Rankings from Grass Roots Level ?

[gandalf the untidy]

Mar 2, 2012 12:59:23 GMT enzo said:

Jan 24, 2012 11:47:00 GMT BB Warrior said:

So, unless every League has an 'Enzo', we will still end up with different Leagues having slightly different Rules....

I appreciate that the effort involved is not for everyone but I am quite keen to at least get the leagues I play in or against are playing by the same rules, and if other counties/leagues don't chose to adapt then they can deal with the repercussions.

I have done the legwork for the LBBL, WDBLL, BDBBL & the SCBBA so they should expect me at the AGMs this year, and I hope I don't have any objections unless anyone thinks the rule changes/amendments would impact the enjoyment or would not suit the league.

I still have confidence in the AEBBA rules taking precedence as if any team disagrees with the discrepancies between the national and local rules then this will be put forward to committees and as it is their responsibility to keep in line with the AEBBA rules, the ruling should fall in favour of the AEBBA rules.

It may seem a lot of work for 'nothing' and a lot of "if it's not broken don't fix it" people step in, but it is all in favour or everyone's enjoyment in the game and should stop arguments etc.

Yep, i agree and i have a dream.... All AEBBA affiliated leagues should play to the same rules which have to be fair to all players to ensure new players can enjoy the bb experience to increase the games popularity throughout the country, and if all leagues keep their stats in a uniform format and all leagues have convergence then 1 day the aebba could have a national league database so that all registered players would have a national ranking position. ;)

regs cs

Gandalf, I have moved your post to a more appropriate section as you have started a new topic which could benefit from some healthy discussion.

Mar 2, 2012 13:43:46 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

..... and if all leagues keep their stats in a uniform format and all leagues have convergence then 1 day the aebba could have a national league database so that all registered players would have a national ranking position. ;)
regs cs

This too was my vision, dating back five years or so.
I see no reason why it couldn't come about eventually, but it would take a lorra lorra work from a few mightily dedicated people.

In the Chess world there is a national ranking system right down to grass roots level, and they employ separate ranking officers for Northern Counties and Southern Counties.

A grade of 100 is counted as average, matching IQ, a grade of 60 is about the poorest and the top stars have grades of 200 plus. This covers league and county activity. At the top level an 'elite' system kicks in with International Masters and above having their own listing (adding a nought on the end) - hence FIDE ratings are upwards of 2000. These players participate in tournaments abroad and earn their 'Masters' status by achieving a certain number of 'Norms' (ie by a finish of fifth or above in an international tournament).

I am sorry to dwell on Chess, but there are very many parallels with bar billiards. Opens, for instances have exactly the same atmosphere as a Chess Congress, where huge sheets are pinned up showing the progress of the tournament.

Anyway, in Bar Billiards we already have the top layer in place by which I mean the National Ranking List, which you can only really feature in by participating in an Open, or being selected for your County. Or of course the World Championships where you earn double points.

At the grass roots level, every individual league provides a Player Ranking list, but these vary wildly in the way they are structured. Some leagues put emphasis on winning games, for instance, others in getting high scores, and yet more try to find ways of combining the two. Also some players who play in more than one league perform well in one league but not so well in another.

A few years ago the National Ranking List copped for a lot of criticism and a body was set up to analyse it and make it fairer to all. This we think we have achieved. But there are very many really good players who don't feature on it, purely because of choice they only compete at local level. Which I think is what Gandalf is getting at.

What I see as a possible opportunity to bring about a means to an end is to cascade down to one more level, and by this I mean Inter League (for the south) and Inter Area (for the north). These competitions are fiercely contested and are of the equivalent standard of play as one might encounter in an 'Open'. And some of the aforesaid 'really good players who stay local' do take part in these.

So I see the eventual inclusion of these two competitions as a preliminary step to achieving a country-wide player database.



     

[BB Warrior]

Mar 2, 2012 14:53:38 GMT tommo III said:

Mar 2, 2012 13:43:46 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

..... and if all leagues keep their stats in a uniform format and all leagues have convergence then 1 day the aebba could have a national league database so that all registered players would have a national ranking position. ;)
regs cs

This too was my vision, dating back five years or so.
I see no reason why it couldn't come about eventually, but it would take a lorra lorra work from a few mightily dedicated people.

