Fargo Thoughts from The Cueist

So I want to take a min to talk about Fargo ratings since it's all the rage right now. So many people are on either side of the Fargo debate. You can walk into a pool room and bring up Fargo ratings, and you'll hear the typical "oh, it's great! I have 15,000 games robustness, and it helps me gauge where I am against the better players." Or the TD's that use it as a tool for handicapping tournaments more accurately.

But on the other hand, you'll also hear the "oh, Fargo is a load of crap! It's so easy to dump and lower my Fargo." Or the, "I hate any kind of handicapping system. I remember back in the days when everyone played even, and you had to improve in order to place higher in the tournaments."

Then you have pool players like me that can see both arguments, and have seen it both help and hinder pool players of different skill levels.

We have monthly tournaments here in my area that are handicapped based on Fargo ratings. Now these tourneys are great! They consistently have 80+ players, and there's been all kinds of players from beginners to pros play the events. Even though you hear the top level players moan and complain about the handicaps month in and month out, the top players still seem to find a way to win and place high in these events. The handicap system ranges from 4-13, and it's rare that anyone below an 8 places in the top 3, let alone wins it. Funny how that works, right?!

From my humble point of view, the handicap system that these tourneys use is pretty close to accurate. The difference is truly in using Fargo ratings that are established for all of the players. And personally, I think the higher level players are just so used to running through different tourneys without any tough matches until the later stages of the events. Hence the moaning and complaining about someone rated too low when there's an upset, which is rare even when it's handicapped.

And that's not taking anything away from players w/ a lower Fargo rating. However, the difference comes down to consistency. On any given day, a lower level player could play perfect and easily beat a higher level player with very little mistakes. Then on their next match, the lower level player might lose, and struggle badly. But nobody ever remembers the times that the lower players perform to their level. Everyone always remembers when the lower players play over their head and play great. This especially happens with players in the mid-level range, such as the weekend warriors like myself. We could play perfect on day 1 of an event. Then come day 2, we can't make a straight in ball! Trust me, I struggle with this every month. LOL.

So back to Fargo.....personally, I believe Fargo is a great tool for handicapping tournaments, leagues, etc. However, there are still some downfalls, as with any handicapping system. So is it perfect? Umm, no! But I believe that the math involved to create the Fargo numbers is far more accurate than subjective opinions. And that's a good thing! You're able to run tourneys that men/women can compete in, as opposed to having 2 separate events for men/women. You're able to fill up tourneys that may not be full due to an unfair handicap system.

For the players that are only concerned about making money, this means more money in the tourney pool. More people in the establishment that is hosting the event. And for the weekend warrior, that means more competition. It's a win, win!

Let's hear your thoughts on Fargo, and how it's going in your area. 

The Cueist and His Goals

I asked The Cueist and Katniss to send me some info about their goals from 2020 and the ones for 2021.

Here is what The Cueist shared:

Happy Holidays to everyone around the globe! With the year coming to a close, let's reflect a little on what's happened in 2020....most of the pool players around the world were affected by the pandemic. In my case, I was at the BCA/CSI nationals in Vegas when the country started to shut down. And when I made it home, I didn't hit a single ball for 5 months.

Five months is an eternity considering I had set some lofty goals for my 2020 pool year. Let's recap those goals really quick

- Place in the top 3 at least one time on our local tour 
- Be in the top 5 of my skill level on the tour's ranking system 
- Increase my Fargo to 645 or higher (I was at about 620 at the start of the year, and my robustness was 2,800)

The way I saw it, if I started to practice and improve, then all 3 of these would eventually happen. In 2019, I really worked on my game. I saw results in tournaments, and my Fargo jumped about 20 points in 12 months. While improving your Fargo doesn't necessarily mean you're playing better, my Fargo doesn't fluctuate too much with the amount of robustness I have. So by going up in Fargo, it was just a tangible way of me knowing that I was indeed playing better on a consistent basis.

However, with the pandemic in full force, this meant that I had about only 7 months to hit my goals, without the luxury of practicing for 5 months.

