Consistency of APA Ratings

Banks said:
Some people are lucky, some are unlucky, while everyone else falls somewhere in between. It has nothing at all to do with even odds.
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So if I gambled with you using a coin, and won 90% of the time, you would never consider that the coin was fixed, you would just assume that I was 'luckier' than you?

Don't go into the casino business, would be my advice. Or medical trials, or insurance,...

Thank you kindly.
 
Corwyn_8 said:
So if I gambled with you using a coin, and won 90% of the time, you would never consider that the coin was fixed, you would just assume that I was 'luckier' than you?

Don't go into the casino business, would be my advice. Or medical trials, or insurance,...

Thank you kindly.
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your odds our 50/50 each time no matter how many times you flip the coin. Those odds don't change. so yeah I would consider it unlucky. Casino's can manipulate odds to go there way and I don't think there is anything in a casino where they odds are 50/50 lol
 
Corwyn_8 said:
So if I gambled with you using a coin, and won 90% of the time, you would never consider that the coin was fixed, you would just assume that I was 'luckier' than you?

Don't go into the casino business, would be my advice. Or medical trials, or insurance,...

Thank you kindly.
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So, you're saying that if a million people flip coins, they'll all end up even. Always. Because there isn't luck. :rolleyes:

You're welcome kindly.
 
Corwyn_8 said:
It wasn't MY definition, it's Google's. Argue with them.

So person who drops the eight on the break gets more points, than one who wins the regular way? If both count the same, win/loss covers it. Every time someone wins a game by sinking the eight on the break, there handicap needs to be adjusted, why should it be adjusted by more than the equivalent of one game?

Let's take the example of three people who win EVERY game they play (thousands of games). One breaks and runs every time, the other sinks the eight every time, the third plays a safety once a game. To which should we assign a higher probability of winning? Why?

Thank you kindly.
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It is an interesting question. The one who plays a safety every game will have a higher probability of winning because him winning does not require him to break. We have no clue how the one who breaks and runs or the one who makes the 8 on the break does when their opponent breaks.
 
nine_ball6970 said:
It is an interesting question. The one who plays a safety every game will have a higher probability of winning because him winning does not require him to break. We have no clue how the one who breaks and runs or the one who makes the 8 on the break does when their opponent breaks.
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If the guys breaking and running every rack the guys shooting the safes is sitting


1
 
Banks said:
So, you're saying that if a million people flip coins, they'll all end up even. Always. Because there isn't luck. :rolleyes:

You're welcome kindly.
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NO. I am saying nothing like that. Not sure how you got that from what I actually wrote.

I am saying that if there is a statistical correlation between the result and some other characteristic, then the result can not be said to be 'luck' (by the definition of 'luck' available from Google).

Thank you kindly.
 
trob said:
your odds our 50/50 each time no matter how many times you flip the coin. Those odds don't change. so yeah I would consider it unlucky. Casino's can manipulate odds to go there way and I don't think there is anything in a casino where they odds are 50/50 lol
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Cool. I will bring my fixed coin over, you bring all our money.

Thank you kindly.
 
Skippy27 said:
A player that wins by any method other than them actually shooting the 8 ball in should be completely ignored by the system, PERIOD.

Why it would ever have been included is beyond me as it has absolutely nothing to do with them and/or their skill.

Bad players will scratch on the 8, make the 8 in the wrong pocket or make an early 8 more often then good players so it should have no reflection in their opponents rating when they do it. I don't even think these should be reflected in the player's rating that does it, if it even is. Otherwise it would be another tool sandbaggers use to manipulate the system by purposely doing it.
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I think this statement is just a little too strong. I've personally played plenty of games where I baited the opponent into scratching on the 8 or making the 8 early. That's not a fluke on my part - it does take some skill to recognize the situation and set your opponent up. However, I do agree that most of the time it isn't a reflection of my ability at all, and for that reason we make adjustments.

By the way, a system where those "flukes" aren't even recorded (say a system that only looks at games won or lost) is also susceptible to this issue. If you believe they shouldn't count at all then they shouldn't count there either. If you believe it all evens out in the long run then you should believe that here as well.

Also, if a player is going to sandbag by losing games, how they lose is irrelevant. A cheater will do whatever they have to do to cheat. You can make it harder, but in the end you're not going to prevent it 100%. You have to be vigilant and try to catch what you don't prevent. If someone tells you their system can't be sandbagged, they are naive and probably not vigilant at all.
 
APA Operator said:
I think this statement is just a little too strong. I've personally played plenty of games where I baited the opponent into scratching on the 8 or making the 8 early. That's not a fluke on my part - it does take some skill to recognize the situation and set your opponent up. However, I do agree that most of the time it isn't a reflection of my ability at all, and for that reason we make adjustments.

By the way, a system where those "flukes" aren't even recorded (say a system that only looks at games won or lost) is also susceptible to this issue. If you believe they shouldn't count at all then they shouldn't count there either. If you believe it all evens out in the long run then you should believe that here as well.

