What happened to Fargorate this week?

There was another rating system years ago in NorCal USPPA. Gene Stary ran it, he’s well known and a lot of people here remember him and know that system he had.

This was mid 80’s to early 90’s. They would mail a rating sheet to the member pool rooms and it would have a list of the active players and their rating next to their name. The range was 20-200 as I recall. 20 was someone who couldn’t run 2 balls, 200 was Mike Segal. 100 was a solid player.

Anyways about once a year everyone would get a 5-10% haircut as there was inflation built into the rating system. Often times rating systems have inflation.

That’s my guess, doesn’t matter if everyone gets the same haircut. It’s all the same, it’s just a number not like everyone got worse at pool.

Fatboy<———unrated
 
There was another rating system years ago in NorCal USPPA. Gene Stary ran it, he’s well known and a lot of people here remember him and know that system he had.

This was mid 80’s to early 90’s. They would mail a rating sheet to the member pool rooms and it would have a list of the active players and their rating next to their name. The range was 20-200 as I recall. 20 was someone who couldn’t run 2 balls, 200 was Mike Segal. 100 was a solid player.

Anyways about once a year everyone would get a 5-10% haircut as there was inflation built into the rating system. Often times rating systems have inflation.

That’s my guess, doesn’t matter if everyone gets the same haircut. It’s all the same, it’s just a number not like everyone got worse at pool.

Fatboy<———unrated
There was Gene from I think Family Billiards on Geary --lowleft on the RSB forum. A pretty solid player might be 80 or 90. A top dog like Bryce Avila might be 130. I think this was Bob Jewett's approach, but I might be conflating memories...
 
I live in Ontario, Canada...

Is there such a thing as a foreigner on the internet...?..., lol

No matter where you go, there you are.

If we dig way back to the beginnings of the internet, it was started in the USA, so everyone else outside of that can be considered a foreigner ;)
 
This is the lamest bragging I've ever seen, congratulations. You're #1 on Annoying Rate for sure

Your "main question" was overshadowed by your conspiracy theories, why cast aspersions when you can ask "did any big events get added to Fargo in the past week?"
Lamest bragging?

You drink poison every time I post and somehow expect I will get ill from it.

You need a life son.
 
There was Gene from I think Family Billiards on Geary --lowleft on the RSB forum. A pretty solid player might be 80 or 90. A top dog like Bryce Avila might be 130. I think this was Bob Jewett's approach, but I might be conflating memories...
Gene died before Al Gore invented the internet 🙏🏼. He passed in 90 or 91 as I recall.

There was Gene Ahola(spelled wrong) who owned a room in Sacramento called Family Billiards who played very solid in the 70’s and 80’s. He crashed a Porsche once-he didn’t get hurt.

That’s the Gene’s I knew in Sacramento

Best
Fatboy 😃
 
There was Gene from I think Family Billiards on Geary --lowleft on the RSB forum. A pretty solid player might be 80 or 90. A top dog like Bryce Avila might be 130. I think this was Bob Jewett's approach, but I might be conflating memories...
Gene Stary lived near Sacramento. The USPPA was invented by a friend of Gene Stary's and Stary developed it. It was based on weekly nine ball tournaments at member rooms. Payouts were at each small tournament. It required inning-by-inning score sheets and your rating was determined by a formula that I think mostly counted offensive innings required to win a game. The USPPA ran very large member tournaments with added money at the same time as the Sands Reno pro tournaments. For a while John Lewis (later of the BCA and then of the ACS) was travelling the country to get new rooms into the system. Players ratings were roughly 20 to 180.

I felt that an Elo-like system would be simpler and fairer, so I invented the NPL system which just counted your wins and losses. Win and go up, lose and go down. A tournament director in SF named Gene Miller (the other Gene) ran the NPL in California and a few other locations. I set the log multiplier so that 30 rating points was a doubling of ability as opposed to the 100 in FargoRate. That allowed the NPL ratings to be roughly the same as the USPPA ratings and they were more or less equal at 100.

Tony Annigoni took over the USPPA after Gene Stary's death. It disappeared after the disastrous USPPA tournament at the Peppermill in Reno where most of the players didn't get paid. (summer of 2010)

Gene Miller is still running tournaments in San Francisco, but I don't think the NPL system is active.
 
Last edited:
Gene Stary lived near Sacramento. The USPPA was invented by a friend of Gene Stary's and Stary developed it. It was based on weekly nine ball tournaments at member rooms. Payouts were at each small tournament. It required inning-by-inning score sheets and your rating was determined by a formula that I think mostly counted offensive innings required to win a game. The USPPA ran very large member tournaments with added money at the same time as the Sands Reno pro tournaments. For a while John Lewis (later of the BCA and then of the ACS) was travelling the country to get new rooms into the system. Players ratings were roughly 20 to 180.

I felt that an Elo-like system would be simpler and fairer, so I invented the NPL system which just counted your wins and losses. Win and go up, lose and go down. A tournament director in SF named Gene Miller (the other Gene) ran the NPL in California and a few other locations. I set the log multiplier so that 30 rating points was a doubling of ability as opposed to the 100 in FargoRate. That allowed the NPL ratings to be roughly the same as the USPPA ratings and they more or less equal at 100.