Anyway, in Bar Billiards we already have the top layer in place by which I mean the National Ranking List, which you can only really feature in by participating in an Open, or being selected for your County. Or of course the World Championships where you earn double points.

At the grass roots level, every individual league provides a Player Ranking list, but these vary wildly in the way they are structured. Some leagues put emphasis on winning games, for instance, others in getting high scores, and yet more try to find ways of combining the two. Also some players who play in more than one league perform well in one league but not so well in another.

A few years ago the National Ranking List copped for a lot of criticism and a body was set up to analyse it and make it fairer to all. This we think we have achieved. But there are very many really good players who don't feature on it, purely because of choice they only compete at local level. Which I think is what Gandalf is getting at.

What I see as a possible opportunity to bring about a means to an end is to cascade down to one more level, and by this I mean Inter League (for the south) and Inter Area (for the north). These competitions are fiercely contested and are of the equivalent standard of play as one might encounter in an 'Open'. And some of the aforesaid 'really good players who stay local' do take part in these.

It's a great idea, but as Tommo rightly points out it would take a lot of work to ever come into fruition.... and how could you possibly ever award ranking points on an equal basis when there is so much variation in both standards and the number of games played between different Leagues in any season. ???

The National Rankings are based on a level playing field, everybody can choose to enter all (or none) of the Tournaments during the course of the season.... they are OPEN to ALL players and the players near the top of the National Rankings tend to be those who enter most of the Tournaments... and do well in them of course. 8-)

I suppose that it would be fair to compare the Inter League (South) and Inter Area Competitions as a similar standard.... however Inter League is played on a League basis where teams all play each other home and away, while Inter Area is a straight knock out competition, so teams would play a totally different number of games.  How could you rank these on an equal basis.... a very good player in Inter Area could win both of his games but find his team knocked out in the First Round so not have the chance to play any more matches, whereas a reasonable player in Inter League could win 5 matches out of 10 games in a season.... how could you format a Ranking System that is fair to both players?

Taking it down a further level to individual Leagues, you then find more problems to try to judge players equally.  Some Leagues have only 1 Division, others have 3 or 4 divisions.  Some Leagues have only 8 or less teams so may only play 14 "League" games, while another League could play 30 League games in a season.  There are substantial differences in standards between many Leagues.... so again how would you provide a system that is fair to all players.  Is the player who wins all 14 of his League games in a weak League better than the player who wins 25 out of 30 in a harder League.... ::)

And that is all before you start to consider that different Leagues have different Rules and Formats for the way their matches are played.... some play a mixture of singles and doubles matches, some play with the away teams getting all the breaks etc etc.... ::)

Oh, and don't forget that some players also play in multiple Leagues while some players play (or only choose to play) in just the one League.... so if one player wins all of his games in one League, is he better than somebody who wins 70% of all of their matches in 3 Leagues?  We are lucky in Sussex that we have so many Leagues that we can choose to play in, but in Hampshire there is only 1 League that I know of.....

How can you possibly factor all those variations into one Ranking System and make it equal for everybody..... :o

As Tommo says, at the moment most Leagues have their own Ranking Systems.... based on their own rules and formats under which they play.... so players will always know (if they are interested) where they stand locally.

For the players that want to test themselves at a higher level, the Inter League and Inter Area Competitions are there and they then have the opportunity to gain Ranking Points and recognition within their Counties / Regions.

If players are enthusiastic enough.... and want to improve their game.... the AEBBA Tournaments and County Opens are available for ANYBODY to enter and players then have the chance to gain National Ranking Points.

I don't know how the Ranking System works in chess.... but I would assume that you can only gain Ranking Points by taking part in Matches and Competitions, so the players that enter more competitions presumably would gain more Ranking Points and would therefore be higher placed than somebody who only plays in League games.... ???

That sounds very much like the Ranking System that we currently have in Bar Billiards to me.... :P

I agree that the AEBBA National Rankings don't include a lot of very good players who only play "locally" and some of the very best players in the Country aren't listed near the top because they possibly only play 1 or 2 competitions a year, but surely that is their choice.... it's not the fault of the current system and unless somebody can come up with a workable format for a new system and be prepared to actually put it into place and run it then nothing is going to change.

