Are Fargo Ratings inflating?

[mikepage]

51 players on top 100 list are now over 800 (vs. 35 players two years ago)
The top rating is 848 (vs. 830 two years ago)

Are Fargo Ratings inflating? That's not an easy question to answer. But here is evidence they're not--or at least any drift is small. We compared the ratings now to the ratings of the same players two years ago including all players who had established rating then and also played at least some games in the last two years. Then we divided those players according to how many games they logged in the last two years.

Not surprisingly, the people who play more have ratings that increase more. The implication is that players are more likely to have improved if they play a lot. If there is a rating drift/inflation, we'd expect it to appear as an INTERCEPT on the vertical axis, a rating change not tied to improvement. The fact the intercept is near zero suggests there is at best little drift.

 

[ideologist]

51 players on top 100 list are now over 800 (vs. 35 players two years ago)
The top rating is 848 (vs. 830 two years ago)

Are Fargo Ratings inflating? That's not an easy question to answer. But here is evidence they're not--or at least any drift is small. We compared the ratings now to the ratings of the same players two years ago including all players who had established rating then and also played at least some games in the last two years. Then we divided those players according to how many games they logged in the last two years.

Not surprisingly, the people who play more have ratings that increase more. The implication is that players are more likely to have improved if they play a lot. If there is a rating drift/inflation, we'd expect it to appear as an INTERCEPT on the vertical axis, a rating change not tied to improvement. The fact the intercept is near zero suggests there is at best little drift.

View attachment 748917

Very clear and self-explanatory, thank you.

The one thing that I am curious about: Fargo doesn't take into account the age of the player. I wonder what the average age of the players not improving during the 2800+ games played. I bet younger people who practice often are improving, and older folks are slowly declining, in spite of regular practice

 

[Texas Carom Club]

In Houston they only seem to go down
Hmmmm

 

[JABSolstice]

I always enjoy when Mike comes on and provides statistics within the Fargo rating. It doesn't do me a lot of good as I only have 4 or 5 games in the system, but it is always fun to read.

Thank you, @mikepage

 

[justadub]

I always enjoy when Mike comes on and provides statistics within the Fargo rating. It doesn't do me a lot of good as I only have 4 or 5 games in the system, but it is always fun to read.

Thank you, @mikepage

Agreed. I'm not in the system at all and not likely to be any time soon, but I'm very interested in how it all works. It's been fun to watch it grow.

 

[The_JV]

As with all things driven by those who focus on statistical math. Any apparent anomaly can be explained away by sample size.

Although I'm a self declared Fargo fanboy. I find all Mike's "math verification" comments the same with merely different wording

 

[kling&allen]

51 players on top 100 list are now over 800 (vs. 35 players two years ago)
The top rating is 848 (vs. 830 two years ago)

Are Fargo Ratings inflating? That's not an easy question to answer. But here is evidence they're not--or at least any drift is small. We compared the ratings now to the ratings of the same players two years ago including all players who had established rating then and also played at least some games in the last two years. Then we divided those players according to how many games they logged in the last two years.

Not surprisingly, the people who play more have ratings that increase more. The implication is that players are more likely to have improved if they play a lot. If there is a rating drift/inflation, we'd expect it to appear as an INTERCEPT on the vertical axis, a rating change not tied to improvement. The fact the intercept is near zero suggests there is at best little drift.

View attachment 748917

It would be interesting to identify the players with decreasing Fargo. I’m imagine (other than lack of play) age could be correlated.

 

[derangedhermit]

(...)We compared the ratings now to the ratings of the same players two years ago including all players who had established rating then and also played at least some games in the last two years. Then we divided those players according to how many games they logged in the last two years.

Not surprisingly, the people who play more have ratings that increase more. The implication is that players are more likely to have improved if they play a lot. If there is a rating drift/inflation, we'd expect it to appear as an INTERCEPT on the vertical axis, a rating change not tied to improvement. The fact the intercept is near zero suggests there is at best little drift.

If I understand what you say you expect, it is that on average, people who take a year or two off will, the following year, continue play at the level they stopped playing - 0 games played in 2 years is expected to leave rating unchanged. That seems an odd expectation to me. Most things that people do require ongoing practice to maintain a given skill level (that would take practice to re-establish).

I would expect that it takes some minimum number of games to maintain a given Fargo rating, that the minimum increases as skill level increases, and that the Y intercept point on your graph (zero games played in two years after previous years of playing) would be a negative number, showing an average deterioration in play (due to not playing at all). With that expectation, you chart does show inflation in Fargo ratings, since people who stopped playing have maintained their Fargo rating, but it seems unlikely they have maintained their skill level.

