Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

To many points for cities

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LoTad said:
If you're in juniors or seniors maybe. But the k value for states is only twice that of cities. Each state championship would only have a maximum of 1 or 2 swiss rounds more than a cities. Generally only a max of 1 or 2more top cut round also. Not much of a difference.
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Its not so much that as it is the distance between states. If you live in those huge states, texas, cali....or anywhere in canada....You have quite a drive to your second state, and regardless of schedueling 3 is all but impossible. Compared to those in the NE or even central eastern states are relitively close togeather....

I'm glad states are only held on two days.
 
LoTad said:
If you're in juniors or seniors maybe. But the k value for states is only twice that of cities. Each state championship would only have a maximum of 1 or 2 swiss rounds more than a cities. Generally only a max of 1 or 2more top cut round also. Not much of a difference.
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No there is a difference, a subtle difference, one that is perhaps mostly unknown. For all that it is a very important difference.

Even if states had the same K value and identical attendance states will have a bigger influence on final rating because they are calculated AFTER cities. There is a weighted average effect in elo that places more emphasis on recent results than earlier ones.

A couple of extra rounds plus the deeper top cut and the doubling of the K value makes states more than that Cities. More than twice just from those differences. The temporal weighting in favour of your most recent results further increases the difference. Three times isn't that unreasonable at all for the relative importance of Cities to States.
 
NoPoke we've heard a lot about the top ranked players after Cities limiting their playing. Either not going to states at all or at best dropping after a few rounds.

What effect will that have on ELO as a system?

Better players who happen to have a lower rank because of lower Cities attendance can't make up points as well in such a scenario. Medium and weaker players have their ranking skewed by not losing or gaining the same number of points as they would have had the stronger players stayed in.

Similarly when you have really good players who sit out events until states, regionals, or even nats the rankings get skewed in another way.

The more I think about it the more I'm having trouble seeing yearly reset ELO as being a clear indicator of what is really going on skill wise in Pokemon.
 
vanderbilt_grad said:
NoPoke we've heard a lot about the top ranked players after Cities limiting their playing. Given that I didn't think any master is safe for an invite right now. I'd say that there is a lot of talk about these top ranked players (plural) but that it is actually mostly hearsay. Limiting your play is nothing new. No matter what system is in place players will have to make a risk reward assessment and factor in time and cost as well.


Either not going to states at all or at best dropping after a few rounds. Not going to states means they have to go to regionals or nationals or BR. Dropping only works if you win. A high ranked player has to go 4-1 or better just to stay put. Not going to an event reduces the opportunity that you have to recover from a poor result.

What effect will that have on ELO as a system?Mathematically it has NONE. ELO chews the data it has available. However if a lot of players do sit out then the confidence that you can have in the relative placements is reduced.

Better players who happen to have a lower rank because of lower Cities attendance can't make up points as well in such a scenario. Only if it is local players who are sitting out, but the effect is weak at best as they are much more likely to lose to these strong players. Thus their removal from the field can make it easier to gain points and I expect I can make a good case for the opposite effect to what you suggest in fact being observed. These strong players would continue to absorb points from the pool if they continued to play, so their choice not to participate actually makes it easier for the players immediately below them to gain points as the way to the top is cleared by their absence. Medium and weaker players have their ranking skewed by not losing or gaining the same number of points as they would have had the stronger players stayed in. That is to misunderstand elo: it makes an assessment using lots of pairs of results. The absence of some players from the group does not change how elo makes its assesment of the relative position of the pair of players. elo uses lots of comparisons between pairs.

Similarly when you have really good players who sit out events until states, regionals, or even nats the rankings get skewed in another way. You need to tell me in what other way you think the rankings are skewed.

The more I think about it the more I'm having trouble seeing yearly reset ELO as being a clear indicator of what is really going on skill wise in Pokemon. A short season with few matches tips elo towards a rewards based system such as pro-points. Personally I'd like elo to have more results to work with. But as the objective is not simply to have the best elo system but to reward play as well I can see why the annual reset is present.
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Answers in red.

