Fargo Ratings and table size
- Thread starter mikepage
- Start date
Very cool. Racks is my home room and I spent much of the weekend watching the tournament.
I play both table sizes in both leagues and tournaments. Your findings don’t surprise me at all.
A subtlety is it is the UNDERDOG in the match who should want the 7-foot table. That usually IS the weaker player, but it doesn't have to be. Gorst can spot Kristina Tkatch 5 games in a race to 10 and it would be a pretty even match on either table. If for some reason he was spotting her 6, then it is Fedor and not Kristina who should want to move to the easier equipment.
Makes sense.
I’ve been chatting with people about this, and I think there’s one misunderstanding about fargoratings that contributes to the belief that table size should affect it. People think your fargorating is an absolute measure of ability rather than a rating relative to opponents. They think “I may be a 650 on 9’ tables but I’m a 700 on bar tables,” because bar tables are easier to make balls. That would be true if fargoratings were more like a percent of balls made. If you’re a 70% on a big table you might be an 80% on a small table.
Yes, absolutely.
Imagine last week shooting 18 holes on an easy golf course with flat greens, wide fairways, few trees, and no water. Then today you shoot a longer course with soft ground and narrow fairways and long grass in the rough and it is windy and raining. The scores are not comparable.
But imagine you actually never record a score like 80 or 95. instead of having a score you had a team of six foursomes of ghost players --three groups (12 players) in front of you and 3 groups behind you. They are with you every time you play, and they are the same ghost players every time. And what you record is how you did compared to them. So if you scored 88 last week and 110 today, you'd be comparing those to the 80 and 100 the ghost teams scored. You'd be 10% over either way--equivalent performances.
Fargo Ratings is like scoring golf with the ghost-player approach
Exactly. While you might be a '700' on a bar table - if it were an absolute rating - the guy who is a '700' on the 9' table would typically be a 750 on the bar table. I used to love both sides of this. I'd gamble with people on a bar table and they'd excuse losing to me by saying I was a 'bar table specialist' and they'd love to get me on the big table. I played better relative to most people on the big table than the bar table. So I'd usually beat them there too.
Then I'd be playing in a pool hall and play someone on a 9' table and they would say "I'm not used to these big tables, let's play on a bar box." And I'm no slouch on a bar box either.
The point is, they compare their bar table ball pocketing to my big table ball pocketing and think they can beat me.
It's the same thing I've heard throughout the years when people say "My offense is a 5 but my knowledge of the game is a 7".
Maybe, especially people who were great players at one time. But it doesn't really matter, if you can't execute the shots knowledge only gets you so far. Especially when the opponent probably has similar knowledge. Most people that say that really don't have superior knowledge IMO.
I would respect the results more if both games were the same, I simply can't see how you can compare two completely different games on different tables?
That's like taking an automatic racecar on one track and then taking the same model with a stick shift on a different track and trying to figure out which one's better?
That's like taking an automatic racecar on one track and then taking the same model with a stick shift on a different track and trying to figure out which one's better?
The same players beating you on the big tables are beating you on the small tables. That's it.
That's a given, and understood, but my statement stands - technically speaking, this analysis is flawed.
If you agree that “the same players that are beating you on the big tables are beating you on the small tables,” then you agree with the analysis. So why are you agreeing with it and then saying it’s flawed?
I am able to transition back and fourth between equipment (somehow). The same people that play better than me on a big table also beat me on the bar table.The small table doesn't allow the lesser player to win consistently over time.
What the bar table does do is allow more people to run out at a higher percentage, but the better player can fade that in the long run.
I'm saying better players are going to beat you on a big table or small table AND I'm saying that technically speaking - this analysis is flawed. Two different games on two different tables.
Statistically everyone should run out more in 9 ball (break rules being equal).
The entire point is that it’s consistent even with different games and different table sizes. That’s a feature, not a bug.
If you have never been Fargo rated then the concept might be challenging to understand...
The above are indeed the two things that the "but it allows data from three plus different table sizes" and "but it allows data from three different pool games" people fail to fully appreciate and comprehend.
As BRussell pointed out FargoRate is not really a measurement of your pool skills (although it can be used to make good inferences about your pool skills), certainly not any kind of direct or absolute measurement. It is a measurement of how often you win or lose against other people, knowing and keeping in mind how often your opponents also win and lose against other people. Put another way, it is not trying to measure how many racks you can run, how straight you shoot, how tight of position you can play, how many spot shots you can make, or anything along those lines. It measures the most important thing, and really the only important thing when it comes down to it, which is how often you win or lose, against who, and by how much. FargoRate simply compares how often you win, who you can beat, and by how much against the same for everybody else and then assigns you a number in the pecking order such that those you would end up winning twice as many games as they do over time are going to be ranked exactly 100 points lower than you, and those that you would only win half as many games as over time are ranked exactly 100 points higher than you.
As Welder84 points out, people also tend to forget that whatever is true for them about the table/game etc is also true for your opponent as well but they always seem to forget that that part and so they fail to understand that proportionally things stay about the same between them and their opponent relative to each other regardless of the table size or whether the game is 8, 9, or 10 ball.
But I play way better on a bar box. Yup, and so does your opponent.
But a tight 9 footer is so much tougher than a loose Valley bar box. True enough, but that isn't only true for you, that also holds just as true for your opponent too.
But I can run 4 packs on a bar box and can only run 2 packs on a 9 footer. And your opponent can run 6 packs on a bar box and only 3 packs on a 9 footer.
But I run way more racks of 8 ball on a 9 ft table than I do racks of 10 ball. Yeah, and the same is true for your opponent. No, but I mean waaaaay more, I don't think you understand. And your opponent is running waaaaaaay more too, it is you that is not understanding.
And then the one final thing they need to understand is this, even if they never can grasp any of the above. Whether it seems intuitive to them or not, and whether it is what they would have thought or not, and whether they can grasp it or not, and whether it makes any sense whatsoever to them or not, there is now over 19 million games of data showing that you win at about the same rate against the same people regardless of whether you are playing 8, 9, or 10 ball, and regardless of whether it is a 7, 8, or 9 foot table.
You aren't alone in your incorrect belief, almost all of the rest of us expected there to be some difference too because on the surface it seems intuitive. But which do you really think is more accurate, your guess about what you would have expected to be the case, or what 19 million games of data actually very clearly shows? Which do you think is more accurate, what you thought you had noticed over time in your experience when you weren't even keeping careful track, or what 19 million games of data actually very clearly shows after it has kept very careful track? With 19 million games of data behind it the times of having to guess, or speculate, or for it being reasonable to still have some doubts are now long gone. With 19 million games of data this is a settled question, a long settled one. The game and table size (within the confines of those listed above) don't make very much difference in your win rate and 19 million games of data prove it regardless of what you thought you saw, regardless of what you would have guessed, and regardless of how intuitive that may seem to you.
If you have three items in the test and two of them are variables, you can not say the results of the third item tested are 100% correct unless you test ALL options for the variables, in this case only half of the data is there.
To complete this they would need to test the 10B on a 7' and a 9B on a 9'. Do I think the difference would be much different? No. Would I put my money on the results shown? Also no.
Simply put, there are too many variables to determine the outcome here. Assumptions, yes. Correlation, sure. Causation, no.