My Fargorate progression

iusedtoberich said:
Either he’s way better than I think (40 some points higher than me), or he’s gotten a much higher rating than me from the leagues.
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I scoff at the idea of using league stats, but in reality it's a rarity for me to drop more than a single rack on a league night and typical go 5 for 5. Even though I'd say the majority of local league'rs are well below the 500 threshold. In theory, my rating should improve. Albeit baby ticks that likely wouldn't manifest than more than a 1pt or 2 over the course of the season.

The problem then becomes the ramping up of robustness without notable gain. The larger the robustness the less the effect of positive performance. So, lets presume another ~150 racks in the system per season. Which will dampen the tourney results I put more importance on. Not a big deal if your running with multiple 1000's in robustness but I'm still low enough to see 3-4pt gains when running slightly above my normal spd.
 
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In 4 years I’ve made it all the way to 194 robustness. I’ve actually thought about putting in the effort to get 6 more game and get an established rating even though I don’t see what the big deal is. I’ll still be a banger either way
 
The_JV said:
Well I'm not going to fault fargo for not having a "league value" check box when entering those stats. Not saying you are, but what option does fargo have if the LO is willing to upload stats...?

My "issue" with the league and the use of fargo simply boils down to the point in partaking in a league in the first place. The LO just wants to provide the opportunity to casual players to obtain a rating with a viable robustness. Which is great. However I think most "players" would agree that league isn't meant to be the place where you bring your top gear every week. 99% of the league has drastically lower rating than myself. I can't imagine the win/loss record I would need to have come the end of the season, just to hold my rating. This is my problem entirely.
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We're on the same page. I don't have a problem with Fargo using the data. The only problem I have with Fargo ratings is found on both sides of the spectrum. There's those who don't understand it. These are the ones that think it can be easily manipulated for sandbagging purposes. Then there are those who believe there's no insight that can be offered other than what officially comes from the Fargo camp.
 
9BallKY said:
In 4 years I’ve made it all the way to 194 robustness. I’ve actually thought about putting in the effort to get 6 more game and get an established rating even though I don’t see what the big deal is. I’ll still be a banger either way
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It's easier to build up a robustness on the higher end of the system. You tend to go deeper and accumulate racks at a faster pace. Those playing short race tourneys and struggle to get past a round or two. Will have an uphill battle.

I really enjoy the popularity of fargo. I like having a real mathematical rating based on my performance rather than suffering through a biased eye test ranking, like C, B, B+, A, AA, AAA, AAA+++..... etc.

I can in theory look up a name of anyone I'm facing and see how I should stack up against them. I should be able to walk into any room that embraces fargo and be fairly handicapped.
 
The_JV said:
It's easier to build up a robustness on the higher end of the system. You tend to go deeper and accumulate racks at a faster pace. Those playing short race tourneys and struggle to get past a round or two. Will have an uphill battle.

I really enjoy the popularity of fargo. I like having a real mathematical rating based on my performance rather than suffering through a biased eye test ranking, like C, B, B+, A, AA, AAA, AAA+++..... etc.

I can in theory look up a name of anyone I'm facing and see how I should stack up against them. I should be able to walk into any room that embraces fargo and be fairly handicapped.
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I don’t usually have to much trouble going deep in tournaments it’s just that Fargo isn’t used much it the area I live in. A couple months ago I won a 700 and under event but they didn’t even report to Fargo.
 
The_JV said:
It's easier to build up a robustness on the higher end of the system. You tend to go deeper and accumulate racks at a faster pace. Those playing short race tourneys and struggle to get past a round or two. Will have an uphill battle.

I really enjoy the popularity of fargo. I like having a real mathematical rating based on my performance rather than suffering through a biased eye test ranking, like C, B, B+, A, AA, AAA, AAA+++..... etc.

I can in theory look up a name of anyone I'm facing and see how I should stack up against them. I should be able to walk into any room that embraces fargo and be fairly handicapped.
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Very true.

