On Sunday the Diamond Pool Tour held its stop at Freezer’s in Tempe, Arizona. During the tournament, the commentators (George Teyechea and Mike Howerton) had a brief discussion of the issue of whether the Fargo system rates male and female players the same. That is, does a Fargo rating of, say, 650 indicate the identical level of skill in a male and female player? A few viewers of the stream chimed in with their two cents as well. Since there seemed to still be some confusion on this topic, I thought it might be helpful to clarify a few points.
First, there are in fact two major differences between male and female Fargo scores: 1) on average, the Fargo rate of male players is higher than that of female players; 2) the top-rated male Fargo scores are significantly higher than the top female Fargo scores. I have no particular insights to offer as to why this is the case.
However, the first point to understand is that these observations about male/female differences in Fargo have nothing whatever, mathematically or statistically, to do with the quite separate and distinct question of whether a male 650 is the same as a female 650.
All that is necessary for male and female ratings to mean the same thing is for there to be a robust number of games in the database of women playing men. In fact there is—tens of thousands of such games. So the rating system has long ago statistically normalized the Fargo ratings of men and women. They mean the same thing.
By the way, the Fargo website some time back published a clear little video explaining all this. They even presented an empirical study using the Fargo matches of Karen Corr and Arizona’s own Sara Miller. The study proved that their ratings were identical in games played only against men or only against women. If you haven’t viewed this video, maybe it would help dispel some of the confusion here. You can find it here: http://www.fargorate.com/videos
First, there are in fact two major differences between male and female Fargo scores: 1) on average, the Fargo rate of male players is higher than that of female players; 2) the top-rated male Fargo scores are significantly higher than the top female Fargo scores. I have no particular insights to offer as to why this is the case.
However, the first point to understand is that these observations about male/female differences in Fargo have nothing whatever, mathematically or statistically, to do with the quite separate and distinct question of whether a male 650 is the same as a female 650.
All that is necessary for male and female ratings to mean the same thing is for there to be a robust number of games in the database of women playing men. In fact there is—tens of thousands of such games. So the rating system has long ago statistically normalized the Fargo ratings of men and women. They mean the same thing.
By the way, the Fargo website some time back published a clear little video explaining all this. They even presented an empirical study using the Fargo matches of Karen Corr and Arizona’s own Sara Miller. The study proved that their ratings were identical in games played only against men or only against women. If you haven’t viewed this video, maybe it would help dispel some of the confusion here. You can find it here: http://www.fargorate.com/videos
