League pool is a team game - you play the combination that you think is most likely to produce the best outcome. The desire of an individual player to have the best stats should be (very) secondary. If they become a diva who wants to match up against either the best or the worst then kick them out and find a banger who wants to play league.
Bias with Your Own Team's Playing Order? (long)
- Thread starter Get_A_Grip
- Start date
And if your goal playing pool is to make money, put on your big boy pants, jump in the box, and find someone to gamble with.
Yeh you can do that
...and there it is. So "losing" the flip means you now have to represent as the best player on the team...? This speaks volumes, as what it means is neither of you two wanted to be "the best" on your team. You both wanted the easier road to hopefully gain the better ranking as an individual. Sorry for being so frank about it, but I consider this cowardly. Rather than own the fact that you (and he) were afraid for your individual rankings and let the captain make the decision based on prior performance, you hid behind a coin flip.
I'm guessing you had the higher team average for most the year. Saw a perfect storm opportunity with equal averages vs the league's best player and managed to get the other guy on your team to accept a coin flip in hopes to duck the top shot and jump in personal rankings.
Honestly..., if I were captain and saw that unfold. I'd probably pencil you in against the top shooter just out of principle.
Both players wanted a chance to play the weaker player, yes. In that case, the only fair option is to flip a coin. The weaker player was still the SECOND best player on their team. But to catch the guy in first place, the way this league matches players up, the only option to advance is to win all 3 games.
I think that people are forgetting how this league works. The ONLY time that I ever have an option to play the second best player instead of the top player on each team, is if someone else is tied with me. The guy that was tied with me was tied one time before, and we flipped a coin, I lost, and I played the stronger player without a problem.
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Not trying to steal your thread, but I think our league team has a similar problem. However, it does not involve money. It is the MVP award. One of our team members is in the running for the award. Our team is probably going to be 2nd or 3rd. He sat out the other night when we played the top team so he could protect his average. What do you folks think of that? Personally, I do not have much use for prima donnas.
Yeah, except I pretty much showed with real numbers that matching up the best players on each team is NOT beneficial to the team, except only in one rare occasion, when one player is so much better than everyone on the other team that they are a huge favorite to win all 3 games against either player. As far as the team is concerned, it is a wash regardless of which of us played the better player.
This is a big fallacy that I uncovered when thinking about this that clearly most players (and those in this thread) are not aware of. If I am a captain and it's the end of the season and whoever I choose to play the much weaker player on the other team is going to get second place in the league, I am flipping a coin to be fair to both players. If you don't do that as a captain, you are screwing one player for sure.
Sure, if one player didn't mind who they played and volunteered, then no problem. Assign them to play the top player. But if both players are trying to catch the guy in first place, and neither volunteers, then flip a coin.
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I don't agree with that at all. The guy in first place in our league actually does that. In fact, when his team played our team, he came to practice before we started and then conveniently had to leave for a doctor's appointment or some crap. He found a Master-level player to sub for him as well.
I'm not ducking anyone. But if I'm tied with someone and both of us would like a chance to win all 3 games, you flip a coin. And I'll say it again, there is NO advantage or benefit to the team to have the better player on our team play the best player on their team.
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The goal at least for me is not to make money. It was to take the top individual spot in the league. Remember, in this league the top player on each team also gets to play in a separate "all-star" tournament at the end of the year with the other top players from the other teams. This whole league is set up with heavy emphasis on placing high individually, with extra money and trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place too. (even though, I'm not personally doing it for the money).
And if you missed where I mentioned it, I gamble with the strongest player on that other team all of the time. And to get him to play, I spot him more than what I should based on our Fargo Ratings. I don't care about the money. In fact, he's now ahead on the money gambling because of the spots that I give him. Now that he's up on the money I still spot him a little more than what Fargo says I should, but I don't give him huge, crazy spots like I used to when I was up on the money.
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When I told the guy that runs the league about what happened, he agreed that a coin flip is the BEST way to go. His reasoning was that he doesn't want any bad karma from asking to play the weaker of the two players. But with a coin flip, you both accept the results and play whoever the coin indicates that you play. The guy winning the flip plays their second best player, instead of their top player.
I think that some of you are WAY over-exaggerating this and are implying that we are SCARED to play their top shooter. It has more to do how this league is setup that drove both of us to want to play the second best player. It's the only real chance that either of us had to advance in the standings. Our own captain knows this well, because he had just told a friend of mine that he feels that he was playing well, but he just couldn't get past his own teammates, because we were winning our games too.
I should point out, that earlier in the year when that same teammate and I were tied and I lost the flip and had to play the other team's top player, my teammate ended-up in first-place on our team for a while. That's the way things work in real life. If one of the two good players gets to play a weaker player, they are going to win more games. Period. It's no mystery. But now my teammate had to play the top shooter on the other team, and eventually he fell back down below me. That is the nature of this league. There will be lots of changing of positions. However, at the end of the season, overruling a coin flip is just gifting second place to the other player. That is reality if you want to be honest about it. And that's all I'm doing.
