The new scoring system...

[ChrisTofalos]

The ELO rankings don't work. We've been down this route many, many times....

For starters how about: New players and those in the bottom quarter of the rankings (unless they've previously had a top twenty finish) get 100 points extra?

[dave_r]

Thanks Chris.

Don't fall out with me, Dave. I like you, you've always got a smile on your face (and not always alcohol-induced!) and you've earned the respect of all FOG players at MAWS (and, no doubt, elsewhere). But I think you're wrong on this one.

Some of the replies I've received border on trolling and I actually felt my blood pressure rising - which is not good at my age! That's what prompted my reply.

The order of the day should be, what can we do to bring in more FOG players, and if other rules have to follow suit, so what?

I spend a lot of time involved in FoG. Some of that seen, a lot of it unseen. But that's fine, I do it because I enjoy playing FoG.

When you have put forward ideas that we've tried before all i've done is try to point out the rationale as to why they didn't work when they were first tried, but all I've got back is that I'm being negative?

As far as I can see the ideas have been:
- Amend the scoring so that even if you get thrashed you get a load of points
- Setup a FoG players association
- Introduce a handicap system

Taking each one in turn.

Scoring sytem: As mentioned by the Madaxeman we had a poll running for a month which was viewed by loads of people and voted on by around half of the current FoG tournament players. This has seemingy been dismissed as not being inclusive enough.. When the legalities were mentioned due to the GDPR legislation of passing players personal info around you said this is trolling.

FoG players association: What is this going to achieve? We already have the Slitherine Forum and the BHGS. Forum's are better as they tend to lead to a more open debate, its why we moved away from the Yahoo groups.

Handicap system: We haven't tried this and it may work, there are a number of difficulties with setting this up though, namely:
- How do we handicap players? Presumably based on rankings, with a percentage of players getting bonus points. We'd only know this once all players had entered
- This presents problems with telling players how many points they have to use - if I had 800 pts or 850pts I might pick a different army
- Players who don't play often at tournaments would get a huge advantage, which is counter productive to what the aim is

[dave_r]

The ELO rankings don't work. We've been down this route many, many times....

For starters how about: New players and those in the bottom quarter of the rankings (unless they've previously had a top twenty finish) get 100 points extra?

So that rules out 100% of players that have ever played in a FoG tournament.

[vexillia]

Handicap system: We haven't tried this and it may work, there are a number of difficulties with setting this up though, namely:
- How do we handicap players? Presumably based on rankings, with a percentage of players getting bonus points. We'd only know this once all players had entered
- This presents problems with telling players how many points they have to use - if I had 800 pts or 850pts I might pick a different army
- Players who don't play often at tournaments would get a huge advantage, which is counter productive to what the aim is

I agree that there are difficulties with this. Based on your presumptions I think it's unworkable but that merely reflects your presumptions. As I've said before don't give players AP but VP:

Of course the handicap could be in VP with both of you using 800 point armies. ... Another advantage would be that it could be calculated in advance by the list checker and no player would have to bring more troops than they would normally.

Also bear in mind it's not a "broad brush" system based on rankings:

We probably need something based just on results. So if you did well in your last outing don't expect a large handicap even if it was two years ago.

And finally the handicap needs to sensible so it is seen as an incentive to new players and avoids hyperbolic claims that it's a "huge" advantage.

[dave_r]

I agree that there are difficulties with this. Based on your presumptions I think it's unworkable but that merely reflects your presumptions. As I've said before don't give players AP but VP:

Of course the handicap could be in VP with both of you using 800 point armies. ... Another advantage would be that it could be calculated in advance by the list checker and no player would have to bring more troops than they would normally.

That's easier to sort out pre-tournament, but of course, this brings it's own issues Would you sort out the players based on their rankings into thirds, with the bottom third getting a bonus? Or into halves with the bottom 50% getting bonus VP's?

Would you give a bonus to those players regardless, or only if they won or lost? What happens if they draw?

Would you give players a bonus only if they played against a player in the top half? Or would it only be for a player in the bottom third playing the top third?

This makes it extremely difficult to calculate scores and (as I found out at Roll Call) it is very easy to make a mistake calculating scores which then results in multiple re-draws.

