Fargo Ratings Keep Rising: Improvement or System Correction?

[FeelDaShot]

As time goes on, Fargo Ratings of the top players keeps getting higher and higher. I recall that not that long ago 820 was the highest. Now it's 839. Does this represent improvement or are the ratings simply adjusting as more data is entered into the system? I wonder how high it will rise before it finally levels out (if ever). Will we soon see a 900 rating?

I would also like to know how this affects lower rated players. For example, is a 600 rating from 2018 equal to a 600 rating in 2023? It would be interesting to see a history of the highest rating by year, for the past 5-7 years.

Hopefully Mike Page can chime in.

 

[iusedtoberich]

I’ve been tracking also. The top 10 are definitely higher. But the local 600-700 level players I follow are about the same. I think it’s showing us that the top international players have more distance to the top regional players. I don’t think anyone got better or worse.

 

[Zerksies]

Their are more crappy players then good ones. Those numbers are probably more accurate. And yes i do believe their is a 900 player out their.

 

[garczar]

I’ve been tracking also. The top 10 are definitely higher. But the local 600-700 level players I follow are about the same. I think it’s showing us that the top international players have more distance to the top regional players. I don’t think anyone got better or worse.

The top-top players now have enough games in the system to show their true speed. IMO Gorst will be the first to crack 900 if that does indeed happen. He's playing on another level lately.

 

[alphadog]

If you think about it it is almost a certainty that #'s at the top have to go up. I believe Mike has already addressed this.

If a 820 is beating the other 820's and new games carry more weight then old games wellsomething has to give.

Perhaps Mike wants to wait a bit to respond as the negative vibe here seems rather high presently.

 

[BRussell]

I don’t think the absolute numbers mean anything. If that’s true, it’s just an artifact and any rise can’t be interpreted as meaning anything at all. Hopefully @mikepage will chime in.

 

[maplecap]

Talking about a 900 Fargo rating- here’s mine when I was the top player in the world, to my current negative rating. Just thought I’d share this for a good laugh. Talk about a bad year.

 

[FeelDaShot]

I think the ratings should eventually level off. They need to if we ever want to be able to compare players' skill levels from different eras (i.e. 20 years apart).

I know chess players use a similar rating system (ELO). Right now the best chess player in the world (Magnus Carlson) has the highest rating ever recorded. However, Magnus truly may be the best player to ever live. I don't think the ELO ratings show any annual inflation like they do with Fargo Ratings. Or at least I've never noticed it.

 

[BRussell]

I think the ratings should eventually level off. They need to if we ever want to be able to compare players' skill levels from different eras (i.e. 20 years apart).

I doubt that will ever be possible, except just in a relative way, i.e., player x was the fifth highest-rated player in one time period, and player y was the fifth highest-rated player in another.

 

[Woodshaft]

Mohammad Soufi was sporting a 782 fargorate when he met and beat Frankie Sanchez Ruiz (832) in a Eurotour finals last week.
And a few weeks prior FSR barely beat Soufi 13-10 to win the 9-ball World Championship.
According to Mike Page's fargorate, FSR is 50% (50 fargo points) better than Soufi.
Soufi says "I don't think so!"

 

[Zerksies]

I think the ratings should eventually level off. They need to if we ever want to be able to compare players' skill levels from different eras (i.e. 20 years apart).

I know chess players use a similar rating system (ELO). Right now the best chess player in the world (Magnus Carlson) has the highest rating ever recorded. However, Magnus truly may be the best player to ever live. I don't think the ELO ratings show any annual inflation like they do with Fargo Ratings. Or at least I've never noticed it.

Elo was started in the 1960's plenty of years of information. Fargo is probably about 20 years old. Chess players today are still bitching about ratings.

 

[hang-the-9]

Mohammad Soufi was sporting a 782 fargorate when he met and beat Frankie Sanchez Ruiz (832) in a Eurotour finals last week.
And a few weeks prior FSR barely beat Soufi 13-10 to win the 9-ball World Championship.
According to Mike Page's fargorate, FSR is 50% (50 fargo points) better than Soufi.
Soufi says "I don't think so!"

That is why we don't use a single, or even several, results when doing ratings. If Soufi keeps beating 800 players for a year or more then he too can get to 800s. 50 Fargo points is not really 50% better, it's about a 25% handicap. For a race to 8 with a 50 point difference, the handicapped match would be 8-6.

To this day, I think the largest upset I have seen was when my son beat Shaw when my son was under a 600 Fargo and Jayson was right around his #1 World ranking and was an 800ish. 7-6 win, even race.

 

[Woodshaft]

That is why we don't use a single, or even several, results when doing ratings. If Soufi keeps beating 800 players for a year or more then he too can get to 800s. 50 Fargo points is not really 50% better, it's about a 25% handicap. For a race to 8 with a 50 point difference, the handicapped match would be 8-6.

To this day, I think the largest upset I have seen was when my son beat Shaw when my son was under a 600 Fargo and Jayson was right around his #1 World ranking and was an 800ish. 7-6 win, even race.

Wrong. 50 fargo points IS (supposedly) 50% better. 100 fargo points is (supposedly) 100% better (twice as good) etc...
I'm probably THE LAST person you wanna argue fargorate points with-- I know exactly how Mike Page's flawed rating works.
Fargorate has several flaws, but one of the most obvious is it's inability to accurately keep pace with a player who is getting better very rapidly.
Too much "old data" involved.
Soufi ALREADY PLAYS at an above 800 fargorate, his current rating suffers from "fargorate lag".

 

[MattPoland]

I think FatgoRate is about the “best fit” of ratings across everybody. What’s the best likelihood of everybody’s results landing how they did based on a tapestry of ratings. Seems like it could be the best getting better, the worst getting worse, or a combination of both. It’s a system growing rapidly with data. So it seems to me like the scale needs to drift occasionally to accommodate new scales data, a wider spread of player skills.

 

[mikepage]

I think FatgoRate is about the “best fit” of ratings across everybody.

That sounds like a reasonable goal. But we actually sacrifice a best fit to be able to track skill changes better. In other words, the ratings overall would be better if we didn't have such a rapid decay of older games.