This years US Open 9 ball is has the strongest field ever assembled in history

Rhea

Rhea

Retired Road Player
Silver Member
Strongest field assembled for a pool tournament --ever?

The 42nd US Open 9-Ball Championship, Oct 22-28 2017

As top players from all over the planet converge on Norfolk VA for this tier-2 World Pool-Billiard (WPA) sanctioned 9-Ball event that starts on Sunday, we reflect on the strength of this year’s field. The event is double elimination, race to 11, with a win-by-2 requirement for the last four players and a single race-to-13 final match.
How strong is this year’s field?

All 12 of the top 12 pool players in the world by Fargo Rating are entered, as are 27 of the top 3o. These extraordinary statistics prompted us to wonder whether there has ever before been a comparable or better field for a pool tournament. This year’s top 12 come from Canada (Alex Pagulayan), China (Jiaqing Wu, Haitao Liu), Netherlands (Niels Feijen), Philippines (James Aranas, Dennis Orcollo, Carlo Biado), Scotland (Jayson Shaw), Spain (Francisco Sanchez Ruiz), Taiwan (Pin Yi Ko, Jung Lin Chang), and the United States (Shane Van Boening).
What measures the strength of a field?

It is not obvious how to measure the strength of a field for an international event. The average Fargo Rating of all the players is one possibility, but that would favor events with limited invitational fields and would penalize events with popular open qualifying stages. A common format for major events is to have one or more stages that lead to a 32-player elimination final stage. So it seems reasonable to ask how strong can that final stage possibly be? How strong are the top 32 players in the entire field? Of course to actually have a chance of getting that top 32 as the final 32 even in principle, the event would need to be properly seeded, but that is another issue.


The top 32 entrants have an average Fargo Rating of 798.4 and have 11 players at or over 800.

Top 32 entrants, 2017 US Open 9-Ball
Comparison to other tournaments?

Last summer’s World 9-Ball Championship tournament in Doha Qatar is probably as good a candidate as we will find for comparison. Qatar had an average Fargo Rating for the top 32 of 796.4, a few points below the average for this year. Many of the top players are of course common to both events.

This year’s US Open may indeed be the toughest field ever assembled for a pool tournament.
Maybe you are playing in this event. Good for you and good luck. Maybe you will be spectating on site. Lucky you. The rest of us can follow the action right here http://www.accu-stats.com/
 
Rhea -- When you quote something someone else wrote, you should cite the source.
 
I read that article on Facebook. It may very well be true. But, assuming you subscribe to Fargorate, there is still the question of what about the years before Fargorate was around? How can you claim "ever assembled in history" without accounting for those years?
 
iusedtoberich said:
I read that article on Facebook. It may very well be true. But, assuming you subscribe to Fargorate, there is still the question of what about the years before Fargorate was around? How can you claim "ever assembled in history" without accounting for those years?
Click to expand...


I agree... If they went back 25 years. Gave everyone Fargos based off of the history of that year. Then we could really say that was true.
 
Coop1701 said:
I agree... If they went back 25 years. Gave everyone Fargos based off of the history of that year. Then we could really say that was true.
Click to expand...

Even without concerning yourself with Fargo, I think it would be real hard to say skill level of the feild of 2017 isn't far above the fields of late 90s entrants.
 
benny-the-blade said:
http://www.accu-stats.com/42usopen.html
Click to expand...

That is an extremely strong list of players.

The U.S. Open is a major trophy for so many players from other countries. Niels Feijen said it was the one trophy that eludes him and he wants it bad.

I really wish Accu Stats had more tables streamed. I'm not sure who the production company was, but the year when the world championships in Qatar, there were options to switch back and forth to the tables with a static camera or the main table with production cameras and commentary.

This is surely needed nowadays with the US Open when so many monsters will be facing off against each other at the same time.

No matter what Pat Flemming has the magic touch and he really did bring the US Open up to another level.
 
Coop1701 said:
I agree... If they went back 25 years. Gave everyone Fargos based off of the history of that year. Then we could really say that was true.
Click to expand...

I might be wrong about this, but it would still be about impossible to compare generational pool players with Fargorate unless they played each other right?

Really it would just show who the Shane and Wu, those who dominated the era, vs. their respective combatants.

Wouldn't it be extremely difficult to extrapolate how that data would compare to a modern player playing other modern players?

Curious about this conversation... Sorry to hijack the thread a bit.

- Ben
 
Benward452 said:
I might be wrong about this, but it would still be about impossible to compare generational pool players with Fargorate unless they played each other right?

Really it would just show who the Shane and Wu, those who dominated the era, vs. their respective combatants.

Wouldn't it be extremely difficult to extrapolate how that data would compare to a modern player playing other modern players?

Curious about this conversation... Sorry to hijack the thread a bit.

- Ben
Click to expand...

I think you are correct:)

It will be interesting to see, if there is a creeping of the numbers over many years, if the rating system stays around a while. Will there be multiple 900 level players in 20 years? (That actually play like Shane/Wu/Dennis today?)
 
Thanks iusedtoberich.

I mean Sigel could have been a 900 in his era, it would be really interesting to see. Heck even Varner might have a chance to be up there. Interesting study. Who wants to give me a grant so I can work on it.

-Ben
 
Benward452 said:
Thanks iusedtoberich.

I mean Sigel could have been a 900 in his era, it would be really interesting to see. Heck even Varner might have a chance to be up there. Interesting study. Who wants to give me a grant so I can work on it.

-Ben
Click to expand...

You can go back and look at their accu-stats ratings.
 
fargo over time

Mike, can you answer this one-

Will fargorating's strength change over time with an overall increase in skill in a player pool?

Could an 800 today be stronger than an 800 thirty years ago (if we could use historic data somehow)?

I'm just curious if going forward fargorate will be a good measure of strength for current versus future champions, or if it is too reflective of the overall population.

In chess ELO's have gotten higher as the level of play has risen, I'd assume the same would be true of fargorate and that Sigel wouldn't be a 900 because even though he dominated he wasn't dominating against players that were dominating against other players at the same level.

Or something.

Thoughts?
 
Neil said:
You can go back and look at their accu-stats ratings.
Click to expand...


I realize that Neil, but if you are looking at Fargorate as the metric versus accu-stat it's like comparing an entire career with fluctuations based on other players vs a singular match performance.

You could average those Accu-Stat matches out and get a number, but that still wouldn't compare that individual to their peers in the sense Fargorate does.

At least in my mind. I am not a statistician.

-Ben
 
I used to think of the world nineball as weaker than the US Open....
...till Barry Hearn got involved in the late 90s.
The FargoRates in the early 90s would be interesting for both.
 
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