WORLD RANKING - Updated for April 2002

[durban]

and the signature change of someone soon to be crushed from the combinded mass of the Beard's was highly amusing.

Go on Martin, who was that then mate?

I am intrigued <IMG SRC="/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">

M

[MJB]

Oh don't worry about him, his just some long-haired-David-Seaman-look-a-like.

Don't get any clever ideas now and think about copying him.....

[alkis21]

About France: At least they were 2nd when they won the World Cup, not 5th. <IMG SRC="/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">
We only wrote the Dartford ranking for statistical purpose, in fact it was just something for Vasilis and me to pass the time waiting at the airport. We didn't think people would take it as official, we are perfectly aware that you can't exactly have a fair ranking in a cup competition.
James, you said "There are complainers and contributors in this forum so I suggest you listen to the contributors and ignore the complainers" this is obviously aiming at me, okay I admit that I'm a whiner but surely I have contributed a tiny bit to this forum as well?
I look at the positive side now: All I have to do to become number one again is to win the second world cup in Athens. It shouldn't be that hard, I've been winning Kick Off games all my life. <IMG SRC="/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">
Seriously now. I really think we should adopt the bonus system for competition winners Robert mentioned. Here's how I picture it roughly:
-Everybody loses 10 points when entering a tournament. Come on, I don't think anyone would object to that, 10 points is not much.
-The winner gets, say, 60%, the runner up 30%, and the third 10%. For example, in Gloucester (24 players) Rikki would get a 144 points bonus and Bill 72.
I think this is very essential because otherwise 1st place is practically no different than 2nd.

[Robert]

BONUS POINTS DISCUSSION

James Beard and I have tried the ranking system with the allocation of bonus points for winning. This has the possible advantage that the trophy-holders gain ranking not just for their results but also their achievement in winning.

This gets around the FIFA-style problem where champions can be outranked by people who haven't won any titles, but get big wins and rarely lose, so are good at accumulating points.

If we are going to do this, we do it without creating extra points. So we need a 'tax and benefit' system. If we adopt it, we need strict rules/formulas on how it is applied.

Here is a proposal of how it would work:

1) All participants donate 'n' (perhaps 5 or 10) points into a 'bonus pool'.
2) Depending on the number of players, the points are then redistributed to the winner and top positions, as follows:

1-8 players (Small Tournament)
Winner collects 100% of bonus points

9-16 players (Medium Tournament)
Winner collects 67% of bonus points
2nd place collects 33% of bonus points

17-24 players (Large Tournament)
Winner collects 57% of bonus points
2nd place collects 29% of bonus points
3rd place collects 14% of bonus points

25+ players (Very Large Tournament)
Winner collects 53% of bonus points
2nd place collects 27% of bonus points
3rd place collects 13% of bonus points
4th place collects 7% of bonus points

The principle is that, depending on your final position, you always get 2x as many bonus points as the next player.
There are problems that come from this:
1) Players maybe object to the 5pt or 10pt tax
2) Does it over-reward winners? Examine Gloucester - does Rikki deserve a significant points boost effectively for a +2 goal difference over Bill?
3) A result-only ranking is 'purer' as it is based only on the games.

This all comes down to whether people think that overall victory is worth something in addition to good match results.

Please can anyone not already weary of the discussion give their feedback on this idea. Right now I am undecided. It would address a lot of people's criticisms, but also it's a little artificial for my liking and I really did like the idea of a system based on results only.

I'm going to try out the options on the ranking sheet and see what happens.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Robert Swift on 2002-04-06 04:10 ]</font>

[Robert]

OK, it works better if the tax is 10pts but this is and the benefit are factored by the 'tournament importance' modifier, of players/32.

WITHOUT T.I. Modifier
examples
8 player - all lose 10, winner gains 80
16 player - all lose 10, winner gains 107
24 player - all lose 10, winner gains 120
32 player - all lose 10, winner gains 128

Seems like you get 80 for winning a small tourney and 128 for winning the world cup! Also the -10/+80 is too large a distortion for such small meetings.

WITH T.I.Modifier

8 player - all lose 2.5, winner gets 20
16 player - all lose 5, winner gets 53
24 player - all lose 7.5, winner gets 90
32 player - all lose 10, winner gets 128

I am much happier with this, as it's consistent with the other T.I. factoring of points. Also, the tax objection of the losers is much reduced - and if you do donate 10 then it matters less because 25+ players are all in the same boat, and you don't lose ranking relative to each other. But it would be harsh if you lost 10 points just for turning up to a 4 player tourney! We don't want to penalise activity and reward inactivity.