Could a National Ranking system ever come into place that covers everything.... yes, of course it could.  Would it be fairer than the current system.... possibly, but it would probably still favour the players that compete in more competitions, so does that make it any different to the current system?  Is it likely to happen..... No, for all of the reasons shown above.

[gandalf the untidy]

Hi Warrior,

As with all things, where there is the will, there is a way, but regretfully it appears that as for most ideas for progress here it seems there is a lack of will to change anything, but i'll keep trying to make a difference. ;) it'll probably end up in tears you know ;D

regs cs

[gandalf the untidy]

Hi Tommo amd Warrior

Thanks for your comments, just to focus on SCBBA, how does anybody in scbba know whats been happening in Eastbourne and Hastings leagues in the last few years and what standard of players we might have?
I've been chairman of Eastbourne for too many years now and never to my knowlege have we forwarded registration details of any of our members or league stats to SCBBA and i would expect Hastings to be the same, though i know that they have not been affiliated for a long while until recently. We have not sent this info. cause no one has asked for it. We might have been playing interleague matches with 7 people who are not Eastbourne players, but does it matter, ...pass
Does SCBBA get such info form other affilated leagues, perhaps its not required? i dont know.
I've posted some info here which obviously has no official function, As warrior mentioned we might have had the best player in England playing for us and no one would ever have known unless they were noticed in interleague matches. I wonder how many other ruling bodies are in the same boat. Not targeting SCBBA but thats the way it is.

Minor rant now over, kettle is on ;)

regs cs

[gandalf the untidy]

I've had my cup of tea now,

I have been posting members Sussex current ranking positions on an Eastbourne version their inter league stats and i am pleased to advise that ALL commented on their position at some time and i conclude that members are really interested in such stats and it focuses them on playing BB to improve those stats. So i think that if there was a national ranking system it would encourage more people to play more and play with more focus. (see attachment for ranking detail)

Any ranking system must be completely fair, which i would think means it needs to be a 50/50 ratio of breaks somehow, and as the number of games would be disperate in different leagues an average score would probably be the way to go, probably rankings should be over 3 years as some leagues wont play enough games in 1 season to get a "true" average but could be weighted by games played if averages are equal.

regs cs

Attachments:

[BB Warrior]

Mar 2, 2012 18:02:45 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

Hi Tommo amd Warrior

Thanks for your comments, just to focus on SCBBA, how does anybody in scbba know whats been happening in Eastbourne and Hastings leagues in the last few years and what standard of players we might have?
I've been chairman of Eastbourne for too many years now and never to my knowlege have we forwarded registration details of any of our members or league stats to SCBBA and i would expect Hastings to be the same, though i know that they have not been affiliated for a long while until recently. We have not sent this info. cause no one has asked for it. We might have been playing interleague matches with 7 people who are not Eastbourne players, but does it matter, ...pass
Does SCBBA get such info form other affilated leagues, perhaps its not required? i dont know.
I've posted some info here which obviously has no official function, As warrior mentioned we might have had the best player in England playing for us and no one would ever have known unless they were noticed in interleague matches. I wonder how many other ruling bodies are in the same boat. Not targeting SCBBA but thats the way it is.

Minor rant now over, kettle is on ;)

regs cs

Some interesting points there Gandalf. 8-)

Possible SCBBA (and other Counties) should have a list of all the registered players within each League to check eligibility for County Competitions such as Inter League.... however, as you pointed out earlier, many Leagues do have their own websites which can provide a lot of relevant information and, should the need arise, SCBBA could always contact the appropriate League Secretary to find out if a player is registered anyway. ;D

In any amateur sport, a degree of trust has to be given to all participants and I can think of no reason that our game should be any different to this.  Yes, we could insist that all Leagues register all of their players with SCBBA.... but surely that is simply making extra work for SCBBA, when the information is already held with each affiliated League. ;)

Obviously, Eastbourne or Hastings could well have the best player in England hidden away somewhere in their League.... although how they (or the player) would know he/she was the best if he/she didn't take part in any competitions outside of their own League is obviously an interesting question..... ::) ;D

Perhaps we will have to wait until the One Day Inter League competition to meet the mystery superstar player that you have hidden away, after all you did say....