It took me a lot of tournaments and money to get to 200 games, as I was not going deep. In contrast, when I played in an Open $2000 added event in GA that had all the Atlanta top players (many of whom had almost no robustness), a bunch of them got like 100 or so games in that one tournament. They all went quite deep.

As an aside, I have no idea why Atlanta has about nothing for Fargo. It's all APA there. And there are LOTS of strong players. (of course those strong players have nothing to do with APA, I mean they gamble all the time).
 
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I broke through 550, and got to 558 then 557. It was good for my ego:)

Three new entries hit the same time. I played a Salotto match. I made a local pool group FB post looking for similar speed players I have not played before. He reached out and we made a date. It was fun to play with a new person. His rating was 520 something with about 175 robustness. We played friendly, 20 a set. I killed him. Won 3 sets, 17-5 total game count. I checked his rating it got lowered to 496/196 now. I almost felt bad for him as it dropped below 500. We had a good time though, and will probably play again. He didn't really know how to move the CB in some spots, and I was wondering how our ratings could be only 20 points apart.

Then I played another league match, I won that 4-2 against a 512/1500.

Then I played a weekly 9 ball tournament. I played about to par there.

From that FB post I also got 3 other games. Non salotto games. One will be a backpacket game I'm playing tomorrow night. I'm the underdog for sure, but that's ok:) He's a 576P/36 (no starter rating) but he specializes in backpacket. I used to play it a ton 20 years ago, but haven't in a very long time. We are probably going to play 50 per game. I've seen him around the last few weeks but we've never played before. He beat a guy pretty good in one hole a week ago, and that guy beat me pretty good in both one hole and 9 ball.

The second we played a couple days ago, I got super lucky and won 2k. He's a 627P/154, and has a starter rating of 629. IDK how much influence the starter rating had on his rating, I guess not that much as he's almost established. I would not have put him above 600. He spotted me 1 game on the wire race to 7. We broke even in sets, and probably games too. But he kept upping the bet. I lost the first 2 sets, won the second 2, and ended up way ahead in the money. I def felt the underdog going in (I played him once before 3 years ago, even, and he beat me easily). But that is pool sometimes! ha ha. I have not bet that high in 15 years. I actually only wanted to bet 100 sets, and he talked me into higher bets.

The last game was last night against a 546/2800. We played even for 100, he won the first set 7-1, I was playing like garbage. I won the second set 6-2, playing much better. The third set was to 8 for 150, then we upped it to 300 after the first couple games. He was up 4-2, and offered to call it a draw as it was late and had just started snowing really hard. I agreed.
 
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Well, after a long, long layoff and tons of personal drama, I'm back to playing some pool again, and it just so happens that the BCA league I'm now in uses Fargo ratings. I'm playing exclusively bar box 8 ball, which is quite a trip. I'm a big table player, and jeezuz, these diamond bar tables require a feather touch evidently. My speed control needs a ton of improvement on these things. And my bar box break sux and needs work. Hell, every aspect of my game needs work. But it's fun to get out of the house, ya know? It will be interesting to see how this rating ends up. As I understand it, I need 200 games in there for it to become "established", and it's showing 122 games in there as of now. In any event, it will be kinda cool to be able to track my progress, or regress, as the case may well be, lol.

Here's what it says so far. I like that the "i" is lower case because of reasons.
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I had 2 league matches in PA, and a weekly tournament in Florida since the last update. I'm surprised even with about 400 games robustness, a good or bad night can move me 4 points. I'm also above 50% win rate overall. I think I broke that a month or so ago, but forgot to take a screenshot then.
 
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I played a split bracket event in GA one week ago. I didn't cash, but played fairly well. I won my first 2 matches, and lost the next two, hill hill each. It was a "race to your handicap" format. The handicaps were based on fargorate, or known ability.

My first loss was my third match to a 14 year old. He was rated 453, but with only 17 games in the system. I had to win 5 games to his 4. Our score was 4-4, and he was winner. He played super well. He will easily be a 600 in 6 months time, IMO. I checked his fargo now one week later, and it's 551 with 48 robustness. I talked with his dad after the match and wished him well.

