2012 League Discussion

[Zhukov44]

With regard to the games played debate, I suggest there be 2 different playoffs.

One division where the minimum is 16-20 games, and another division where the minimum is 8-10 games.  The top 2 from each division get into the playoffs.

Or 2 4-person tournaments for each category, if preferred.

[boldfresh]

I think something like Gamer’s point system has merit.  A player that plays the minimum number of games should have to beat more quality opponents to make the playoff.  Someone who plays many more games than the min but against weaker players must be penalized.  I’m sure with the math whizzes on here a great system could be developed.  :-)

[DarthMaximus]

Okay, I deleted a bunch of post I thought were derailing the thread.  If you made a league suggestion and it was deleted in a post, you’ll have to make the suggestion again.

All user inputs are valid whether you played 1 game, 100 or never played in the league.  My goal (and that of the league) is to get as many people playing as possible.

[DarthMaximus]

Since scoring has seemed to take on the most discussion, I’ll address that.

Some of the suggestions have merit, but you also have to remember simplicity is very important.  Since neither JWW or I want to spend all day tallying points or whatever.

In terms of a weighted system, or points per win (more points for beating better players), we used a system like that for the Revised league in both '07 and '08.  At the end of the year players were ranked by win %.  Then each given a point value.  So if we had 50 players who completed a game the best player would be 50, the next best 49, an avg player would be in the 25 pt range, and the worst would be 1.  So If you beat the best you’d get 50 but if you beat the worst you’d only get 1, etc.  I think it was pretty accurate, but in terms of results it wasn’t much different then just using straight up win% so it didn’t make sense to do the extra work for little benefit.

Take this years league and top players trying to get into the playoffs:

(as of last posted standings)
Gamerman - 12-1
Zhuk - 7-1
LL - 7-1
DutchD - 6-1
RD - 6-1
JWW - 8-3

Please demostrate a scoring system that will come up with a differend (better?) ranking of players.  Are these not the top 6 league players (in some order)?
Also the “NEW” scoring system cannot penalize players for only playing the minimum and cannot reward players who can play 20+ games (ie X points per win).

Please note, I’m only using the currents standings and these 6 players as an example, I’m not trying to single anyone out.

If there is an argument of who should get in, there should be, we have 4 players with 1 loss and not yet at 10 games.

IMO, it is very hard to get to 9, 10 wins, even if you try and cherry pick opponents.  It is also hard to not play people.  You still need to post in the looking for a game thread, and anyone can respond.  Based on the standings I just posted, I find it hard to believe that none of the top 6 have played each other.  I of course know for a fact that many of the top 6 have played each other.  And don’t forget there is still the playoff.  The bottom line is you are going to have to play and beat “good” players at some point.

Now I certainly understand the issue of delaying a win/loss to help your playoff standing, but IMO that is a different issue then scoring/ranking.

–--------------

Other issues:

We won’t expand the playoffs.  JWW and I already talked about it and we want each seasons playoffs to end as quickly as possible.  With 6 players (with byes), or 8 we honestly porbably wouldn’t finish until Summer.  That’s just too long.

I could see a scenerio where we go back to Major and Minor Leagues.  As Zhuk mentioned, we’d do something like 8-12 for the minor, and 12+ for major.  That way players that do play tons of games aren’t necessarily punished for playing lots of games.  Afterall I want to encourage games to be played and not have a bunch of people that just paly 8 and go 7-1 and then sit out hoping to make the playoffs.
I also want to give poepl a shot at something if they start out 0-2 or 0-3.  At least those players could play and try and rebound and maybe get into the major league playoff with a 9-5 record or something.

A deadline for games might be considered, but there will be no judgmet system.  Niether JWW or I want to try and figure out who is winning some 15 rd game.  Pehaps we come up with something simple like most VCs at Nov 1 wins or if you took a Capital (if both players agreed when they started the game will end on Nov. 1).  But even that has flaws.  But again remember we want the league to be simple, and JWW and I are not looking to take on more work for ourselves.  Like all of you guys we do have other priorities.

The 72 rule.  Not to post a loophole to our own rule, but it is only a violation if your opponent posts bump.  If you agreed to take on a game with a weekend player or someone says that they can only post on certain days, that is fine.  JWW and I are not going to be checking game threads.