Also, if a player is going to sandbag by losing games, how they lose is irrelevant. A cheater will do whatever they have to do to cheat. You can make it harder, but in the end you're not going to prevent it 100%. You have to be vigilant and try to catch what you don't prevent. If someone tells you their system can't be sandbagged, they are naive and probably not vigilant at all.
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With regard to "Sandbagging", I know it's a favorite among just about everyone here, particularly the angry APA players to throw that term about and blame it for just about everything, but in truth I find that there are really very few players that can sandbag effectively anyway. Everyone might have a really bad night from time to time, and sometimes there is another player that just has your number, and there are players that just don't care and they play like it, but you really can't call any of that sandbagging. The APA system can be manipulated, but I would bet that there's a very, very small portion of the league that would even approach know how to and have it be effective. When you need, to win as a sandbagger you won't be able to without DQing your team, that's not effective cheating
 
pogmothoin said:
We had a discussion the other night with some other APA players from a different area. It revolved around the consistency of APA ratings from one league area to the next.

My thought was that since the APA is a national organization that the ratings should be fairly consistent. I have never played outside my area, never been to Vegas so I have no reference.

The other players who played in two different APA leagues and who had been to Vegas said there is a wide difference in the ability of players of the same skill level from one area to the next.

Do any of you have insight on why this may be? What are your experiences?
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Skippy27 said:
My goal was to be a 7 by the end of last year and I failed. So it is my goal again this year. However, I was speaking with LO (whom is from the APA office) and he told me not to get too stuck on that as it is very hard to get to a 7 because you have to average such a low inning count for so long.

I don't know this as fact, but if you are a 7 you are average less then 2 innings a game after you factor in defensive shots.
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I've heard that also even a lower inning average than that, there is a chart on this.
 
skip100 said:
The ratings have two major components - win percentage and innings played in winning games (minus safeties). Both of these are subject to variability across location.

Win percentage is affected by the quality of your competition, so even if player A and player B are evently matched, if player A is in a league with tougher opponents then he could have a lower rating than player B.

Innings played should in theory not be affected by location, but in fact it is because of what jeremy points out. Locations with knowledgeable players who mark safeties will end up with higher ratings due to a lower effective inning count. In one of my leagues it seems to be the unstated policy not to mark any safeties at all which results in a lot of strong 4s and 5s.
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You make two very good points here. Player A may be a 4 as he plays in a stronger league that doesn't mark safeties. Player B might be a over rated new 6 as he plays in a weak league that always mark safeties. These two players meet in a match you now factor in the handicap system Player A wins 3 games to 2 games a very high percentage of the time.
 
drv4 said:
I have broke and ran 34% of my games in APA in 8 ball and I'm a 6.
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How many games? Doesn't seem possible unless you're playing 6 inning games for the rest of your matches.

I don't mean you can't run the racks, but how can you stay a 6 if you run out that often, that's pretty strong. The best guy in our league may run out 10 times per session and he's a 7.
 
lorider said:
I have only 3 occasions where I have faced players from other areas

Twice at singles regionals and once at 9 ball team nationals.

In the regionals I never saw any one that I thought was underhandicapped

At nationals I saw 1 player that I thought was WA under handicapped. She happened to be a 2. An observer happened to be standing beside me watching as this 2 was playing my 3. After a few moments the observer said ...wow she made a pretty good run. I said ...yea...not bad for a 2 huh ?

He said ..she's a 2? I said...thats what the score sheet states. He went and got another observer to come wat,h also.

On the other hand ..i am sure several people thought I was under handicapped out there also based on me beating one 5 by 20-0 and another by 19-1 then losing by 1 point to 7 after being down 18-0 before I ever got fo the table.

Then I lost to a 3 by 25-27 lol dont really think he Ws a sand bagger. Darn good 3 or possibly an average 4. I just shot bad lol
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I play in 4 different geographical leagues and there is a very wide winning percentage range 90, 55. 38, 28. Also have to factor in what sl I play against.
 
pogmothoin said:
How many games? Doesn't seem possible unless you're playing 6 inning games for the rest of your matches.

I don't mean you can't run the racks, but how can you stay a 6 if you run out that often, that's pretty strong. The best guy in our league may run out 10 times per session and he's a 7.
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If he is losing 60% of those matches then he could stay a 6. The other factor would be the sl he is playing against. This is why I asked his winning %.
 
APA Operator said:
Many years ago LO's had the capability to set or unset two different limits - a "highest attainable" limit and a "lowest attainable" limit. The high limit was supposed to be a temporary thing, to keep weird stuff like two 8-Ball scratches from causing a 2 to go to a 3. APA found out that some LO's were using it more than they should have to keep skill levels artificially low, and that capability was taken away from the LO's control. We can now mark the "total default" matches, and for the most part it prevents the movement like the previous control did. Nowadays, "locking a player in" means setting the lowest attainable skill level so the player cannot go down.
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So if I understand this correctly, the LO can set the lowest attainable sl say for a sl5 to zero and that player can be manually lowered to a sl4 any time. Reason I'm asking is I don't know how anyone with 80% winning record in week 8 goes down a skill level. Can you enlighten me on this. I've also noticed that it is the same people that move up and down skill levels several times a session over several sessions.
 
APA Operator said:
No study, just a ballpark number to make a point. But it's intended to mean that if NOBODY marks defense for ANYONE, 1 out of 20 will be underrated. In your example, at some point everyone has some defensive shots marked. And believe it or not, we know who marks excessive defense - we call it "pencil whipping".
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Even if defensive shots were not marked, and a player has a high inning count for a match won, would not the Applied Score chart come into play and the lower number be used.
 
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