Organizing Billiard Leagues

8/21/2007 8:16:28 PM

Organizing Billiard Leagues

I'm looking to re organize a local billiard league, and need opinions and/or rules on ranking the league play.

We'll be tracking some various statistics and are not looking to expand on that, so whatever we do will have to be based around that. Our stats for each billiard league player includes:

Number of matches played
Number of match wins, losses, and ties
Average points per match
Number of games played
Number of games won, lost, and tied

We kept stats for any player who participated in nine or more matches, so how do we determine their true "ranking" for the league?

Which stat should we use?

How do other leagues do it?

How do the pros determine their rank?

thedoc

Organizing Billiard Leagues

Replies & Comments

jeter on 8/22/2007 7:39:51 PM
The way the pro ranks evaluate rankings is based on the amount of money guaranteed for the tournament, the game. (i.e. 8 ball, 9 ball, 14.1, etc.) It also factors in the head-to-head results, the number of tournaments entered, and how many times the player finished in the money.

A very good table for judging quality of play is a format developed by Pat Fleming of Accu-stats, Inc. It also works really well at the amateur billiard level to judge a player's performance. It is formula based, and you basically feed the algorithm with a billiard league player's various statistics.

The rating formula is as follows:

Number of balls pocketed divided by (number of balls pocketed + number of errors).

Types of errors: 1. pocketing error (you attempt but fail to pocket a ball)2. break error (you scratch or foul on the break or fail to pocket a ball)3. Kick error (if hooked, you attempt but fail to hit the object ball)4. safety error ( opponent can see and pockets a ball after your safety)5. position error (your position forces you to play a safety or miss a difficult shot)

Using this formula, the professional billiard players typically score ratings of .950 to .750. A highly rated pool league player should rate between .600 and .800 against similar competition. At the amateur level, ratings aren't nearly as accurate. In the APA (American pool players assn.) ratings go from s/l 2 (for women) and s/l 3 (for men) up to s/l 7. That's for 8-ball leagues. For APA 9-ball the ratings go as high a s/l 9. BCA leagues (under various league names, such as, VNEA ,or Western Billiards or Colorado Billiards Assn) ratings are based more fairly by ball counts or ball spots, such as weaker player gets the breaks, or, in 9-ball, the weaker player might get the eight or call 7, etc.

smichael on 8/22/2007 7:47:04 PM
I've seen this one used mainly for 8 ball leagues and it seems quite simple.

divide the number of balls the player makes (each match, which consists of 5 games) by the number of weeks played, and the result is the rank.

This doesn't provide a 3-4-5 type system. Also, just like in bowling, the complete team's average (say your seven players equal 170, the opposing team's equal 185) is added together and put against the other team's average. The difference is the amount of "handicap" that the team of lower skill is to be awarded.

This provides a "true balls made" handicap figures to players allowing the difference between a "weak" 6 and a "strong" 6 to be appropriately figured into the handicap. I've found this to works out well for billiard league play where the whole idea is to give everyone a chance to win and keep everyone interested. It does not provide a true picture of a player's actual level as an individual player. I'm not sure which of those you are more interested in tracking at this point.

Organizing Billiard Leagues

Title: Organizing Billiard Leagues
Author: thedoc (Martin Mckinnon)
Published: 8/21/2007 8:16:28 PM
Last Updated: 8/22/2007 7:47:04 PM
Last Updated By: billiardsforum (Billiards Forum)