---

Keep the ideas coming (Please stick to rule suggestions)  :-D

But also post potential solutions if you have them with the thinking that JWW and I want to keep this simple and easy to maintain.

[gamerman01]

If you haven’t already, download the spreadsheet I posted on the league results thread.  You can see exactly who played who and what the results were.  It could also help you in deciding how to pick playoff participants.

I agree the top 6 currently in league standings are all deserving of playoff, so win percentage seems to work well enough.  (I am still over-rated, by the way.  I am probably losing to Lucky, and Darth Maximus has me in a serious jam early)  I see Darth just knocked off Zhukov, so apparently that summer course really paid off.

Really the playoff doesn’t prove much of anything anyway, it’s just for fun, right?  So being excluded from the playoffs shouldn’t be a big deal anyway.  Heck, I might decline to play in the playoffs this year even if I qualify.  A single game doesn’t prove much.  That’s why in baseball right now they’re playing best of 7.

My point system is very simple and I could tell you how many points everyone has in about a half hour, so I don’t think administering it would be very time consuming at all.  But I now agree that with a respectable minimum # of games (8 or so), straight win percentage is fine for picking the playoff participants.  It’s not like there’s a $100 cash prize at the end.

[DarthMaximus]

I’ll have to take a look at your SS.

Edit:

And yes, this is all for fun.  :-D
We all get competitve at times, but it is important to remember the “fun” factor.  :-D

[666]

@Gamerman01:

If you haven’t already, download the spreadsheet I posted on the league results thread.  You can see exactly who played who and what the results were.

Hello Gamerman, yes I have and it is nearly identical to the spreadsheet that I use to calculate the current standings. I sometimes wonder if I miss anything but nobody has stated as such and I figured if I missed a win or a loss for someone I would hear about it. Thanks for sharing this document.

[Guest]

@DarthMaximus:

Some of the suggestions have merit, but you also have to remember simplicity is very important.  Since neither JWW or I want to spend all day tallying points or whatever.

I agree with you and JWW…simplicity keeps the league going

[Guest]

If the league was officially started on Nov. 1 and ran through to say Sept. 1 of the next year, would it be possible to expand the playoffs to 6 or 8 players? That would give players 10 months to play 10 games and 4 months for the playoffs. Would a 6 or 8 man playoff make sense for you guys then? Just a thought.

[666]

@ExtraBilly:

If the league was officially started on Nov. 1 and ran through to say Sept. 1 of the next year, would it be possible to expand the playoffs to 6 or 8 players? That would give players 10 months to play 10 games and 4 months for the playoffs. Would a 6 or 8 man playoff make sense for you guys then? Just a thought.

At the moment, it appears that the majority of players are having difficulty getting to 10 games, thus we are planning on reducing the qualifying number of games played to 8 for next season. Personally, I am opposed to “byes”, therefore increasing the qualifiers to 6 wouldn’t make sense to me. Also, I want to make the “playoffs” start and end in a relatively short time frame while also rewarding the strongest players. With that said, I am a bit stuck on “4” for the playoffs.

FYI…if you haven’t participated in a tournament you should check them out. They are designed a bit differently and might be appealing to you.

[LuckyLindy]

I agree with 4 player playoff.  The regular season should mean a lot, we don’t want to be like the NBA and let half the contestants into the postseason  :lol:  I agree with JWW, that’s what a tournament is for.

[Zhukov44]

@DarthMaximus:

IMO, it is very hard to get to 9, 10 wins, even if you try and cherry pick opponents.  It is also hard to not play people.  You still need to post in the looking for a game thread, and anyone can respond.  Based on the standings I just posted, I find it hard to believe that none of the top 6 have played each other.  I of course know for a fact that many of the top 6 have played each other.  And don’t forget there is still the playoff.  The bottom line is you are going to have to play and beat “good” players at some point.

Fair enough, and I agree simplicity is a virtue.

But note that DD and Gamer and I all avoided each other this year.  It wasn’t intentional, but more likely unconscious.  We all hate losing and we all tend to stall when we’re down and we’re all conscious of how playing weaker opponents would advance us in the league.  Had we all played each other, our W/L records might look more like Bold’s record.  Not to say I would have ducked them had they challenged me, but I didn’t challenge them either.  I suspect both of them would agree there’s something wrong with this pattern.  Granting extra points for strength of schedule might help motivate us to challenge each other.  And maybe Gamer or another math expert could help do the calculations for you and JWW.