I'm going to continue applying this formula to tourney results, and see whether it creates any major distortions/problems of its own. If it seems to increase fairness, then I'm all for incorporating it into the ranking system.

[Wonka]

Robert, I don't really appreciate the way you seem to brand my victory as if it's just a 2+ goal difference. I would like to remind you that I am the champion of Gloucester after 2 days of stress, concentration, skill, and many many other aspects. Bill did indeed push me all the way but it was still won by myself over a long weekend which involved 23 competitive games. Even if I would have won Gloucetser by 9 points, 12 points, or 20 points, at the end of the day I couldn't have finished any higher than I finished.

I am going to agree with Alkis again. This is not because I am the UK champ as I would say the exact same thing if my good friend Bill had won it. Winning a mojor event should give you alot more points than second place as the winner shouldn't be branded the "champ" for nothing. Winning any major trophy like myself and Alkis has done deserves the respect and recognition a champion deserves no matter how close it was.

I was also very close to walking away with all the other trohies too. I was only 3 goals worse off defensively from Vin which would have won me best defence. I was only 2-3 goals behind Bill which would have won me the highest scorer, and I should have beaten Bill in our cup game after I missed 3 one on one's and lost 4-3 after leading 3 times. (Which probably meant I would have won the cup) Does all this get taken into account?

I think the best way to do this is just have a points system which people score from tournaments. This should be decided by points depending on how high one finishes. For example,

1st place 1000 points
2nd place 750 points
3rd place 500 points
4th place 250 points
5th place 225 points
6th place 200 points
7th place 175 points
8th place 150 points
9th place 125 points
10th place 100 points

Then debate on how many points will be given for runty positions. <IMG SRC="/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif">

[Robert]

I am starting to despair at people taking personal offence from what are basically discussion points.

Rikki, there is a spectrum of views. On one extreme you are The Messiah, the unchallenged master and greatest person in a country of 60 million people. On the other extreme you are a lucky winner by 2 goals over a guy you could not beat yourself.

The truth is probably somewhere in between. Certainly neither is my personal viewpoint. There is a thing called playing devil's advocate. When people read this kind of discussion and leap to the conclusion that they are being attacked, it makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall. In fact I have been doing it so much this week that there will soon only be a bleeding stump where there was once a head.

I am building in the bonus points, based on Alkis' suggestion, as we speak. As I look at it, it is making the points allocation seem fairer and I think it could be an improvement to the system. I haven't applied it to Gloucester yet but as winner you will benefit from it.

Thanks for your suggestion about the points per position - we're already set on a system that is based on match results. The question is do we give extra points for tournament winners?

[Robert]

On 2002-04-06 00:38, Wonka wrote:
I was also very close to walking away with all the other trohies too. I was only 3 goals worse off defensively from Vin which would have won me best defence. I was only 2-3 goals behind Bill which would have won me the highest scorer, and I should have beaten Bill in our cup game after I missed 3 one on one's and lost 4-3 after leading 3 times. (Which probably meant I would have won the cup) Does all this get taken into account?

Yes, you gain points for goals scored, and lose points for goals conceded. Your excellent scoring and defensive record are already rewarded by the points system.

Right now, the only reason Bill got more points out of Gloucester is that
1) We haven't allocated any bonus points for the league
2) He had a long and successful cup run (gaining lots of points) which did include beating you (and directly taking points off you)

Your points for the league are almost identical, Bill does slightly better because he lost against Camber and Nazim (both high ranked so he loses fewer points). You lost against Bill and Vin (both ranked below you so you lost more points). However, on the existing system, the league points are marginal.

However, with the bonus points you will take more from the league. This is what I am working on now. Hopefully we are very close to the solution now.

[alkis21]

WITH T.I.Modifier

8 player - all lose 2.5, winner gets 20
16 player - all lose 5, winner gets 53
24 player - all lose 7.5, winner gets 90
32 player - all lose 10, winner gets 128

You are right, this does sound better than the "all lose 10" format. However maybe 20 points is too low, it's not that easy to win an 8 player tournament. How about "all lose 5" when 16 players or less?

[Robert]

The problem is then, that you could get 35pts for winning an 8 player tournament, and 53 for winning a 16 player. This is too close. The other point about using the T.I.Index is that you have a scaled formula and remain consistent to the rest of the model.