Feb 24, 2012 0:59:33 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

Eastbourne are ok to bust some heads in div 1 ::) on 1st April

But make sure they are registered to play first..... ;D ;D ;D

[BB Warrior]

Mar 2, 2012 17:18:55 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

Hi Warrior,

As with all things, where there is the will, there is a way, but regretfully it appears that as for most ideas for progress here it seems there is a lack of will to change anything, but i'll keep trying to make a difference. ;) it'll probably end up in tears you know ;D

regs cs

Gandalf, I'm all in favour of progress and am involved on the Committees for both the Sussex Ranking System and, most recently, also the National Ranking Points System. 8-)

As I currently run the Sussex Website, I do know how much time and effort it takes to keep this updated.... and the Sussex Website would be a very small in comparison to the suggestion of having a National Website showing players Rankings from every League and County, especially if you then want to factor in a 3 year system and trying to calculate Ranking Points gained on an equal basis throughout all of the Leagues. :o

You would have to have a team of people to collate the information from each League and then have somebody centrally feeding all of the information into the website.... which all sounds comparatively easy I suppose, until you remember that there are League games going on all around the country almost every night of the week for at least 8 or 9 months of the year during the normal season.... and do you then include the Summer Competitions that some Leagues run as well? ::)

I agree that (some, not all) players are genuinely interested in their Rankings and Averages and these can motivate them to want to improve their game from one season to the next.... and I am all in favour of that. 8-)

But obviously, for the information to be relevant it would have to be constantly kept up to date, which reminds me.... I'm not sure where you got your information from for this....

Mar 2, 2012 19:00:37 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

I have been posting members Sussex current ranking positions on an Eastbourne version their inter league stats and i am pleased to advise that ALL commented on their position at some time and i conclude that members are really interested in such stats and it focuses them on playing BB to improve those stats. So i think that if there was a national ranking system it would encourage more people to play more and play with more focus. (see attachment for ranking detail)

....but I think that it's at least 6 weeks out of date in comparison to the current Rankings on the Sussex Website.... ;D

www.sussexbarbilliards.com/Sussex/Rankings/Mens%20Rankings%202011-12.htm

[gandalf the untidy]

Mar 2, 2012 19:50:59 GMT BB Warrior said:

But obviously, for the information to be relevant it would have to be constantly kept up to date, which reminds me.... I'm not sure where you got your information from for this....

Mar 2, 2012 19:00:37 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

I have been posting members Sussex current ranking positions on an Eastbourne version their inter league stats and i am pleased to advise that ALL commented on their position at some time and i conclude that members are really interested in such stats and it focuses them on playing BB to improve those stats. So i think that if there was a national ranking system it would encourage more people to play more and play with more focus. (see attachment for ranking detail)

....but I think that it's at least 6 weeks out of date in comparison to the current Rankings on the Sussex Website.... ;D
www.sussexbarbilliards.com/Sussex/Rankings/Mens%20Rankings%202011-12.htm

Hi Warrior, cant congratulate sussex results compilers enough, doing great things and all those who forward result cards in good time.

maybe any national system would be done quarterly like snooker ;) and at least its being thought about.



[edit] rearrangement and part of large quote removed to make more sense.

[NigelS]

Tommo can correct me if I am wrong but I believe that chess rankings are not really based on ranking points allocated by tournament but more by comparing the ranking between the two players who have played a match and adjusting their ranking based on their outcome for that match.

For example
Player A has a rating of 2,000 points player B has a rating of 1,500 points

If A beats B, A would gain 10 points, B would lose 10 points so their new ratings are A (2,010) and B (1,490)
If B beats A, B would gain 20 points, A would lose 20 points so their new ratings are A (1,980) and B (1,520)

The idea is that a player gains more points by beating higher rated opposition than lower rated opposition
Thats just an example of how it would work, but these systems are usually run by a program, which looks at the rating of the players involved and their results and then coming up with a new rating for the players.

This is the only way I could see a ranking system working across all league across the country because a league could submit results between players and it does not matter what league or tournament the match was played, you can still make that match a ranked match.
This system does have its flaws however, in that players just playing at local level piking up win after win will just carrying on gaining points whereas players who go around all the tournaments will gain points as well as lose them as only one person in any tournament goes unbeaten all day.