That said I personally would not grant points for games played alone (I’d prefer the different divisions for that), but do think pure strength of schedule should factor in.

I could see a scenerio where we go back to Major and Minor Leagues.  As Zhuk mentioned, we’d do something like 8-12 for the minor, and 12+ for major.

Good ideas.  I’d bump the minimum to at least 14-15 for the 2nd category.  And maybe a special achievement award for the player with the best record over 20 games.

A deadline for games might be considered, but there will be no judgmet system.  Niether JWW or I want to try and figure out who is winning some 15 rd game.

I’d only advocate judgments for games where it’s obvious who is winning.  Ordinarily this can be done by analyzing the TUV numbers, unless there are special circumstances like a capitol is about to fall or something.  In general if one side has a 25-30% overall tuv advantage then the game is basically over, barring special circumstances where a reasonable case could be made that the other side can come back.  Anyway the reason clear rules and adjudications are needed is to prevent stalling a game one is losing to make the play-off at the expense of someone else.  If the rule is there, most likely very few (if any) games would actually require adjudication.

[gamerman01]

@Zhukov44:

But note that DD and Gamer and I all avoided each other this year.  It wasn’t intentional, but more likely unconscious.  We all hate losing and we all tend to stall when we’re down and we’re all conscious of how playing weaker opponents would advance us in the league.  Had we all played each other, our W/L records might look more like Bold’s record.  Not to say I would have ducked them had they challenged me, but I didn’t challenge them either.  I suspect both of them would agree there’s something wrong with this pattern.  Granting extra points for strength of schedule might help motivate us to challenge each other.  And maybe Gamer or another math expert could help do the calculations for you and JWW.

That said I personally would not grant points for games played alone (I’d prefer the different divisions for that), but do think pure strength of schedule should factor in.

I agree with all of this.

Extra points for strength of schedule would actually not give me incentive to choose different opponents, but that’s OK.  A strength of schedule calc would still help give a more accurate indication of a player’s skills than straight W/L record where everyone’s picking their own opponents and can refuse games.  I should play with some SOS methods on our current standings and see how it changes the order.  I’ll let you know what I find, and what my method is.  Just for fun.

I’m fine without participating in any post-season playoffs, although when I qualify, I’m game to play them for fun.  I enjoy the league play because it’s a good way to get a choice of regular players to challenge, and a good way to get into good, fun A&A games.

[DarthMaximus]

But it can already be a disadvantage to not play potential playoff rivals.  Had you played Dutch or Gamer and beaten them then they would have another loss and you in turn could have those wins and would probably be in the playoffs.  The same could be said for if Gamer or Dutch didn’t play possible playoff rivals.  By not playing potential playoff players (either consciously or unconsciously) you are leaving your playoff hopes in the hands of other players.

Its neither here nor there I guess, cause you can’t play everyone, but it is a huge two game swing if you play and beat a potential playoff rival.  Not only do you get the win, but they get a loss.  IMO, its worth the risk of say a “tougher” game.

–--------------------

Side note.  I did a quick tally using the old Revised scoring system. (based off of Gamers spreadsheet).

Players ranked from Gamer to CTS.  A win over Gamer is currently worth 32 pts a win over CTS is worth 1 pt.  Other notables:

Gamer - 32
LL - 31
Tyz - 30
Zuck - 28
Dutch - 28
JWW - 27
RD - 26
Bold - 25
OBG - 24
etc…
A44 - 3
Ranger - 1
CTS - 1

You also lose 1 pt for every loss.  “Final” score:

Bold 246 - 11 = 235 pts
Gamer 192 - 1 = 191
OBG 183 - 9 = 174
Dutch 154- 2 = 152
LL 149 - 1 = 148
JWW 137 - 3 = 134
Zuck 114 - 2 = 112
RD 104 - 3 = 101

I don’t want to make losses too punitive but even if we go to minus 2 for loss its
Bold = 224
Gamer = 190
OBG = 165
Dutch = 150
LL = 147
JWW = 131
Zuch = 110
RD = 98

No change.  I wouldn’t drop below 3pts per loss.