Also bear in mind it's not a "broad brush" system based on rankings:

We probably need something based just on results. So if you did well in your last outing don't expect a large handicap even if it was two years ago.

And finally the handicap needs to sensible so it is seen as an incentive to new players and avoids hyperbolic claims that it's a "huge" advantage.

Would you give players a bonus based on their win or loss? i.e. +5 pts if you lose?

It sounds like a nice simple suggestion, but when you examine the detail this is an extremely complicated proposal.

[ChrisTofalos]

So that rules out 100% of players that have ever played in a FoG tournament.

I meant a top twenty finish in the overall rankings, not in a comp. But you could also exclude anyone with a top three finish in an individual comp (so players like Peter don't get the extra). Would that do?

Regards a players association, by all means discuss proposals on forums but, bearing in mind not everyone visits them all the time (and could miss posts), then present the options to all the players for an e-mail vote. Much more democratic...

[philqw78]

Well that's dead easy

Take the average score of every player for every game, then give them a handicap that would give them the average score of all players for all games

If you imagine the only competition ever ran was Challenge that would give the best player a -10 per game and the worst +10 victory points per game. At the end everybody should have the same score

With an average of 17.125 across all games

Code: Select all

Player		Average	Handicap
Paul Bartlett	27	-9.875
Terry Shaw	25.6	-8.475
Steve Murton	21.2	-4.075
David Morrison	20.6	-3.475
Andy Ellis	19.6	-2.475
David Putt	17.8	-0.675
Philip Jelley	17.4	-0.275
Peter Dalby	17.2	-0.075
David Fairhurst	17.2	-0.075
Dino Monticoli	16.8	0.325
Jon Akers	16.6	0.525
Steve Brown	15.2	1.925
John Patrick	14.6	2.525
Peter Card	10.4	6.725
Chad Pillinger	9.4	7.725
Lynda Fairhurst	7.4	9.725

You couldn't apply the handicap until the end in swiss draw as poor players would have to play better players making their handicap worth less
Or as another option we could turn up on Saturday morning, roll a D20, whoever gets highest wins, and then just get drunk

[philqw78]

Or you could use player v player handicapping, so if David Putt played Steve Brown then David would lose 0.7 from his score and Steve would add 1.9 to his, that could be applied every round I think

[dave_r]

So that rules out 100% of players that have ever played in a FoG tournament.

I meant a top twenty finish in the overall rankings, not in a comp. But you could also exclude anyone with a top three finish in an individual comp (so players like Peter don't get the extra). Would that do?

Well, it's almost impossible to work out who has finished in the top twenty previously given that the rankings are calculated on a rolling 12 month basis. It would also involve the tournament organiser emailing me and requesting this information prior to the competition starting and then getting back to the players that they have additional points to spend.

Presumably you would take the end of year rankings when determining this and then carry the bonus forward for the entire year?

Given that of the bottom 25% of players, only two have played more than a single competition it's not going to impact them much. I presume you'd also include players who have never played in a comp before? Which is also almost impossible to calculate due to the limitations I've described above.

Regards a players association, by all means discuss proposals on forums but, bearing in mind not everyone visits them all the time (and could miss posts), then present the options to all the players for an e-mail vote. Much more democratic...

How would you deal with those players who don't look at email very often? Or who just delete them? Presumably you'd have to post everything to them?

[dave_r]

Or you could use player v player handicapping, so if David Putt played Steve Brown then David would lose 0.7 from his score and Steve would add 1.9 to his

I see... so basically if Player A plays Player B and Player A wins, say, 27-6, then we'd immediately give player B a 21 point bonus to his score?

[philqw78]

if Player A plays Player B and Player A wins, say, 27-6, then we'd immediately give player B a 21 point bonus to his score

No, it depends who the players are from the handicap chart I produced (which is unfortunately based on the only data I have)
Pete Bartlett has a handicap of -10, so he loses 10 points every game. Lynda gains 10 every game irrelevant of the score. its how handicapping works. It makes everyone have an equal chance

But handicaps are rarely used to decide world champions, they are mainly used for internal competitions and to make betting more fun

[dave_r]

if Player A plays Player B and Player A wins, say, 27-6, then we'd immediately give player B a 21 point bonus to his score

No, it depends who the players are from the handicap chart I produced (which is unfortunately based on the only data I have)
Pete Bartlett has a handicap of -10, so he loses 10 points every game. Lynda gains 10 every game irrelevant of the score. its how handicapping works. It makes everyone have an equal chance

That would have a 100% chance of everybody finding a different game to play.

