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Ed O'Laughlin 2016 Streak

Posted By: Stick
Date: Tuesday, 14 June 2016, at 3:33 a.m.

In Response To: Ed O'Laughlin 2016 Streak (Bill Riles)

The funny part was in my original post I:

  1. Didn't expect a response from the original poster for multiple reasons.

  2. Knew it was a Bob Koca like question. I even considered rephrasing it to be more Koca-esque but figured I might as well leave it in my own words. Low and behold Koca poses a somewhat similar question anyway.

So first, let's take Ed out of the equation because it's not about Ed. It's about Player Y, whoever that may be. The only time it things like this get discussed though is when it is brought up about a specific player.

The first thing I should point out is that in voting for the Giants list I don't give one shit about results. Any results in that time frame are certainly short term and affected big time by variance. Is it more likely that a good player will have such a streak as Player Y is having now? Of course, but it's not impossible that a weaker player could have the same streak.

I see big time variance in backgammon all the time and wonder how many people really get it. (not saying that I do completely either by any means, only that I try to be actively aware of it) For example, I often play XG a 50 game session. 50 games is a lot of games. Imagine how long your heads up session has to endure for you to get 50 games in. After 50 games it's not so uncommon that I'm up on the score sheet.

Steve Sax just last year (or a period of about a year) told me that in all the major events, the Championship division and Masters Jackpots for sure, you'd have to ask him if it included anything else, but that for an entire year he didn't cash in a damn thing. Not one single thing. Steve is one of the most consistent solid players out there and bupkis for an entire year.

My own results this year in the main event are awful whereas my results in the jackpots I've been allowed to enter have been pretty good. Lucky that my wins got clumped into one event is all.

I like extreme examples because they generally help prove a point. You vote for the Giants list as you see fit. It's left a bit open to interpretation. However, let's say you have Player Y who wins everything left and right over a span of two years. (his PR is mediocre) You also have Player X who plays a PR of 0.00 yet has somehow failed to win anything he's entered. Who is going to be on the top of your Giants voting? Now when you get in the middle area you have to figure out how to weight it. Now we take Player Y and say he only wins everything left and not right whereas Player X plays a PR of 2.0 and wins nothing now. Who is on top of your list? To me it's clear, the better player is the 2 PR player. The results are short term variance. I'd back the 2 PR player every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I'm always open to listening to someone who 'does something to win' that other people don't do. I've looked many a times at a couple players' matches, esp. their cube play, to see if there may be any underlying magic that is helping their results. No, there isn't. They're making errors and blunders generally because they're making errors and blunders, not something that will help their MWC. At the end of the day too now we are able to look at the USBGF's stats on match win %. So people can scream from the top of a mountain that Player Z finds a way to win when others don't but his match winning % actually isn't high at all.

The first thing one has to do to have a run like Player Y is to attend a lot of events. Truth be told, very few players attend that many events. When they do I think it's fair to say it's a better than average player that does it.

The next thing I hate is what Barry posted

Go back and look at his results from those years, his name appears a lot! Does it? Compared to what? Do you know what tournaments he attended? Do you know what events he entered within' these tournaments? Do you know if he rebought in tournaments or perhaps bought his way through 1, 2, or even 3 rounds? Did he get buys? I'm sure there are more questions I should be asking but those are the big ones that come to mind.

Now Player Y in this situation has a 60% win rate this year. (main event + masters jackpot) Is that good? Yes. Is it crazy good? No. In 2009 I apparently won 67% of my matches, 45-22. The very next year I was 50% at 22-22! Was I just really good in 2009 and a slouch in 2010? Of course not. In fact, I hope I was a better player in 2010 than 2009. A glimpse as to what results actually mean even with what seems like a decent chunk of matches.

I went through and added all of Player Y's recorded matches of 7 points or more this year to a profile. How much does that number mean to you? Where is the point you would say even with these results you wouldn't put him on the Giants list? That answer will differ for most people. I would like to hear your thoughts though. You already know for me personally his PR is what is going to rate if he is on my list or not.

Stick

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