Now if we did major and minor League that would take Bold and OBG into their own playoff since they have the most games.

But that still leaves a list of:
Gamer - 190
Dutch - 150
LL - 147
JWW - 131
Zuck - 110
RD - 98

Now it took me about an hour to scribble this stuff down (since I’m at work) and I only did the top 8 including Bold and OBG.

Now maybe JWW is gonna get “screwed” out of the playoffs cause Zuck has a better record (at the momemt) but to complete the tally for the remaining members of the league still takes time and I’d estimate another hour or two.  And that was with Gamer doing the work with his spreadsheet and already listing who beat who.

Its hard to justify that time commitment when straight up win % basically handed us the same results in a fraction of the time.

I actually didn’t mind doing the work this morning, b/c it bears out the same results we got with Revised in '07 and '08.
I’m finding a hard time believing that you are going to get drastically different results with an alternate scoring system compared with straight up win %.
I’m still listening to alt scoring methods, but once you hit 8, 10 games played win % seems pretty accurate.  Again for the time commitment we are willing to make.

[DarthMaximus]

One further breakdown would be to make it pts per game:

Gamer - 190/13 = 14.6
Dutch - 150/10 = 15
LL - 147/8 = 18.375
JWW - 131/12 = 10.9
Zuck - 110/10 = 11
RD - 98/9 = 10.9

That would give us:

LL
Dutch
Gamer
Zuck
JWW
RD

Basically the same top 4.  Of course LL needs to get to 10 games.

But pts per game played might be the most accurate.  
(Bold = 8.6, OBG = 8.7)

Edit:

The issue with this method is it becomes risky to play more and more games, and we want to ecourage people to play as many games as possible, not to get to the minumum with a good pt per game ratio and then sit out.

[gamerman01]

Good stuff, Darth.  Yes, your method of points per win and only subtracting one or two per loss rewarded people too much who played a ton of games (Bold, OBG).

Good points about win/loss and who plays who.
I have 20 minutes right now - let me do a quick strength of schedule calc. here……

[gamerman01]

I divided the standings into 3rds by win %.  Top 3rd going through JWW (75%), 2nd 3rd through Journalist (40%).

I counted 3 points for a win against top tier, and -1 for a loss against top tier.
I counted 2 points for a win against middle tier, and -2 for a loss against middle tier.
I counted 1 point for a win against bottom tier, and -3 for a loss to bottom tier.

The results are interesting.

Gamer          17
Boldfresh      16
DutchmanD    11
Lucky            10
Tyzoq              8
JWW              8
Zhukov            7
Dragon            5
SouL                3
OBG                2
Billy                1
Anchovy          1
SAS                -1
Akreider          -1
Journalist          -2

This system’s weakness is that it does not yet account for players who only played 1 or 2 games in the league.

But it is very interesting.  Boldfresh likes to play a lot of games against high quality opponents, to improve his game.  7 of his 11 losses are to top tier players.  This is reflected in my strength of schedule standings.  I would argue that this simple calculation (done in less than 20 minutes) does show you who your top 4 league players of the year were.

Myself, Boldfresh, Dutchman and Lucky.  So a derivation of this system is what I’m recommending for next year.  I would love to hear any arguments that these 4 are not the top 4 players from this year.  :-)

[gamerman01]

btw I’m struggling with Darth and Lucky, but if I were to lose to both of them in 2011, it would change my score to 13.  But under the current system it would drop me to 80% winning percentage and I may not even make the cut for top 4.

The main flaw of the current percentage of win system is that it severely penalizes players like Bold, and rewards players like me and Zhuk.  Bold’s win percentage belies his experience and skills, mainly because he plays on average better players than I do.

[gamerman01]

Made a counting mistake.
Bold would have 8 points, not 16.  So there would be a 3-way tie for 4th: Bold, Tyzoq, and JWW.

[gamerman01]

Note that Bold and Blood and Guts look similar by record and win percentage, but Bold has played significantly stronger opposition than OBG.  The SOS calculation reflects this quite well (for example).  Bold would have 8 points, OBG only 2.  Look at their results on my spreadsheet.  Also, note that in head to head, Bold won 2 out of 3 over OBG.