Fargo Ratings on Player Profiles

azhousepro

azhousepro

Administrator
Staff member
Admin
Moderator
We added FargoRate lookups to the site tonight on the player profile page. This just went live tonight and there are going to be a ton of players that don't exactly match was Mike Page has in his system. If anyone comes across a rating that looks funny, can you please drop me a note. (Yes, I know that Tom Finstad is not really a Fargo 836. We will get robustness checks added tomorrow.)
Screen Shot 2022-02-08 at 8.18.40 PM.png
 
I don't totally understand how Fargo works but years ago I was just under 600 but since I'm not playing league anymore nor played in any ranking tournaments for years I'm now a 520 and dropping. Makes it nice when I hop in a handicap event 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
azhousepro said:
We added FargoRate lookups to the site tonight on the player profile page. This just went live tonight and there are going to be a ton of players that don't exactly match was Mike Page has in his system. If anyone comes across a rating that looks funny, can you please drop me a note. (Yes, I know that Tom Finstad is not really a Fargo 836. We will get robustness checks added tomorrow.)
Click to expand...

Joven Bustamante is slightly different. Shows 780 in his profile
joven az.JPG


But Fargorate has him at 781 https://www.fargorate.com/top-ten-lists

joven top.JPG
 
PracticeChampion said:
I don't totally understand how Fargo works but years ago I was just under 600 but since I'm not playing league anymore nor played in any ranking tournaments for years I'm now a 520 and dropping. Makes it nice when I hop in a handicap event 🤷🏻‍♂️
Click to expand...
Mike Page has done a lot of tweaking on the system over the years, but at it's heart it is an ELO based ratings system. More info can be found here...

en.wikipedia.org

Elo rating system - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
PracticeChampion said:
I don't totally understand how Fargo works but years ago I was just under 600 but since I'm not playing league anymore nor played in any ranking tournaments for years I'm now a 520 and dropping. Makes it nice when I hop in a handicap event 🤷🏻‍♂️
Click to expand...
I have recently became a BCAPL League Operator. On a private Facebook group for league Operators, the discussion about players wondering about their handicaps came up. I think I can overview it here as long as there are no names or locations mentioned

Fellow members said this about the FargoRate system....

"I've had people inactive for a while (a session or 2) tell me their FargoRate dropped and they hadn't even played to justify an adjustment."

One response was....

"They recalculate the ratings daily. Your rating is based on your (past) opponents, and your opponent's (past) opponents. So if their ratings change, yours can change also...even when you dont play at all."
 
azhousepro said:
We cache every rating for 72 hours on our side. That keeps us from having to hit the Fargo site every time someone's page is hit on AzB. It must have just changed this morning though, as we just made this live last night.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Mike
Click to expand...
Yes, Joven just had 37 games go in from a Chip tournament last week at Main St in AZ. Because his opponents averaged 488, about 300 points below him, he is expected to win games in about an 8-to-1 ratio. So had he won 33 and lost 4, we'd see no effect. Instead he won 35 and lost 2. That 16-to-1 ratio is what is expected of a player 400 points above his opponents. This is his rating in the system today.
1644526055470.png


​
 

Attachments

  • 1644526045594.png
    1644526045594.png
    9.9 KB · Views: 94
buckshotshoey said:
[...]

"They recalculate the ratings daily. Your rating is based on your (past) opponents, and your opponent's (past) opponents. So if their ratings change, yours can change also...even when you dont play at all."
Click to expand...
Your rating can even change if you don't play AND your opponents don't play
 
I personally have gone from a 325 to a 375. All with the same 11 racks entered from a bar table tourney where I went two and out like 5-6 years ago lol.

The initial may have been a little higher than 325 but I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. I really got to get some games in that system to see what’s what.

I'd love to see Fargo’s pop up next to names on azb. I’m always curious who plays like what.

I’ll scan the player profiles and keep an eye out for digital doh!’s
 
Thanks, I'm especially interested in players that should have definitely been found in the Fargo system, but weren't found. I'm scanning for these on my side too.
 
I haven't played a FR rated match in a quite a while and my rating hasn't changed much, hovers a little above 600.

After looking at a couple of the higher rated players I've beaten it looks like they have dropped a bit so I am assuming the lower rated players I have beaten have gone up in similar % points - just enough to keep it even.

But that brings up a question - just because their ratings go up/down why does the affect on mine change? i.e. if I beat a 650 player when I'm a 450 player then I beat a 650 player while playing at 450, just because his skill levels go down doesn't mean mine did?

EDIT: Probably the wrong thread for the question but it's out there so I'll leave it.
 
azhousepro said:
Mike Page has done a lot of tweaking on the system over the years, but at it's heart it is an ELO based ratings system. More info can be found here...

en.wikipedia.org

Elo rating system - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...

Have to be careful here. There are some things about the way ratings are interpreted once you have them that are similar to ELO ratings. So if people are familiar with ELO ratings from another application that might be helpful.
But the big part--the way the ratings are generated--is fundamentally different than ELO (and hasn't changed in 7 years).

Here are a few distinctions

(1) Suppose your rating took a nose dive because you lost a couple sets badly last night to a player the system thought was an average league player. Then today that guy wins a pro-tournament and the system now understands he is pro level. With ELO, your rating drop is water under the bridge: it stays with you. With FargoRate, you go back up with that new knowledge.

