Re: Rankings revisit - a trip through history
I also wonder whether a golf-style ranking system might work for snooker. All sanctioned professional golf tournaments throughout the world are assigned a certain number of ranking points, based on the quality of the field and prestige of event. Then, each player receives a subset of those points based on how high they finished in the event. Their world ranking is equal to their total number of points received divided by the number of events they played in, which yields a single number that represents the average number of points they earn in a tournament. Points are weighted such that more recent events count more than less recent events, and a given event's weight declines over time to the point that it drops off completely after (I think?) 2 years.
In snooker, each event could be assigned a certain number of points based on strength of field, prestige of event, etc., and then players could receive a subset of those points based on how far they make it into the event. (There might also be a way to adjust for the quality of opponents faced, such that you get more points for beating top players than for beating numpties, other things being equal). Then, your ranking would be an average of how many points you received per tournament, with the top players having a ranking that might be (for example) roughly the equivalent of making it to the quarterfinals of the top events on average. In golf, the current #1 player's ranking is roughly equivalent to finishing around 10th place in every single prestigious tournament.
One thing that wouldn't work so well in snooker with this kind of ranking system is that, unless I'm mistaken, all players start at zero, and then the rankings are adjusted based on performance. It wouldn't make sense in snooker to all of a sudden start the next event with all 128 players starting with no ranking whatsoever...
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D4P - Posts: 4773
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