Fargo Starter Rating Affecting “True” Average?

L

LHP5

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hey guys,

So I’ve started playing in a league and a weekly tournament that reports to Fargo. I’ve been wanting to play more this year, but life and what not got in the way so it’s been a small sample size. I only have 86 games in the system but was assigned a starter rating of 525. I downloaded the app and am just starting to understand the system.

So the rating says 536 but the graph indicates 550. People have been telling me it’s the starter rating sort of bringing down the average. I’m trying to play in an upcoming 540 and under tournament, but the director is suggesting I’m rated too high given the preliminary rating. Is it possible that you can be underrated if the starter rating was too low. Same with overrated if the starter was too high?

IMG_6806.jpeg
 
That’s weird. My screen doesn’t have anything on the graph area where yours shows the “550” box and it doesn’t have the big green dot under the 550.

EDIT: Did you click on the line to show the 550 box?
 
dquarasr said:
That’s weird. My screen doesn’t have anything on the graph area where yours shows the “550” box and it doesn’t have the big green dot under the 550.

EDIT: Did you click on the line to show the 550 box?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think you can select certain areas of the graph. I clicked on the tail end and it came up
 
LHP5 said:
Hey guys,

So I’ve started playing in a league and a weekly tournament that reports to Fargo. I’ve been wanting to play more this year, but life and what not got in the way so it’s been a small sample size. I only have 86 games in the system but was assigned a starter rating of 525. I downloaded the app and am just starting to understand the system.

So the rating says 536 but the graph indicates 550. People have been telling me it’s the starter rating sort of bringing down the average. I’m trying to play in an upcoming 540 and under tournament, but the director is suggesting I’m rated too high given the preliminary rating. Is it possible that you can be underrated if the starter rating was too low. Same with overrated if the starter was too high?
Click to expand...

You have a performance rating of 550 based on 86 games, about 40% of the number of games you'd need to have a "Fargo Rating."
You also have an optional assigned guess (starter rating) of 525

The preliminary rating people see, 536P, is a weighted blend of these two. It is at this point 40% based on your performance and 60% based on the guess. As you get more games--closer to 200--the influence of your performance rating grows. At 200 or more games, it is all performance and that performance rating is called a Fargo Rating.
 
garczar said:
until your robust. hits 300games i wouldn't worry about the accuracy of your FR.
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Yeah I’m all into stats, but I really just want to see improvement you know? I’m retaking the game seriously and wanted to see how I did in tournaments. I thought I would be competitive in the 540 and under which is why I wanted to join.
 
mikepage said:
You have a performance rating of 550 based on 86 games, about 40% of the number of games you'd need to have a "Fargo Rating."
You also have an optional assigned guess (starter rating) of 525

The preliminary rating people see, 536P, is a weighted blend of these two. It is at this point 40% based on your performance and 60% based on the guess. As you get more games--closer to 200--the influence of your performance rating grows. At 200 or more games, it is all performance and that performance rating is called a Fargo Rating.
Click to expand...
Ahh okay. So theoretically if you are assigned a “lower” or “higher” starter it will effect your rating until the 200 or so games. Last question, is the 525 a baseline starter rating? I was curious as to why I got assigned 525.
 
The 525 was probably assigned by your league operator.

Do yourself a favor and get the Salotto app. Use it to play some sets with other players who do have established Fargos (robustness of 200+), until your Fargo gets established (robustness of 200).
 
LHP5 said:
Ahh okay. So theoretically if you are assigned a “lower” or “higher” starter it will effect your rating until the 200 or so games. Last question, is the 525 a baseline starter rating? I was curious as to why I got assigned 525.
Click to expand...
It's hard to say. If you play league, your league operator can assign one. And your league operator can adjust it. For you he can put it anywhere between 525 and 550. That is, he can move it in the direction that puts it closer to performance if he chooses. He might do that if the 525 was just a wild guess, for example. But if the 525 was based on several conversations about who are similarly-skilled players and they are around 525, he might leave it where it is.

For the last 8 or so years, players who enter the system outside of league generally never get one.

In the early going, however (like around 2016) we assigned starter ratings to players from the CSI (BCA Pool League) database.
Open: 525
Advanced: 625
Master: 675

Most of those assignments don't matter anymore. The player either quit pool or has enough games that it no longer matters. But you could be a vestige of that.
 
ALL (repeat after me:: ALL) rating systems break down attempting to rank/rate the new-player.

When I started league: APA assigned be a rating of SL4 (I told them I was going to be about 6.5)
I beat the crap out of an SL6 and got raised to SL7
I lost like crap to an SL7 next week and found myself at SL3
I beat the crap out of an SL6 and they raised me to SL6
And over 10 months I stabilized between SL6 and SL7.

That is just how it goes. Until you have a visible 100 game average against players of known strengths--it is all guesswork.
 