I believe that elo can be improved to be a better match for pokemon. Tuning it so that the risk-reward is a closer match to our game will more than likely result in fewer players sitting out.

I believe that some kind of play at risk system is the only way to ensure that areas with lots of tournaments are not unfairly favoured over those with far fewer.

The annual reset does mean that players have to play in the current year and not try to protect a previous years result which is a good feature of the reset. Prime I think proposed a bi-annual rating system where players are always working on two ratings at the same time: this year+last year and this year + next year. It is a solid idea that would need to have a few loose ends addressed due to age ups. Actually the age up issue is a very big loose end but that does not mean it can't be addressed.
 
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LoTad said:
If you're in juniors or seniors maybe. But the k value for states is only twice that of cities. Each state championship would only have a maximum of 1 or 2 swiss rounds more than a cities. Generally only a max of 1 or 2more top cut round also. Not much of a difference.
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You can drop the maybe in the above quote. My junior son went to one Cities where he never played against another Junior, zero points available there. Another he went to, he played both other Juniors and then two Seniors. At another, he played three juniors and a senior. At States I would never expect less than 8 juniors.

Just to highlight the lack of points available at Cities. He went to eight Cities, his records are as follows, in order.

X - 1
X - 1
X - 1
X - 1
X - 1
X - 3
X - 0
X - 0

His rating is 1705 after all that. So when I see all this about too many points for cities, I surely don't agree, One X-0 at a States is worth more points than the eight cities combined,
 
You live in a weird area that has a lack of Juniors. Think about how high is rating would have been if all his matches would have been against juniors.

Also, NEVER present the "one X-0 and some big event" argument. That is the most absurd argument you can think of. While it's not all that hard for a well prepared Junior, or even a Senior to X-0 a states, it's nearly impossible to do it in masters. I have done it, and I'm saying it's nearly impossible. The day I did it, for once in this dumb game, things seemed to be going my way. I had several matches that could have very easily been loses, to players who would have destroyed what little rating I had. To just say oh well, you can X-0 this and get as many points as my kid got at 8 CCs is a weak argument. Not to mention, whats to stop a player who got all those points at CCs to X-0 a states? There IS no catching up for the rest of us if it gets to that. It's very difficult to catch up to a player who has a 100+ point advantage over you. (just look at senior and master ratings, most of them are ranked significantly higher than your son)
 
DarthPika you are making so many statements that are just wrong it is hard to know where to start.

you have obviously forgotten that in every tournament the swiss rounds are designed to produce a player on X-0. not just occasionally but every tournament.

That a 100 point difference is nothing at all at this point in the season. All you have to do is perform slightly better than that other player at states and you will catch them up. - or if you both bomb then the other play will fall fast to your rating.

In pokemon tcg higher rated players currently play at a significant disadvantage. It makes them much easier to catch up than they should be hence why some choose to be very selective on where they play. By absenting themselves they effectively have a nominal 4-1 record at future tournaments as that would typically leave their rating static.

If there was no catching up as you alledge then P!P could pull the ratings now!
 
NoPoke said:
In pokemon tcg higher rated players currently play at a significant disadvantage.
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"Nopoke you are making so many statements that are just wrong it is hard to know where to start". Having a higher ranking will never be a disadvantage. They might lose more points from a loss but its still far better to be sitting higher than lower. Thats kind of like saying you should purposely lose your first round so you face easier players the rest of the tournament.
 
it would help your cause to point out where I'm making so many statements that are wrong. I have already shown just how a pure skill elo excessively penalises high rated players. If it did not then sitting out would be far less prevalent.The risk vs reward for higher rated players is weighted against them. That is not desirable if you want to encourage those high rated player to play.

You are trying to put words into my mouth be implying I'm suggesting losing the first round. I've never suggested that or discussed it as a strategy either good or bad.
 
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"Nopoke you are making so many statements that are just wrong it is hard to know where to start". Having a higher ranking will never be a disadvantage. They might lose more points from a loss but its still far better to be sitting higher than lower. Thats kind of like saying you should purposely lose your first round so you face easier players the rest of the tournament.
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Jaeger you are making so many statements that are just wrong it is hard to know where to start. Jk, I just wanted to keep it going.

