(This one is simpler, I promise.)
Hi all,
I wanted to make a second article about the ELO ranking system that I published last week – mainly to address key points and discuss more about going forward. Hopefully those who were confused before will benefit from this.
First off, I want to give a big thanks to anyone who took the time to read and/or discuss the first article – I understand that it was a big piece of information, and the willingness to look at another ranking system is very much appreciated. Many of the points I will make here are in reference to these comments.
To start: There Is No Expectation For Anybody To Understand This Ranking System. Ask yourself: do you understand the FISTF point system? How about WASPA? Surprisingly few people do, and that is completely okay – you get the general idea that if you do well, it will show you doing well. The same applies here – Trust in the process. It is perfectly normal to just look at the results when I post them, and not understand the complex maths behind it.
This Ranking System Is A Form Guide. It is not a new championship, a new circuit, a new series of events, or a new way to pick a “winner”. The calculations involved do not look at who wins events, or who deserves to be crowned.
This Is Not, Under Any Circumstances, A Commentary On Seeding. Many of the “discussions” had talked about free draws, open play, and elitism – I want to make incredibly clear that this is not about that. This simply looks at the results of matches that are played. The only related discussion is that some organisers may feel inclined to use these to decide seeds at their own events. While this is welcome, this has not been imposed in the slightest. The ELO Ranking system functions exactly the same regardless of tournament format and seeding.
And to end this section: This Is Not Currently An ESA Product. This is a system created and developed by an individual. It is not being used for the ESA Championships – I am simply extracting those results for my own use. Any failure or controversy of this ranking system should not reflect poorly on the ESA, responsibility should be placed on my own individual shoulders.
Alright, now all those bits are out of the way, let’s move on to discussing adjustments and benchmarks for events going forward now that this is public.
On the leaderboard, scores will be rounded to the nearest whole number to keep it simple – the decimal point will still exist behind the scenes. Points will also change less drastically from now on compared to previously.
Now for qualifying events – the following is the set of requirements for matches from an event to be counted on the ELO leaderboard:
>The event must host at least 24 players (lowered from the previous benchmark of 32). If an event is set to host 24 players and there are sudden dropouts, the event will still count.
>The event must be held in England. This is to keep the scope of the rankings controlled, but could be expanded going forward.
>The event should be held in a semi-professional context. This should mean advertising online beforehand, having referees for matches, being a day-long event, and allowing each player at least 4 matches throughout the competition.
>To clarify, all matches from the event will contribute towards results in this leaderboard – this includes plate and shield matches. To be clear, there is no tactical advantage to deliberately placing yourself in the plate.
>Previously, FISTF events were not included. Going forward, matches played in FISTF Events held in England will be counted – this is to include those who prioritise those events. Only matches played between two “valid players” will be counted – this means that if you get thrashed by a random Belgian that comes across, your ranking will not change.
>All ESA Championship and FISTF Events will be included regardless of player count.
>Team events and matches will not be included. Many properly-organised WASPA events meet these requirements already. Organisers of these events do not need to alter or brand their events any differently to be counted for this.
And to discuss players entering the leaderboard:
>”Valid players” describe those whose matches will be factored into the ranking system. On the most part, this will only include those involved in the English Subbuteo scene. This is subjective, but to give an idea – Europeans who only come over for specific events will not count. Non-English players who are part of our community and circuit (examples include Paul Andreas and Chris Bedford) will count the same as everybody else. As a reminder, this is not an ESA leaderboard, it is independent.
>To appear on the leaderboard, a player must have taken part in at least 3 qualifying events within the last 12 months.
I will aim to post the new leaderboard, accompanied by the detailed excel-based report, a few days after each qualifying event – currently on the ESA Forums.
And finally, remember – this is all for fun, because I’m boring like that. This isn’t to be taken too seriously and in its current state is not being used for anything official – it is a statistical Bookie Bob.
That’s all for now – once again, thank you to all who have interacted with this new idea, for being willing to see it out for now. Give it time in the background and we’ll see where it goes. As always, I’m open to further feedback and discussion to make this as open as possible.
-Kye.