LHP5 said:
Hey guys,

So I’ve started playing in a league and a weekly tournament that reports to Fargo. I’ve been wanting to play more this year, but life and what not got in the way so it’s been a small sample size. I only have 86 games in the system but was assigned a starter rating of 525. I downloaded the app and am just starting to understand the system.

So the rating says 536 but the graph indicates 550. People have been telling me it’s the starter rating sort of bringing down the average. I’m trying to play in an upcoming 540 and under tournament, but the director is suggesting I’m rated too high given the preliminary rating. Is it possible that you can be underrated if the starter rating was too low. Same with overrated if the starter was too high?

View attachment 828750
Click to expand...


of course
 
LHP5 said:
Ahh okay. So theoretically if you are assigned a “lower” or “higher” starter it will effect your rating until the 200 or so games. Last question, is the 525 a baseline starter rating? I was curious as to why I got assigned 525.
Click to expand...
Whoever put you in thought you played around that level. Since you slowly went up from that, but did not jump up too much, and the system sees you as a 550, that looks like it was the correct estimate. My son and I have put in many players in Fargo through the league he runs using LMS, and the two of us just watch the players and give an estimated starter rating based on what we know from years of playing and seeing what players of a certain level can do.
 
hang-the-9 said:
... My son and I have put in many players in Fargo through the league he runs using LMS, and the two of us just watch the players and give an estimated starter rating based on what we know from years of playing and seeing what players of a certain level can do.
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I had to do the initial ratings for a Fargo-like system in a league I ran. It's not easy to get within 50 points if you only have a few minutes to watch the new player before the matches start. I often adjusted the new players to the average performance of their first four weeks, and those were reasonably accurate.
 
I've done some experimenting with this with local league players and ratings tend to converge to their long-term averages at the 30-40 game mark (which not coincidentally lines up with common central limit theorem benchmarks).

League operators should probably be encouraged to reset starter ratings to preliminary results after ~50 games. Perhaps it could even be done in an automatic fashion by FR at the 50, 100, and 150 game points.

Certainly, players who are performing at a 200 level for 100 games (2+ seasons) should not be saddled with a 525 starter rating that pulls them all the way up to the high 300s, as is the norm for new male players.
 
Bob Jewett said:
I had to do the initial ratings for a Fargo-like system in a league I ran. It's not easy to get within 50 points if you only have a few minutes to watch the new player before the matches start. I often adjusted the new players to the average performance of their first four weeks, and those were reasonably accurate.
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I find it hard to believe that you would be off by more than 50 points off estimating even if you watch a single rack played. I guess it may be tough to see a 600 vs a 650 or a 650 vs a 700, but most of the newer players to Fargo are more like 250, 350, 450 or so, and you can tell those apart fairly easily just by how their stance and stroke is or how they act around the table or other players without even seeing them shoot. If someone is standing next to a player shooting, grabbing chalk on the other person's turn, putting drinks on the table, they are going in the under 300 range before I even see them pick up a cue LOL
 
skip100 said:
I've done some experimenting with this with local league players and ratings tend to converge to their long-term averages at the 30-40 game mark (which not coincidentally lines up with common central limit theorem benchmarks).

League operators should probably be encouraged to reset starter ratings to preliminary results after ~50 games. Perhaps it could even be done in an automatic fashion by FR at the 50, 100, and 150 game points.

Certainly, players who are performing at a 200 level for 100 games (2+ seasons) should not be saddled with a 525 starter rating that pulls them all the way up to the high 300s, as is the norm for new male players.
Click to expand...

League operators do a remarkably good job on average. The most commonly assigned guess is 400. Of the roughly 1000 players assigned 400 within the last couple years who now have an established rating, the average Fargo Rating is 391.

Of the 557 people assigned 500, average rating is now 476
450 --> 436
350 --> 360
300 --> 321
325 --> 330
250 --> 243
 
MitchAlsup said:
ALL (repeat after me:: ALL) rating systems break down attempting to rank/rate the new-player.

When I started league: APA assigned be a rating of SL4 (I told them I was going to be about 6.5)
I beat the crap out of an SL6 and got raised to SL7
I lost like crap to an SL7 next week and found myself at SL3
I beat the crap out of an SL6 and they raised me to SL6
And over 10 months I stabilized between SL6 and SL7.

That is just how it goes. Until you have a visible 100 game average against players of known strengths--it is all guesswork.
Click to expand...
APA tells you that you will fluctuate a lot in the first 10 weeks. I came in as a 7 .. was an 8 after a week… then played the entire session beating everyone until finally becoming a 9.

I just started playing in the Uspal league that goes by Fargo. Before that I only had an acs league that was Fargo for a session. I’m a 557 with a 161 robustness . my goal is to get over 600 but just playing this league I’m quickly finding it’s going to be hard. I end up getting thrown on a lot of low players that I have to win 4 games to there 1 or 2 and even when I shut them out I only go up a few points.
 
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