But....I was still able to attain 2 out of my 3 goals with a shortened pool year. :)

I placed 3rd in a tour stop in the Fall, which was 2 months after I dusted off my cues....seriously, my case literally had a thin layer of dust! And combined with tourney results from the other tour stops, I was in the top 5 of my particular skill level. Yay for me!

However, the goal that I didn't attain was for my Fargo to increase to 645. I reached 644, which is soooo close, yet soooo far. I know, I know, it's only 1 point. But even though it's 1 measly point, it was still my personal goal that wasn't checked off my list. Dangit.

So....where does this put my 2021 goals?

- Be more positive about pool in general. Whether it is my results in tourneys, gambling matches, individual matches, certain shots, etc, the negativity needs to be at a minimum if I want to improve.
- Improve to a 660 Fargo rating. Tough to do with 5,000 games robustness,
- Place in the top 3 of at least one big tournament in 2021. This is always tough to do as you never know how many talented players will be playing.

And to keep in part of one of my goals for 2021 (see below), I'll try to find the positive side to me not having a 645 Fargo rating....while I didn't attain the 645 Fargo rating, it doesn't mean that I'm not playing better and more consistently than the start of 2020. I mean, the overall goal is to be a better pool player. So I can safely say that I have improved almost 25 points AND I'm playing much better than I did last year.

Now, I just have to keep working on my game as much as I can, and keep the goals in mind. The results in tourneys and matches will take care of themselves with continued improvement. So we just have to trust the process.

Happy Holidays everyone!

 

Playing Even in a Tourney - Thanks to FargoRate

Catching up a bit from my trip to OKC for that tournament I played in January...

When we play in tournaments (whether open or handicapped) it's very natural to "judge" ourselves and our opponents ahead of every match.  We wonder things like:  who is the better player, will I have a chance, I should win, this will be tough, or this will be easy.

To be frank, it's is best if we DON'T ever think any of these thoughts and just focus on the game in front of us - that gives us the best chance to win!  But it is kinda normal to compare our skills to others.

The tournament in OKC was different than any other I had ever played in.  Basically, the race of every single match was not standard and instead depended on who you played.  And the race was established using an option on FargoRate.com.

It was a "575 and under tournament," which meant any player with a Fargo Rating of 575 and under could play.  And depending on who you played, your race was determined for you.

This is going to be tough to explain, so bear with me.

There is an option on Fargorate.com entitled "Find a Fair Match."  See top right choice below:

From there, there are 3 categories: Hot, Medium and Mild. The Hot column is the race that should benefit the lower ranked player and the Mild column would benefit the higher ranked player, if two players would try and match up evenly:

In the OKC tournament, the race was to 7 on the winners side and 5 on the one-loss side. And we were to use the "hot" column to determine our races.

So, if I (524) was to play a player ranked 460, I would race to 7 and they would race to 5. (See below far left column and find the match up that begins with 7, since this tournament was a race to 7 on the winners side and I was Player One). If it was a one-loss side match, I would race to 5 and my opponent would race to 4 (again, below far left "hot" column and find the match up that begins with 5, since this tournament was a race to 5 on the one-loss side).

So, what was SUPER cool about this tournament was each player was essentially playing about even, no matter who you played because the race was stat-dependent.

So, let's set me up to play a higher-ranked player. If I was playing a player rated 570 and we were on the winner's side, I would race to 6 and they would race to 7. See hot column on the left and notice my opponent is Player Two, so we look for the "7" in the hot column for the second player, which would be 6-7 in this case:

It was actually a lot of fun and really cool to realize we were all playing about even in every single match. I don't mean we all played the same, I mean each race was established under the "Fair Match" option and that allowed for every person we played to be matched up pretty evenly in our matches.  I admit it was a different type of pressure - not one where one or the other is suppose to win, but who will win?

There was no guessing who played better and there was no pressure like there normally is when we all race to the same number. It was cool that each player raced to their own proper race against whoever it was we ran across based on our skill.

I liked it!

Fargo Ratings Rule!

Although handicap tournaments are more difficult to run than Open tournaments, Fargo Ratings help me out so much!  And not just to me personally as the Tournament Director, but also for the players competing in handicapped events. 