Tony Annigoni took over the USPPA after Gene Stary's death. It disappeared after the disastrous USPPA tournament at the Peppermill in Reno where most of the players didn't get paid.

Gene Miller is still running tournaments in San Francisco, but I don't think the NPL system is active.
Thanks Bob for the full accurate report.

I knew Gene, met him when I was 18. I was impressed by his idea and he was very dedicated. I thought it was cool how he had multiple pool rooms using a system. Seemed like a brilliant idea.

Gene was always kind to me and explained the biz model. I’ve always asked people how their biz works-I’m curious about how biz works-cause/effect. To this day I ask people how their biz works or functions. It’s fascinating. I’ve taken bits and pieces and created my own ideas.

Gene was one of the first people as a 18 year old kid I got to know as a biz man who took the time to teach me about his biz. He trusted me that I wouldn’t put his biz in the streets and keep my mouth shut. Which of course I honored.

That’s my memory of Gene and the USPPA. I wasn’t much of a tourney player but I was rated for a while. Was a 40 when I started and after a few years gambled with guys rated 80. My goal was to be a 100 speed player on his system (as it was in 85) the numbers did get inflated after gene passed as I recall. I did get to 100 speed 15-18 years later.

Thanks again Bob for filling in the gaps, always appreciate your contributions. Pool history is important and I don’t guess it embellish. I try and be accurate as possible-all the time.

Best
Eric 😃😃🎄


RIP Tony, that was beyond tragic. But yes I remember now. The Peppermill fiasco and the checks and balances that gene had in place to keep the handicaps fairly even between rooms in different City’s was out of control. The USPPA was gone when Gene passed IMO.
 
There was Gene from I think Family Billiards on Geary --lowleft on the RSB forum. A pretty solid player might be 80 or 90. A top dog like Bryce Avila might be 130. I think this was Bob Jewett's approach, but I might be conflating memories...
You're right. I remember guys like John Schmidt, Dave Piona, and Amar Kang were all in the 140-150 range.
 
Gene Stary lived near Sacramento. The USPPA was invented by a friend of Gene Stary's and Stary developed it. It was based on weekly nine ball tournaments at member rooms. Payouts were at each small tournament. It required inning-by-inning score sheets and your rating was determined by a formula that I think mostly counted offensive innings required to win a game. The USPPA ran very large member tournaments with added money at the same time as the Sands Reno pro tournaments. For a while John Lewis (later of the BCA and then of the ACS) was travelling the country to get new rooms into the system. Players ratings were roughly 20 to 180.

I felt that an Elo-like system would be simpler and fairer, so I invented the NPL system which just counted your wins and losses. Win and go up, lose and go down. A tournament director in SF named Gene Miller (the other Gene) ran the NPL in California and a few other locations. I set the log multiplier so that 30 rating points was a doubling of ability as opposed to the 100 in FargoRate. That allowed the NPL ratings to be roughly the same as the USPPA ratings and they were more or less equal at 100.

Tony Annigoni took over the USPPA after Gene Stary's death. It disappeared after the disastrous USPPA tournament at the Peppermill in Reno where most of the players didn't get paid.

Gene Miller is still running tournaments in San Francisco, but I don't think the NPL system is active.
I'm pretty sure (although never 100%) that disaster tournament was at the Grand Sierra (formerly Hilton). I'm not old enough to remember any tournaments at the Peppermill. If memory serves, Jeff Gregory won that one.
 
I'm pretty sure (although never 100%) that disaster tournament was at the Grand Sierra (formerly Hilton). I'm not old enough to remember any tournaments at the Peppermill. If memory serves, Jeff Gregory won that one.
Here is an announcement of the tournament:


Jeff Gregory did win it.
 
You're right. I remember guys like John Schmidt, Dave Piona, and Amar Kang were all in the 140-150 range.
Dave Piona was 110 in 86-87 by 1990 he was 140. Amar & Schmit weren’t around when the numbers were lower.

In 86 Kim was 140-145 in Modesto as a reference. Sacramento and Modesto had very similar numbers and were comparable.

That was the “inflation” in the rating system. After Gene passed the numbers went off the rails.

I remember this vividly

Best
Fatboy
 
Dave Piona was 110 in 86-87 by 1990 he was 140. Amar & Schmit weren’t around when the numbers were lower.

In 86 Kim was 140-145 in Modesto as a reference. Sacramento and Modesto had very similar numbers and were comparable.

That was the “inflation” in the rating system. After Gene passed the numbers went off the rails.

I remember this vividly

Best
Fatboy
I wasn't around it until about '97.
 
I wasn't around it until about '97.
You are correct,

My memory of the 80’s is rock solid.

By 97 I was living in Vegas and all that was in the rear view mirror. I knew B players in NorCal who were 100 speed players(by mid 90’s)-I heard about. So I knew something had drastically changed. B players in the 80’s were 60-70 speed players. 100 speed was much stronger than a B player in the 80’s when Gene had his hands on it.
 
Back
Top