 

[Atorontopoolplayer]

This seems odd to me
If everyone essentially that plays is improving, nobody is really improving relatively and the ratings are just creeping upwards

 

[alphadog]

If I understand what you say you expect, it is that on average, people who take a year or two off will, the following year, continue play at the level they stopped playing - 0 games played in 2 years is expected to leave rating unchanged. That seems an odd expectation to me. Most things that people do require ongoing practice to maintain a given skill level (that would take practice to re-establish).

I would expect that it takes some minimum number of games to maintain a given Fargo rating, that the minimum increases as skill level increases, and that the Y intercept point on your graph (zero games played in two years after previous years of playing) would be a negative number, showing an average deterioration in play (due to not playing at all). With that expectation, you chart does show inflation in Fargo ratings, since people who stopped playing have maintained their Fargo rating, but it seems unlikely they have maintained their skill level.

You are assuming the player isn't playing or practicing when they may be active just not in events linked to fargorate.

 

[Rodney]

It would be interesting to identify the players with decreasing Fargo. I’m imagine (other than lack of play) age could be correlated.

Mine decreased by 20 something points because I hadn’t play in a year or two, played in a couple tournaments and didn’t play very well. Even with the drop if I played another tournament I’m probably still overrated because I really don’t play anymore. Playing consistently makes a huge difference!

 

[nine_ball6970]

How many players have logged 2,800 games in the last two years? I would have to play a crazy number of tournaments to get that.

I doubt players who have a decreasing rating are logging that many games.

It seems like the ratings are just becoming more accurate as players get more games in the system.

 

[garczar]

How many players have logged 2,800 games in the last two years? I would have to play a crazy number of tournaments to get that.

I doubt players who have a decreasing rating are logging that many games.

It seems like the ratings are just becoming more accurate as players get more games in the system.

if you play in reporting leagues and tournaments it doesn't take long. i've got a friend who just hit 8,000 and he hasn't been playing FR stuff all that long. the games add up quik.

 

[nine_ball6970]

if you play in reporting leagues and tournaments it doesn't take long. i've got a friend who just hit 8,000 and he hasn't been playing FR stuff all that long. the games add up quik.

Say I average 20 games per tournament. Races to 4 and 3. Then it would take 140 tournaments. One tournament every single week for two years would be just over 2,000 games. Add one league night at 10 games on average and yes that would be 3,000 or so games. That is a lot of pool.

 

[Atorontopoolplayer]

Pretty short races?

 

[iusedtoberich]

I don’t believe it. I think the creep is real. I have posts saved from 2015 and the increase is huge. I doubt anyone here thinks Shane plays better today than in 2015.

 

[Ģüśţāṿ]

In ten years, multiple players will be pushing 1000.

The fargorate calculation ultimately needs refinement IMO. The top players shoot at an extremely high level, but at some point every person will ultimately begin to decrease. We are not really seeing that here. Everyone has consistently gone up.

 

[iusedtoberich]

For further fuel “for” creep, the Nick Varner thread I started 4.5 years ago and bumped last week shows a player who went up 10 points and barely played 10 racks per year in those 4.5 years.

 

[DeadStick]

If I understand what you say you expect, it is that on average, people who take a year or two off will, the following year, continue play at the level they stopped playing - 0 games played in 2 years is expected to leave rating unchanged. That seems an odd expectation to me. Most things that people do require ongoing practice to maintain a given skill level (that would take practice to re-establish).

I would expect that it takes some minimum number of games to maintain a given Fargo rating, that the minimum increases as skill level increases, and that the Y intercept point on your graph (zero games played in two years after previous years of playing) would be a negative number, showing an average deterioration in play (due to not playing at all). With that expectation, you chart does show inflation in Fargo ratings, since people who stopped playing have maintained their Fargo rating, but it seems unlikely they have maintained their skill level.

This ^^

The chart indicates to me that everyone with activity in the system (at least one game in two years) is either maintaining their Fargo (people who rarely play), or increasing their Fargo, on average. So the average overall FR of active players is increasing.

In a stable state with no inflation, I think we’d see as many active players decreasing as increasing, so top players may increase 3.5 pts/year while bottom players decrease 3.5 pts/year.

In summary: to me the chart shows FR inflation of about 3.5 points per year.

 

[DeadStick]

For further fuel “for” creep, the Nick Varner thread I started 4.5 years ago and bumped last week shows a player who went up 10 points and barely played 10 racks per year in those 4.5 years.

I don’t think you can diagnose inflation/creep by looking at only one player, unless you know the results of all his games and the ratings of his opponents. He could have had a win rate that accounted for his 10 pt gain in 45 racks played.