Fargo Ratings allow for more accurate handicapping which helps all the players overall.  Further, as a Tournament Director, it saves us a ton of time trying to nail down someone's true handicap.  Accurate handicaps also lead to less complaints.  And a big thank you to Fargo Rate for that!

Btw, in case you are new to the term "Fargo Ratings," Fargo Ratings are world-wide pocket-billiard ratings designed to rate every player on the planet on the same scale based on wins and losses against opponents of known rating." Check this link for further details.

Below are two excellent examples from the Omega Billiards Tour stop just a couple of weeks ago that prove how effective and helpful Fargo Ratings are. 

We had two players enter the tournament who no one knew well.

One guy was from California.  He moved to the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) area only a few months ago and it was his first time to play on the Tour.  In the past, I'd have to ask around, "how does this guy play, who does he play like?" in order to try and establish his handicap for the tour (we use rankings from 4 to 10).  But that weekend, I just type his little name into http://www.fargorate.com and there he was!  He was an established player and he had a pretty high Fargo ranking - so high he was automatically an 8 handicap.

Fargo Rating  -    Omega Tour Handicap:
Above 750     -    10 handicap
700-749         -     9 handicap
645-699         -     8 handicap
570-644         -     7 handicap
515-569         -     6 handicap
460-514         -     5 handicap
below 460      -     4 handicap

THEN - another player signed up.  He was from the country Jordan, and it was really cool - he also had an established Fargo Rating!  Took the guess out for me, reduced stress, saved time, and made my job easier for sure.  :) 

This player had an even higher Fargo Rating and he was a 9 handicap on the tour (one spot away from top pro level).

The point is, it is really helpful to have Fargo Ratings for players all across not just the U.S., but the world, as well.  Even a guy from California and a guy from Jordan had an established rating and we were able to set their handicaps accurately right from the get go!   So awesome. 

What a great data system!

When You Beat Your Kids

I have mentioned a couple of times that the Omega Tour is now using the Fargo Ratings to rank player's handicaps, instead of going by just known ability.  We implemented this change with the first stop of the year (in Jan).  This takes out any "opinions" and is based on stats.

This meant that some players ' handicaps moved up and some moved down.

A father and son are frequent players on the Tour and the Dad moved down from a 6 to a 5.  The son remained a 6 handicap.

(btw, your handicap number is what you race to in the matches).

For the first or second time in 5 years on the Tour, they ran into each other on the bracket.  Come Sunday morning, father and son had to battle it out!

So, the race was 5 for Dad and 6 for the son.

I see them playing and playing, battling it out, and finally the Dad comes over and tells me that he won and what the score was.  As I'm writing down his name on the bracket, he leans in and confides to me, "When I was on 4 games and won the last game of the match, he tried to rack for the next game because he didn't know I had won already.  I told him, "Daddy goes to 5...."" in his sarcastic, funny, proud voice!

LMAO!

It was hysterical!

The Mathematics of Improving

It always find it interesting what people focus on and think of when trying to improve their game.

Someone told me last month, "I want to be your first Most Improved Player on the Omega Billiards Tour."

I smiled as I read that, knowing this player was working on hard on his game.

Then the other day a different Omega Tour Player was asking me about how the Fargo Ratings work, since we are using them for handicapping starting in 2017.  

I received the answer from Mike Page:

The system doesn't care about tournament results per se.   It also doesn't care about handicaps or anything like that.   So for example if you Melinda (529) played a match against Sky Woodward (778), and Sky won 10 games, the system would say based on your ratings you are expected to get to 2.    So if he beat you 10 to 2, your ratings would stay the same.   If he won 10-0 or 10-1, you'd go down a smidge (and he'd go up).   If he beat you 10-3 or 10-4, you would go up and he would go down.    

If you played Monica Anderson, you'd be expected to win 6 to her 4.    It doesn't care that you are a 6 handicap and Monica is a 5 handicap.  If Monica won a match against you in a Omega event with a score of 5-5, she would go up a bit and you would go down a bit.  This is not because she won the handicapped match; it is because she would have been playing even with you for 10 games when due to her lower rating she is not expected to... 

After I shared the answer with the player, and told him I hope it was helpful, his response took me aback!  

He replied, "Yep, helps a lot.  Tells me what I need to focus on, i.e. wins against higher ranked players…not just wins in general.  The other stuff will ‘happen’ because of that focus.  