The problem with small tourneys, like 6 plyr ones, the 'Tournament Importance' is so low that your change (before BPoints) is:

Player A +25
Player B +4
Player C +21
Player D -40
Player E -12
Player F +2

Player A was the tournament winner. If you tax everyone 10*6/32=1.9 and then give it to the winner (net gain 9.4) then you get the table:

Player A +34
Player B +2
Player C +19
Player D -42
Player E -14
Player F +0

So A gets his extra reward for grinding out the win. B+F merely justified their existing rankings, while D&E produced perfomances unworthy of their ranking. C made decent progress.

However if you tax 5 and donate 30, you get:

Player A +50
Player B -1
Player C +16
Player D -45
Player E -17
Player F -3

The whole thing has been a disaster for everyone except the winner. Beforehand, we were recognising the results of individual matches between players, but now, all we've done is totally reduced their signficance and taxed any gain away to provide a big fat cheque for the winner. The others might as well not have turned up. And, in many tournaments, the winner is well-known in advance. If the only way you can pick up points is by winning competitions, then 95% of players will be put off.

The trick is getting the balance right. So far, with the pure calculated system, we've only rewarded results and given nothing extra to the winners. Some may say this is the best way to rank anyway - let the winners gain points by winning matches. However, if we are going to recognise the extra achievement of top place, we must not go so far the other way to imply those individual matches were all worthless: simply hand over your points to the best player and bugger off.

We have to encourage people to come to tourney's knowing they can pick up points just by winning games, without having to be the top player.

[Robert]

OK I have applied the bonus points formula all the way through the tournament history, and we now have a new table. I will email it out and people can compare the spreadsheet with the pure results/calculated one.

A few things to note:

1) We have 598 games on record, and 299 are from the Gloucester event. This means that 50% of the recorded results in the KOA universe are based on that 1 competition. Despite the difference in tournament importance (T.I.Modifier%), the sheer volume of extra games means that ranking is hugely affected by Gloucester. So the highest and lowest ranked players are all there because of Gloucester. This effect will vaporise very quickly, as soon as more results are added. Why? If someone has a points ranking much higher/lower than they should, then their wins/losses are magnified so they rapidly lose/gain points and move to their correct position. I strongly believe that we all have a 'natural' ranking, but few of us have played enough games to get there yet. Some are still climbing slowly towards it. Eventually they will plateau out. Others are well below it, and will quickly recover. A few more have overshot it, and will come crashing back down to earth. All of this is caused by the Ranking Differential modifier.

2) Sorry guys, whatever we do, Bill gets more points for Gloucester than Rikki. Why? Firstly because Bill picks up a massive load in the cup, and Rikki misses out. Secondly, because AT THE START of the tourney, Rikki (1088) is ranked much higher than Bill (1009). Therefore it is about 8% easier for Bill to gain points, because his ranking at the start was much too low and did not reflect his true skill. I hope people can follow this. As above, I think the relative rankings of Bill and Rikki will be sorted very quickly as soon as they play a new competition. This will happen in about 1 month. With about 1600 points each, either of them will have to win the tournament just to maintain that ranking. It becomes very difficult to gain more points. 3rd or 4th place could cost a lot of points if it involves defeats to lower-ranked players.

I hope people have an idea for what I mean anyway. We've just finished Gloucester, so results are very affected by it. But this won't last for long.

Anyhow, I'll mail out the files with and without the bonus points. Hopefully then we can make a final decision on whether to include BP's, and I can get on with running the system.

[JamesHBeard]

Robert,

Here is a suggestion that may help resolve the TOURNAMENT IMPORTANCE.

To win the Gloucester league the winner has played 23 games.
To win the Gloucester cup the winner has played just 5 games.


This indicates that it is not the number of competitors in a tournament but the number of games played that should count towards tournament importance.

Saying that I also think that THE WORLD CUP should be given extra importance as IN THEORY the best players from each country are attending it.

The winner of the WORLD CUP should always get more bonus points than the winner of a UK National Championship or a Dutch National Championship or a Greek National Championship.

The bonus points idea definately works and with my suggested changes may be perfect.

[NChoudhury]

Cracking stuff guys - a really positive discussion like this only goes to strengthen the bond we feel in the KOA - and makes me feel proud to be a member <IMG SRC="/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">