We received the following e-mail generated from a form on our web site. The player felt it necessary not reveal himself and we could not reply to him directly because he gave a bogus e-mail address.
Many players have come to uninformed conclusions about the current handicap system - a system that has gone through many changes in the last year. We, as operators, are also learning the reasoning behind many of the changes.
We are taking this opportunity to bring everyone concerned up-to-speed about the changes. We hope that you will not feel the need to take the "anonymous" route to ask us questions. Many of you have called us directly and we appreciate you giving us a chance to talk to you.
Here is our response to this e-mail - and to all player who have similar questions.
THE E-MAIL...
First Name: Anonymous|
Last Name: anonymous
Phone Number: 480-123-4567
Email Address: anonymous@hotmail.com
Division Letter: Z
Team #: 1
Shoot Date: June
Comments: This supposed "handicap" system is a joke. How does a player go up in rating when he/she lost to a lower rated player two matches in a row? This is going to lead to players/teams dropping out of the league. There is no justification that makes any sense. When someone loses they should not go up in rating, plain and simple. (funny thing is, the player that won did not go up in rating).
RESPONSE:
The handicap system is based on data entered from score sheets provided by the teams. Each player’s rating is determined by a series of averages from the performance scores they produced during their match. The more matches played, the more scores there are to mathematically calculate an average or handicap rating. Each players Handicap is determined by their last 21 scores entered in POOLNET. To increase fairness, the best and worst score is eliminated and therefore the numerical rating is based on 19 scores.
Remember that the system doesn't see what you see in the way a player holds their cue, English, kick shoots, cuts etc. It only has numerical data to mathematically create a handicap. With this new system that is a mathematically based system, averages and handicaps can change from week-to-week because each time a new score is entered an old score is dropped off, providing the player has 21 scores in the data base. If not, the new score is added to that 21 match total.
There are several things we want you to understand about how this works.
#1) A player can go up after losing or go down after winning.
Here is an example: Player A is a high 5, but on the border of being a 6. This player has been on a winning streak and won 7 matches in a row but is still a 5 - however his average has been moving him closer to a 6. He then loses his next two matches and goes up to a 6. Since this player has 21 matches in the system each time he plays one drops off and is no longer part of the data used in the calculation of his handicap. If the two matches that dropped off were weak 4 speed scores and the two losses were high 5 & low 6 speed scores then that would push the average up, even though he lost because there is a new set of data being used to calculate his average. Mathematically this system makes perfect sense, but it is difficult for players to accept.
2) Just because a player loses, doesn’t mean they played bad and just because a player wins doesn't mean they played good, so just because this guy went up after losing doesn't mean his opponent should also go up, in fact he could have gone down mathematically.
If you still have questions about the system and need further explanation, please call of e-mail Robert. I would be happy to help.