[philqw78]

But it's a fair handicap, and easily calculable

[dave_r]

Good luck on convincing somebody who has won all four of their games at a comp and doesn't finish top that they should come back...

[philqw78]

[dave_r]

Anyway, what you describe is exactly what ELO does - and that didn't work either.

[philqw78]

But if the handicapping works correctly the player who wins all his games will come first

So will the player who lost all his games and the player that drew them all. We know Chris is a socialist so this should work for him

[nikgaukroger]

IMO all this talk of handicaps is pretty pointless as I don't believe that scoring systems impact to any material degree on the enjoyment of the vast majority of players.

IMO (and lets face it its all anecdotal) the thing that puts people off comps the most is not losing to a more experienced player, or by how much they lose to them, but where they lose because the experienced payer is able to leverage a loophole or quirk of the rules that appears to them to be gamesmanship/cheese/or even cheating. Being beaten fair and square by a better/more experienced player is not an issue.

So basically I think there has been 7 pages worth of posts based on a false premise anyway ...

[prb4]

Good luck on convincing somebody who has won all four of their games at a comp and doesn't finish top that they should come back...

Phil has correctly described the way to determine a handicap.

At the running club I attend this is essentially how handicaps are calculated. However when a race is held there are always two winners.

The person who won - i.e. the current system
and the person who did best after the handicap is applied. - i.e. the person who outperformed their normal standard.

The handicap can be applied at the end of the competition so it doesn't affect the swiss chess draw in anyway.
A bit like golf everyone has a handicap associated with them. It doesn't change based on who enters the competition. Yes it needs recalculating once a year but that should be trivial with a spreadsheet.

New players who have never played before are a problem for any handicap system. In my opinion the fairest solution is to simply give them no handicap, so in Phil's example above they would have a handicap of 0.

Peter

[vexillia]

Would you give players a bonus based on their win or loss? i.e. +5 pts if you lose?

It sounds like a nice simple suggestion, but when you examine the detail this is an extremely complicated proposal.

I like simple and +5 points sounds about right. It would apply for the whole tournament and set by the list checker using something like this:

Take the average score of every player for every game, then give them a handicap that would give them the average score of all players for all games

But I would adapt as follows:

• Just use the last three ranking games - easier to maintain an up to date handicap table.
• Restrict it to +1-5 points and below average players only.
• Distribute the points by relative performance - see below.
• New players get 4 or 5 points.
• Handicapped scores not used in the draw.

To do the distribution:

• Normalise the scores: (Score-Average)/Std deviation.
• Distribute by bands of normalised scores - 0 to -0.4 (1 pt), -0.41 to -0.8 (2 pts) etc to -1.61 to -2.00 or less (5 pts)

Phil's example would look like this,

Code: Select all

Player	        Average	Normalised & Handicap
Paul Bartlett	27	 1.88	0
Terry Shaw	25.6	 1.61	0
Steve Murton	21.2 	 0.78	0
David Morrison	20.6     0.66	0
Andy Ellis	19.6	 0.47	0
David Putt	17.8	 0.13	0
Philip Jelley	17.4	 0.05	0
Peter Dalby	17.2	 0.01	0
David Fairhurst	17.2	 0.01	0
Dino Monticoli	16.8	-0.06	1
Jon Akers	16.6	-0.10	1
Steve Brown	15.2	-0.37	1
John Patrick	14.6	-0.48	2
Peter Card	10.4	-1.28	4
Chad Pillinger	9.4	-1.47	4
Lynda Fairhurst	7.4	-1.85	5
Average	17.13	0.00	
Std dev	5.26	1.00	

The use of normalisation makes the bands responsive to the player pool and gives the most points to the poorest performers. You can of course change the banding and the number of points very easily.

The spreadsheet that I used is trivial but I can email it to you if you PM me your address.