He added later when I told him he had an interesting perspective, "You see, I need 26 points to move to the next level i.e. a 7.  (If I read everything right). 

If I focus on ‘getting’ that 26, then the other items just come naturally, i.e. finishing better in the tournament(s), getting ‘better’ overall, etc.

Goal oriented."

I was very impressed with how much he thought about what he needed to do now in regards to improving on the Tour now that we are using the Fargo Ratings.

He's right, it's no longer just simply wins versus losses or how one finishes in the tournaments. But he was clever to ask just how the process of the Fargo Ratings work so he could focus on the numerics of it all.

I love smart people!

Do You Influence with Info?

I have been working on a the last couple of months looking into adjusting a few players' handicaps on the Omega Tour to reflect more their known ability.  This would take place starting with the new 2017 Season in January.

After careful and many discussions, the Board and I decided after research and evaluation, that the Fargo Ratings are the best way to go.

I had been losing sleep over all the complaints about certain players and wanted to do something about it, and using the Fargo Ratings is the way to go.  Every person the Board considered moving up did indeed move up when we looked at the cut-offs for the handicaps for the Fargo Ratings compared to the Omega Tour.  It was quite remarkable.

And as one player told me,

"Players will complain about anything. But the biggest complaint I always heard about the handicapping for Omega before was that there wasn't a set methodology to determining a players handicap.  Now there is, so it'll come down to them whining about Fargo and not the decision makers on the tour.  There are some people who moved around but I think overall they were all moves in the right direction."

I had known about this new change (using Fargo Ratings) and had a lot of background information provided by Mike Page of FargoRate and was ready to announce this but wanted to wait until after the Season Finale so we could flush a few more things out and get some graphics that explained well the system/criteria.

But there I was Sunday morning of the Omega looking around the room and saw a few key players that I knew would be moving up come January.

I knew I wouldn't say anything to them, but I DID wonder what effect that would have had on them?  Would they have be consumed that they were going up in Jan and in-consequence not perform that well by being distracted by the news?  Or, would the info propel them to try even harder this one last event at a lower ranking?  (that's pressure in itself, tho, and can back-fire)

One player told me after he finished the tourney that he things it will push him harder to do well being ranked higher (as he knows he needed to be moved up).

Still - interesting, huh?

Such a mental game!  And I didn't want to affect the players in any way with the new news.

Setting Handicaps and Exaggerating

The toughest part of running a handicap tour is the complaints about others' handicaps.  The number of complaints have actually led to the demise of another handicapped tour in another state.

Being aware that complaints are part of the territory of running this type of tour, it's so important to me to be very transparent with decisions, and also to ensure I work hard to get the handicaps set right the first time a player plays.

How do I do this?

I have a core group of trustworthy people that I ask their opinions.  Hardly ever has there been a huge difference of opinion.  And you have to realize that the players wont ever lie - they WANT the handicaps correct.  They don't want to go up against a player who should be their same ranking but may not be.  So, it's a well-rounded system.

I did have one new player who complained quite loudly about his ranking.  I told him I had already asked a group of players who were well represented, and then he still asked me to ask his best friends.  Uh, NO.  Not only no, but hell no.  lol.  Nice try.

However, what does one do when it's a player no one from the core group knows? 

Yep, you search the internet!

I sometimes ask on Facebook if anyone knows a certain player. 

Further, with the new Fargo ratings, anyone can be looked up nowadays.  (Fargo Ratings general information from CSI is located here, and how to look up ratings is at this link:  http://fairmatch.fargorate.com/

But the internet can be a funny place to find information.  Before the February Omega Tour stop, we were trying to find out how to rank a new player that no one knew.  Someone did a search on the ole' reliable internet and found an article about him from his local town, that had interviewed him for a story about pool.

I was told he might be a 6.  Then I read the article, even showed it to one of the core members, and we agreed that the article led us to believe he should be a 7.  He was either bragging about hustling people, or exaggerating about being a master level player, or trying to show off for the newspaper, or something.  After his first match that weekend, I easily moved him down to a 6.

Be careful embellishing in your stories, peeps!