1. Chen did not under perform. That is an excuse for the Fargo system which should have predicted a bigger win for Chen, one that is unnecessary to make as any ELO system has a weakness in regards to groups of players playing each other and not intermixing much. Fargo admits to this effect, although states it is minimal which is true.
The women's ratings are slightly inflated relative to the men's due to the fact that they mostly play one another and not men all the time.
Mills saw this discrepancy and he made those comments about his rating. In the end, he was proved right. Despite losing, the score was so close that it does not correlate with the Fargo ratings. Moreover, it can be argued that Donny was actually the one who under-performed. I believe he did a bit, even at his current level. To add to the complexity of all this, as others have already mentioned - the format was setup to Chen's advantage.
While these systems are incredibly robust at maintaining accurate ratings even across large regions or diverse groups relatively speaking, they are not perfect due to this effect. The more segregated a group is, the more divergence there can be in the ratings.
2. The "battle of the sexes" nonsense was settled back during the IPT in 2006. The North American Open was clear evidence the women cannot play to the level men can. The majority of all top female pros played in that tournament, 8 ball, round-robin format. They got crushed. I was there, it was difficult to watch. There was no aspect of the game where they had parity with the men except for maybe a completely wide open table with no obstacles and medium to short range shots. They would run that out. But then again, so could an APA 6.
3. Some have taken this win as some kind of victory for women's pool in relating to men. Quite a bizarre and delusional conclusion. We are talking the top female player, not only top but exceptionally strong female player - playing a mid to lower-level, non-touring male pro who is actually a part-time pool player, and barely won.
This reminds me of when Williams (tennis) played the #200 ranked male on the tour, and got stomped. Although the gap between men and women in pool is NOT as wide as it is in tennis due to the fact that pool is not athletic, it's still a pretty large gap.
Look, we all love the ladies (except some of you weirdos) but some of you get a little too passionate about the concept that there could be equality in pool between men and women. As if feminist ideals somehow could apply to pool. I find it interesting and exciting to see a female be very strong and challenge the men. But not from a feminist angle, but instead from an underdog perspective. That and it is better to celebrate exceptionalism, which a woman who can play as well as the men - is an example of something exceptional.
The women's ratings are slightly inflated relative to the men's due to the fact that they mostly play one another and not men all the time.
Mills saw this discrepancy and he made those comments about his rating. In the end, he was proved right. Despite losing, the score was so close that it does not correlate with the Fargo ratings. Moreover, it can be argued that Donny was actually the one who under-performed. I believe he did a bit, even at his current level. To add to the complexity of all this, as others have already mentioned - the format was setup to Chen's advantage.
While these systems are incredibly robust at maintaining accurate ratings even across large regions or diverse groups relatively speaking, they are not perfect due to this effect. The more segregated a group is, the more divergence there can be in the ratings.
2. The "battle of the sexes" nonsense was settled back during the IPT in 2006. The North American Open was clear evidence the women cannot play to the level men can. The majority of all top female pros played in that tournament, 8 ball, round-robin format. They got crushed. I was there, it was difficult to watch. There was no aspect of the game where they had parity with the men except for maybe a completely wide open table with no obstacles and medium to short range shots. They would run that out. But then again, so could an APA 6.
3. Some have taken this win as some kind of victory for women's pool in relating to men. Quite a bizarre and delusional conclusion. We are talking the top female player, not only top but exceptionally strong female player - playing a mid to lower-level, non-touring male pro who is actually a part-time pool player, and barely won.
This reminds me of when Williams (tennis) played the #200 ranked male on the tour, and got stomped. Although the gap between men and women in pool is NOT as wide as it is in tennis due to the fact that pool is not athletic, it's still a pretty large gap.
Look, we all love the ladies (except some of you weirdos) but some of you get a little too passionate about the concept that there could be equality in pool between men and women. As if feminist ideals somehow could apply to pool. I find it interesting and exciting to see a female be very strong and challenge the men. But not from a feminist angle, but instead from an underdog perspective. That and it is better to celebrate exceptionalism, which a woman who can play as well as the men - is an example of something exceptional.