Also, about there being an undefeated in nearly all tournaments: yeah, that's true, but It is still extremely difficult on an individual basis, regardless of skill level.
 
it is crucial, both to understand how the rating system works and to be able to suggest improvements that an individual perspective is abandoned.
 
^ I think what darthpika is trying to say is that you can't make the argument that you can just make up ground is quickly as you need to after cities by just going x-0 in a big tournament because it is unrealistic to be able to rely on something like that if you don't have the opportunity to attend many cities.
 
lol. After reading the "you are wrong" stuff I first read NoPoke's comment above as "it is crucial, both to understand how being wrong works and to be able to suggest improvements."

Just in support of Pika, while it's true that NEARLY every event produces one X-0 player in each age group, it's really hard for any one player at a large event to be that guy. Yes there will be "that guy" but there are a TON of people in the running at large events. It's all about the perspective. From the TO perspective it's every event. From the player perspective they are the X-0 only a fraction of the time.
 
Darth Pika's whole post was about how "impossible" it is for anyone more than 100 points behind to catch up. the idea that to catch up you have to X-0 or X-1 subsequent events is incorrect. You just have to do better than your current rating expects.

Jaeger's opening post has the same flaw though not as blatantly stated. To reuse his race analogy elo is not a fixed distance race with everyone taking exactly the same route. This is a good thing as it makes those with less events still able to take part and have a chance at the ratings invite. With elo it matters much more how you finish than how you perform early season.

VG: The later you join the season (race) the fewer events there are to take part in before the season ends so individuals can put themselves in the position of needing to X-1/X-0 . However taking the individual perspective very quickly gets us going round in circles of why doesn't POP make more events in my location for me to play in. With the obvious retort of why don't you try to do something about it rather than insisting that others make the running to get more events. The little Red Hen seems very apt. Does the individual perspective actual throw any light on what might be wrong with the current rating system? I very much doubt it.
 
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Alright Nopoke, I'll ask you than since I really do want this to be a discussion and not just people putting words in each others mouths. I just don't understand how its ever a disadvantage to be higher ranked. Sure you lose more points from a loss but isn't it still better to be higher ranked?
 
NoPoke, I said it's nearly impossible to X-0 an event. Yes, there will (probably, I've seen it happen that there wasn't one) be an X-0. But I'm not talking about just swiss, I'm talking about top cut as well. How many times do we have a TRUE X-0, meaning both swiss AND top cut? This is amazingly hard to pull off in any area where there are several high level players. Lets say there's 5 high level players. The odds are amazingly against any one of them winning the entire event X-0. They could lose to a bad matchup, if they all do well, they will lose to each other, they might all lose a few games in swiss, etc... It's not impossible, but the odds are very against it.

Also, the high risk high reward system is horrible. It penalizes and rewards luck far too much. Also, you're argument about being able to catch up to those who played at CC's is incorrect. You seem to forget that those who do well at CCs typically do well at the rest of events, because they're good players. If you have a good CC run, it's illogical to expect that they're going to blow their rating at states/regs/nats. I mean, it could happen, but more often than not, it doesn't.

Didn't we have someone recently who won a regionals, did well at states/nats, and missed a rating invite? I'm almost positive this happened recently.
 
DarthPika said:
Didn't we have someone recently who won a regionals, did well at states/nats, and missed a rating invite? I'm almost positive this happened recently.
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Last season, won 2 BR's, 2 CC's (+ a 3rd and 4th), top cut both states (7-0 swiss at one), 2nd place at regionals, top cut at nationals, and still didn't get an invite.
 
Austino said:
Last season, won 2 BR's, 2 CC's (+ a 3rd and 4th), top cut both states (7-0 swiss at one), 2nd place at regionals, top cut at nationals, and still didn't get an invite.
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Really? Did you lose first round at both States and Nationals and barely top the Reg/Nats?
 
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