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Once again, your captain‘s job is to advance the team in the standings to benefit the entire team.
Trying to advance yourself in the standings by intentionally playing weaker players is cowardly. I’m actually surprised that you would have admitted to that here. But then, maybe that’s just me…
As I've pointed out, there is no benefit one way or the other for the TEAM for either of us to play their other team's number 1 player versus their number 2 player. That is pretty much a statistical fact.
I don't mind discussing it. Because to me, the lobbying to overrule a fair coin flip is WAY worst than just accepting the results of the coin flip like we did previously. In my mind, what my teammate did was a chickensh!t thing to do and was much worse.
I don't have an ego like many other players. In fact, I was discussing how a different league runs things with my other captain, and how I am moving to that other league. And my captain didn't like the other league's rules. And his point was that those rules don't benefit me or the better players. But I prefer the most fair rules for everyone. So yeah, nobody is perfect. I want to play within the rules and to be fair. If that is viewed as cowardly to you, so be it.
Yes, yes there was.
The fact that ultimately you won a total of four games between the two of you has no relevance at all with the fact there was a better opportunity for you to win more than four points with you playing the better player, rather than with your teammate.
I can only explain the math to you. Unfortunately I can’t make you understand it…
Not accepting the coinflip was BS.
Unfortunately, I cannot agree with you on anything else. What is the point of being the "top player" if all you do is dodge the tough matches? Isn't that completely pointless? OK, maybe you get some money out of it, but in that case, maybe you should be working or gambling instead? Seems those would be more reliable ways of making money.
I've never been an advocate of handicapped leagues. I don't know if you play in that kind of league, but you do seem to have that mindset of gaming the system and trying to win by ways other than actually beating people at pool. I've played quite a few championships through the years, and I'd take no joy in winning if that means I dodged the best players in some way. The victory would be completely hollow and pointless. If I can't beat them, then I shoudn't win and I wouldn't want to win. Just my opinion.
Unfortunately, I cannot agree with you on anything else. What is the point of being the "top player" if all you do is dodge the tough matches? Isn't that completely pointless? OK, maybe you get some money out of it, but in that case, maybe you should be working or gambling instead? Seems those would be more reliable ways of making money.
I've never been an advocate of handicapped leagues. I don't know if you play in that kind of league, but you do seem to have that mindset of gaming the system and trying to win by ways other than actually beating people at pool. I've played quite a few championships through the years, and I'd take no joy in winning if that means I dodged the best players in some way. The victory would be completely hollow and pointless. If I can't beat them, then I shoudn't win and I wouldn't want to win. Just my opinion.
I played two seasons in the CPA (APA). The first year no one knew me, other than the guy who had owned the 6/7 MVP award for a couple of years. I walked through the season without dropping a match, and crushed the "top" talent. The top guys had decent averages until they ran into me. The second session the jig was up, and I played mostly 2/3's. On occasion, I had the old "bait and switch" pulled (my captain's fault honestly). ...and I the former top dog always seemed to have something else going on during the nights we should have played. Not every team slushed off, and some guys stepped to the plate. However, and this thread is great example. when individual accolades are available within a team league, expect the worst.
No, there is NOT a better chance for me to win more than the 2 games that I won against the better player. In fact, since the other team's best player can run out, there is a chance that he could beat me 2 or even all 3 games.
I had better odds to beat the weaker player all 3 games than I had to beat the stronger player even 2 games. Their strong player is WAY better than their second best player.
I had one teammate tell me, well, you don't know that it would work out that way. Yeah, and you don't know that my teammate wouldn't have beat their strongest player all 3 games. But I'm going by the odds and the average level of play for all 4 players involved.
Well that helps to explain a lot of your comments. You typically play against 2/3s and yet you call me a coward for wanting to play the second best player on the other team. SMH. I know, I know, it's not up to you...
I have never seen or played in a league like the one that I was playing in, where there really is no decision on who I get to play, unless a teammate and I are tied. Our top player MUST play their top player all 3 games. There is no choice. So I didn't mind this league. It is "fair". But it results in weaker players moving up and passing the better players in the standings, until of course they play the top players for a while and get knocked back down.
OK, against my better judgment I’m going to try to explain one more time...
You had a better chance of winning more games against the better player than your teammate did.
By your very own admission, in the very first post, you and teammate were BOTH huge favorites to win all three games against the weaker player.
The best likelihood for the most wins was therefore to play you against the stronger player and he against the weaker player.
It’s a very simple/basic statistics and probability issue.
We were both favorites to beat the weaker player 3 games, but I am a WAY bigger favorite than him to do it. My proof. My teammate only beat him 2 games when he did play him.
My teammate played the better player earlier in the year and he only won 1 game. Either way we match up with their 2 players, on average, we're going to win the same 4 games total.
Both times I played their stronger player, I won 2 games.
You are using my original, slightly misstated words to try to support MATH. We have the real match results.
To me, the biggest factor that I know means that me beating the stronger player more than 2 games is not likely at all, because this player can run out. He is expected to ocassionally beat me 2 games and sometimes all 3 games.
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