It is an interesting thread though and food for thought, however the current ranking system covers around 400 players which is a fair percentage of all the players who play the game. By that I mean the snooker ranking system covers around 100 players but how many play across the world....the same could be said of tennis, golf etc etc

[BB Warrior]

Mar 2, 2012 22:38:56 GMT NigelS said:

The idea is that a player gains more points by beating higher rated opposition than lower rated opposition
Thats just an example of how it would work, but these systems are usually run by a program, which looks at the rating of the players involved and their results and then coming up with a new rating for the players.

This is the only way I could see a ranking system working across all league across the country because a league could submit results between players and it does not matter what league or tournament the match was played, you can still make that match a ranked match.
This system does have its flaws however, in that players just playing at local level piking up win after win will just carrying on gaining points whereas players who go around all the tournaments will gain points as well as lose them as only one person in any tournament goes unbeaten all day.

It is an interesting thread though and food for thought, however the current ranking system covers around 400 players which is a fair percentage of all the players who play the game. By that I mean the snooker ranking system covers around 100 players but how many play across the world....the same could be said of tennis, golf etc etc

That's about 25% of the estimated number of League players we have in the country then have a UK Ranking.... as Nigel says, that is pretty good going in comparison to snooker, darts and many other sports. 8-)

Given that most Leagues offer their own ranking systems for their players and that players have the opportunity to compete at National and Open Competitions (nearly always without having to qualify to play in those, unlike some other sports) to gain UK Ranking Points, I can't really see a benefit to introducing an extra ranking system.... surely it would be far easier to encourage the people who are interested in their rankings to take part in more national competitions, that way the future of the game will be far better. ;)

Mar 2, 2012 22:38:56 GMT NigelS said:

Tommo can correct me if I am wrong but I believe that chess rankings are not really based on ranking points allocated by tournament but more by comparing the ranking between the two players who have played a match and adjusting their ranking based on their outcome for that match.

For example
Player A has a rating of 2,000 points player B has a rating of 1,500 points

If A beats B,  A would gain 10 points, B would lose 10 points so their new ratings are A (2,010) and B (1,490)
If B beats A,  B would gain 20 points, A would lose 20 points so their new ratings are A (1,980) and B (1,520)

The idea is that a player gains more points by beating higher rated opposition than lower rated opposition
Thats just an example of how it would work, but these systems are usually run by a program, which looks at the rating of the players involved and their results and then coming up with a new rating for the players.

This is the only way I could see a ranking system working across all league across the country

Yes Nigel, absolutely correct. And when there is a gulf between the two players a 'ceiling' is introduced so that the lesser player winning only gains a certain maximum and the stronger player losing only drops by a reduced amount.

Colin - don't you think we already have the best of all worlds ?
1. A National Ranking list covering those who put themselves out to participate at the top level;
2. A S.C.B.B.A  Ranking list including names of players from Surrey and Kent who compete in our Interleague Competitions;
3. Nearly all leagues now having their own website where they can display current activity and a progressing Player Performance List for their league.
As Bobby Ball would say, "That'll Do For Me, Tommy !"

Dave - A fair summary by yourself, especially the "helluva lot of work bit" - which we know that you already put in on the SCBBA site and Nigel with Sav for the AEBBA site.  

Best analogy I can think of is that we landed a Man on the Moon back in 1969 and at the time thought that was just the start, with future inter-stellar space travel a certainty.
But this won't come until we have discovered the means to travel at the speed of light. It's the same for bar billiards. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[gandalf the untidy]

Hi bb Moguls

Nice to see some input from others on this thread and can see where you are all coming from...planet earth ;D
Not trying to redesign the world just trying to inject more interest from grass roots players and see no reason in the long term why the AEBBA can't aim to set up procedures that are capable of expansion from league to county to national level. Perhaps they have?  Item 1 on the agenda would be to agree in principle that this could be done and was worthwhile doing. At least its being discussed so bravo for that ;)
regs cs

[gandalf the untidy]

Mar 2, 2012 17:18:55 GMT gandalf the untidy said:

Hi Warrior,

As with all things, where there is the will, there is a way, but regretfully it appears that as for most ideas for progress here it seems there is a lack of will to change anything, but i'll keep trying to make a difference. ;) it'll probably end up in tears you know ;D

regs cs

Deja vu