I don't think I liked the split bracket because it was confusing what entry fee money was going to which bracket. The higher level bracket had 1/3rd the number of players as the lower level. The final 2 of each bracket played in a 3rd bracket for places 1-4.

I climbed to 559. Of note, I went from 556 to 558 before the tournament, without any new games entered. My prior opponents must have went up a hair and that bumped me up 2 points.

I also practiced sets with a 569 yesterday. I lost convincingly. ha ha. We did not keep track on Fargo though.
 
I won my streamed action match 3 sets to none. I was 552/487, opponent was 548/3018. The set scores were 6-2, 6-3, and 6-5. 18-10 total game score. The match was not fargo reported.

I felt my opponent shot straighter than me, but he kept dogging the 9 ball. Neither of us ran a rack the entire session.

The table was a perfect playing GC3 with 4.5" pockets. I loved it!

It was my second time on stream. The first time was in a tournament in Atlanta where no one knew me, and I was super confident and proud to be on the stream. This time it was in Philadelphia, and all my pool buddies were watching and that made me super nervous and I didn't want to dog easy shots. Of course I did, ha ha. I finally settled in and the nerves went away.

I went home and watched the whole stream afterwards. It was fun reviewing, listening to the commentators react to my shots, and reading the chat of all my friends busting my chops. ha ha.
 
iusedtoberich said:
I won my streamed action match 3 sets to none. I was 552/487, opponent was 548/3018. The set scores were 6-2, 6-3, and 6-5. 18-10 total game score. The match was not fargo reported.

I felt my opponent shot straighter than me, but he kept dogging the 9 ball. Neither of us ran a rack the entire session.

The table was a perfect playing GC3 with 4.5" pockets. I loved it!

It was my second time on stream. The first time was in a tournament in Atlanta where no one knew me, and I was super confident and proud to be on the stream. This time it was in Philadelphia, and all my pool buddies were watching and that made me super nervous and I didn't want to dog easy shots. Of course I did, ha ha. I finally settled in and the nerves went away.

I went home and watched the whole stream afterwards. It was fun reviewing, listening to the commentators react to my shots, and reading the chat of all my friends busting my chops. ha ha.
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I watched the stream.
I've played in that poolroom many times.
Great room.
Congrats on the win.
 
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3 new entries. I played a new player that is super into pool 2 salatoo sets. I won 10-2 the first set, and 10-9 the second set. I don't know what happened the second set. She played well, and things didn't go right for me. Her rating jumped up 20 some points. She's a 422P/93 currently. I dropped 3 points. 559-556. I was actually super proud of her, even though I did NOT want to lose my points.

The next day, my two buddies played 2 races to 15 salatto sets. I'm closely tethered to the weaker one because we played 2 races to 10 on Salatto a couple months ago, and he only has about 100 robustness. He was crushed, 30-4. I reamed him out for not "holding his man". I dropped 4 points due to this, from 556-552.

The next day I played an 8 ball weekly event. I played well, and the final 4 (including me) all chopped it. I went up 1, from 552-553.

The fargo league I was in our team had to drop out. We went over the team fargo limit, so all of our remaining matches would be forfeited. There was only 2 weeks left in the season, then the playoffs. I had fun for sure, but it's not the level of competition I was seeking, and I won't join again. I also think it's dumb to have a cap, since the races are handicapped. I voiced my opinion, and the director said it's geared towards beginners being paired with better players, so the better players can teach the beginners. Also so the teams don't get stacked, in which case they can easily outrun the handicapp, unless the races get super long.

So I think 4 leagues in my lifetime. Once in the late 90's, open BCA, on garbage beer stained bar boxes, with big cueballs, 1 foot rolloffs, and carpet as cloth, traveling to a different bar each week. I swore never again. 2nd and 3rd were in-house leagues for one session at the local legit pool room, with in-house handicaps. This was much nicer imo. Good conditions, and no "vegas" trip at the end that I wouldn't want to go to anyway. All stayed in the room. 4th was this fargo league, at a legit pool room. 4 league sessions in 25ish years, with probably 7 years between each one.

All of these reiterated to me that leagues are just not for serious players, at least this one.
 
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