with time. There was 1 player in particular that I played against, who was bragging how he snuck into the 8ball gold and was forfeited. Things like that just help put a little more faith in Ozzy and crew.

I actually went back and plugged my pre-event Fargo and my opponent's pre-event Fargo in the "find match odds," on the Fargo website. I only ran into 3 guys that were unestablished. My result in the match and Fargo's predictions are below:
- Terrence Lee (579): Won 6/3. Fargo says I win: 63.8%
- Troy Patten (546): Won 6/3. Fargo says I win: 77%
- Houa Lee (606): Won 6/5. Fargo says I win: 51.4%
- Joey Bourgeois Jr (573 Unestablished): Won 6/2. Fargo says I win: 66.4%
- Mike Andre (609): 6/1. Fargo says I win: 50%
- Andrew Crews (565 Unestablished): Won 6/1. Fargo says I win: 69.7%
- Tom Joyce (640): Lost 6/5. Fargo says I win 35.8% ----- This is the opponent that was forfeited
- Adrian Bustamante (546 Unestablished): Lost 6/5. Fargo says: 77%
- Jeff Nystrom (596): Won 6/4. Fargo says: 56.1%
- Finals: Adrian Bustamante (546 Unestablished): Lost 6/2. Fargo says: 77%


@Bandit, for the record, I believe the cutoff for the 8ball gold division was 613. My established Fargo before the event was 609. After Mike entered the stats for the event, my Fargo is now 614 as you mentioned. Being that my robustness is so high, I figured it would go up a little bit. Oh, and my name is Juan Parra Jr, not John. :smile:

Good shooting sir. Strong win vs Joey. What does Fargo say now if you played him race to 6?

 

[9Ball_JJ]

Good shooting sir. Strong win vs Joey. What does Fargo say now if you played him race to 6?

Thank you sir! Truth be told, I got a little lucky against Joey. He's a phenomenal player and being that I'm from Dallas, I knew exactly how he played. He rattled a few balls late in the racks, which left a wide open table in 3 games. I had 1 BnR, and then managed to win a safety battle against him as well. Now against Joey, Fargo says I'm at 29.9% to win a race to 6.

 

[BRussell]

I just read about CSI disqualifying a player in Gold and giving his money to charity. Their press release is here.

During one of his matches, the player was overheard bragging about entering the tournament with a low rating. After hearing that, his opponent followed the correct procedure and submitted a formal protest to the Tournament Director before the match ended.

Tournament officials took immediate action and began investigating the issue by interviewing both players, numerous people in the area and others who know both players including the League Operators. Based on all available information, CSI concluded that the player intentionally entered the event at a rating other than his own which placed him in a lower division. This is defined as cheating per the event rules and regulations as stated below.

From what 9ball_jj says above, the player’s name is Tom Joyce from Canada. Anyone have any other info about how he came in with a lower rating? I assume they had a wrong name or something.