Buffalo's 1 Pocket Calcutta $$

The website specifically says that the rating is based on "the results of 8-ball, 9-ball, 10-ball games played on either 9-foot or 7-foot tables."

I mean, if they are counting something (including 8-ball) but failed to update the website... maybe? But I have never heard of anything to contradict the website.

One pocket games been going in for 4 years.

 

Which of the folks on this list would we qualify as a "one pocket specialist" who plays above their rating? What would the typical specialist bump be, 25 points? 50 points?
 
One pocket games been going in for 4 years.

Interesting, and appreciated.

I will stand corrected.

But also wondering... have they kind of given up on their own website in favor of just dealing with the app? It seems like an FAQ page that has the answer to "what games are included?" would be updated to, you know... actually include the games that are included.
 

Which of the folks on this list would we qualify as a "one pocket specialist" who plays above their rating? What would the typical specialist bump be, 25 points? 50 points?
Definitely Chohan and Compton can be considered specialists. I don't know enough about Lunda or Hall to say for sure. Define specialist? If it's anyone who's best game is 1p then perhaps both of them.

Chohan is probably the gold standard for a 1p specialist. As for point bump, well, he's a 777. Gorst is an 850. Who's better at 1p? By how much? Either way, they are probably reasonably close. Does that mean Chohan is better than his rating, or Gorst is worse?

Hard to say, but I think that it's pretty clear that among the common games (so 8b, 9b, 10b, 1p; although perhaps it's pushing it to call 1p common) the game with the biggest potential variation in player skill relative to their general Fargo rating is 1p.
 
Definitely Chohan and Compton can be considered specialists. I don't know enough about Lunda or Hall to say for sure. Define specialist? If it's anyone who's best game is 1p then perhaps both of them.

Chohan is probably the gold standard for a 1p specialist. As for point bump, well, he's a 777. Gorst is an 850. Who's better at 1p? By how much? Either way, they are probably reasonably close. Does that mean Chohan is better than his rating, or Gorst is worse?

Hard to say, but I think that it's pretty clear that among the common games (so 8b, 9b, 10b, 1p; although perhaps it's pushing it to call 1p common) the game with the biggest potential variation in player skill relative to their general Fargo rating is 1p.

it means you can basically include anything with a cue involved and argue for its inclusion.

yes, lunda is a specialist, as is josh roberts. justin hall at this point is a non-factor in rotation, but very good at 1p and banks.
 
Using base fargo ratings, a simulation of 100,000 events shows the following expected values vs. actual cost for the top 20 rated players:

Screenshot 2026-05-29 at 7.12.13 AM.png


Chohan (+23k), Gomez (+21k), Lunda (+12k), and Hall (+10k) were the most overpriced compared to their ratings, while Teutscher (-22k), Gorst (-18k), Garcia (-8k) and Magi (-7k) were the most underpriced.

If you give extra rating points to the players listed in this thread as specialists (50 for Chohan, Gomez, Hall, Lunda and 25 for Roberts, Compton), then the value matrix changes considerably.

Screenshot 2026-05-29 at 7.13.08 AM.png


Now there are only two five-figure discrepancies, for Teutscher (-15k) and Morra (+14k). So overall the Calcutta seems to have been priced pretty well if you believe those adjustments, which is what you'd expect for the kind of informed money flying around in this setting.
 
Using base fargo ratings, a simulation of 100,000 events shows the following expected values vs. actual cost for the top 20 rated players:

View attachment 907166

Chohan (+23k), Gomez (+21k), Lunda (+12k), and Hall (+10k) were the most overpriced compared to their ratings, while Teutscher (-22k), Gorst (-18k), Garcia (-8k) and Magi (-7k) were the most underpriced.

If you give extra rating points to the players listed in this thread as specialists (50 for Chohan, Gomez, Hall, Lunda and 25 for Roberts, Compton), then the value matrix changes considerably.

View attachment 907167

Now there are only two five-figure discrepancies, for Teutscher (-15k) and Morra (+14k). So overall the Calcutta seems to have been priced pretty well if you believe those adjustments, which is what you'd expect for the kind of informed money flying around in this setting.
Fantastic post.

Am I reading this correctly? ... that if Gorst was sold under value, and had sold at your projected "real value," he would need to win the event to have a net positive, and finishing second would be a break-even proposition (within a few hundred dollars, I suppose, given that if he sold for more the total payouts would be slightly different).
 
Fantastic post.

Am I reading this correctly? ... that if Gorst was sold under value, and had sold at your projected "real value," he would need to win the event to have a net positive, and finishing second would be a break-even proposition (within a few hundred dollars, I suppose, given that if he sold for more the total payouts would be slightly different).
yes, without any specialist adjustments, his 850 rating is so much higher than everyone else that he would be expected to finish in the top 2 about half the time on average. He is predicted to have about a 1/3 chance to win the event and generate the large payday that would justify his high value.
 
Fargo ratings for OP would be hard to calculate. For example Lunda, Compton, Hall and Chohan are accomplished players in rotation games but not at the levels of the top tier like Filler, Gorst, Yapp and SVB to name a few. Lunda and company just don’t possess the skills to win a Major rotation event. But they can and do win major OP events. So Fargo ratings are limited in what information it can provide.
 
Teutscher is an interesting case, his price was correlated with an implied rating of about 730, which would put him in the bottom quarter of the field by skill level. That was borne out with a 5-3 loss to Bustamante and 5-1 to DeLawder. Bettors clearly knew that he wouldn't play to an 800+ in this event.
 
Thanks @skip100. I knew the Fargo rating inherently wasn't the direct prediction, and your 50-point adjustment is interesting. Fargo gives us the best independent data source available. Perhaps in the future, the Fargo site will allow us to select a Fargo Rating by Player and by event. Your model is the beginning of the ability to price a calcutta and to possibly see if a "fix" was in, like what happened to the casino in the 90s.
 
Personally, I don’t think there is any way that a FR that doesn’t factor in a players specialty can really be accurate.

I believe this event shows that. And when I get paired with a rotation player with a comparable FR, I usually feel pretty good about it.

Lou Figueroa
my personal experience
 
Thanks @skip100. I knew the Fargo rating inherently wasn't the direct prediction, and your 50-point adjustment is interesting. Fargo gives us the best independent data source available. Perhaps in the future, the Fargo site will allow us to select a Fargo Rating by Player and by event. Your model is the beginning of the ability to price a calcutta and to possibly see if a "fix" was in, like what happened to the casino in the 90s.

Any player with the paid version of the FargoRate app can search for their own situational rating playing specific games - including one pocket.

I’m pretty sure [mention]Mike page [/mention]at FargoRate could generate a list of the top 50 or whatever one pocket players by one pocket specific situational rating. This is assuming they have enough data from one pocket matches so there is sufficient robustness.
 
Personally, I don’t think there is any way that a FR that doesn’t factor in a players specialty can really be accurate.

I believe this event shows that. And when I get paired with a rotation player with a comparable FR, I usually feel pretty good about it.

Lou Figueroa
my personal experience

I think one pocket and banks are the two games where this is most pronounced. Even another rarely played game like 14.1 isn’t as big a challenge. We saw that top rotation players who never (or rarely) played 14.1 were still able to be competitive with the excellent straight pool players.
 
In general, slicing the results up by game or table size will make the predictions worse. 9 ball and 10 ball are basically the same game so you reduce sample size for no reason.

One pocket and banks are different enough that the loss in efficiency is often going to be outweighed by the ability to discriminate between players who have and don’t have the different skill sets needed for those games.
 
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