(2) With ELO you have to "start" somewhere. You have an initial rating and then you incrementally move up or down with new play. Though the influence of where you started diminishes as you play a lot, it always follows you and never really goes away. With FargoRate, there is no concept of "start." [This is also true of, say, a batting average]

(3) Suppose everyone in Alaska is rated too low, and a small planeload of Alaskans come and tear up a big event in Vegas: pretty much across the board perform higher than expected. We learn Alaska 500s play even with 600s from everywhere else. With ELO, the people on the plane go up but everyone else in Alaska stays at the depressed level. With FargoRate all of Alaska can go up.

(4) With ELO, the rating update after a tournament could be done with a single person plugging numbers into a calculator or with a simple spreadsheet. With FargoRate it takes an army of powerful computers churning away in the cloud for hours.

The ELO approach has been around for a long time, even in pool. Bob Jewett did ELO-type stuff more than two decades ago in San Francisco. Ron Shepard did it in Chicago. NAPA leagues have been doing it for a long time. Compusport I believe recently started doing it. They do it in Norway. FargoRate is way different.
 
mikepage said:
Have to be careful here. There are some things about the way ratings are interpreted once you have them that are similar to ELO ratings. So if people are familiar with ELO ratings from another application that might be helpful.
But the big part--the way the ratings are generated--is fundamentally different than ELO (and hasn't changed in 7 years).

Here are a few distinctions

(1) Suppose your rating took a nose dive because you lost a couple sets badly last night to a player the system thought was an average league player. Then today that guy wins a pro-tournament and the system now understands he is pro level. With ELO, your rating drop is water under the bridge: it stays with you. With FargoRate, you go back up with that new knowledge.

(2) With ELO you have to "start" somewhere. You have an initial rating and then you incrementally move up or down with new play. Though the influence of where you started diminishes as you play a lot, it always follows you and never really goes away. With FargoRate, there is no concept of "start." [This is also true of, say, a batting average]

(3) Suppose everyone in Alaska is rated too low, and a small planeload of Alaskans come and tear up a big event in Vegas: pretty much across the board perform higher than expected. We learn Alaska 500s play even with 600s from everywhere else. With ELO, the people on the plane go up but everyone else in Alaska stays at the depressed level. With FargoRate all of Alaska can go up.

(4) With ELO, the rating update after a tournament could be done with a single person plugging numbers into a calculator or with a simple spreadsheet. With FargoRate it takes an army of powerful computers churning away in the cloud for hours.

The ELO approach has been around for a long time, even in pool. Bob Jewett did ELO-type stuff more than two decades ago in San Francisco. Ron Shepard did it in Chicago. NAPA leagues have been doing it for a long time. Compusport I believe recently started doing it. They do it in Norway. FargoRate is way different.
Click to expand...
I stand (well, sit) corrected. I am familiar with ELO systems from Backgammon and Chess, so that was my comparison.
 
mikepage said:
Have to be careful here. There are some things about the way ratings are interpreted once you have them that are similar to ELO ratings. So if people are familiar with ELO ratings from another application that might be helpful.
But the big part--the way the ratings are generated--is fundamentally different than ELO (and hasn't changed in 7 years).

Here are a few distinctions

(1) Suppose your rating took a nose dive because you lost a couple sets badly last night to a player the system thought was an average league player. Then today that guy wins a pro-tournament and the system now understands he is pro level. With ELO, your rating drop is water under the bridge: it stays with you. With FargoRate, you go back up with that new knowledge.

(2) With ELO you have to "start" somewhere. You have an initial rating and then you incrementally move up or down with new play. Though the influence of where you started diminishes as you play a lot, it always follows you and never really goes away. With FargoRate, there is no concept of "start." [This is also true of, say, a batting average]

(3) Suppose everyone in Alaska is rated too low, and a small planeload of Alaskans come and tear up a big event in Vegas: pretty much across the board perform higher than expected. We learn Alaska 500s play even with 600s from everywhere else. With ELO, the people on the plane go up but everyone else in Alaska stays at the depressed level. With FargoRate all of Alaska can go up.

(4) With ELO, the rating update after a tournament could be done with a single person plugging numbers into a calculator or with a simple spreadsheet. With FargoRate it takes an army of powerful computers churning away in the cloud for hours.

The ELO approach has been around for a long time, even in pool. Bob Jewett did ELO-type stuff more than two decades ago in San Francisco. Ron Shepard did it in Chicago. NAPA leagues have been doing it for a long time. Compusport I believe recently started doing it. They do it in Norway. FargoRate is way different.
Click to expand...

Funny thing you mention point 3 about ratings from other states as an example. I just spent about 5 weeks traveling for work between Michigan and Florida and every place I played in the players were saying I would be ranked way higher than my actual 550ish. I took out players in tournaments that were 600-680 and had a guy who said he was a 600 quit on me at $5 a game hehe.
 
azhousepro said:
I stand (well, sit) corrected. I am familiar with ELO systems from Backgammon and Chess, so that was my comparison.
Click to expand...
The rating system in BG in use these days isn’t ELO anymore it’s some other computational thing based on what the best move was and the size of error made if any. ELO can be used but only in a few places by small groups. It does work tho.

Interesting topic

Thx again
Eric 😀
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top