Rankings

HappyCamper wrote:

Koninkaulus wrote:

HappyCamper wrote:

Koninkaulus wrote:Yeah, I get the second part. I was trying to work out some of the math in the system you suggested and I'm not convinced it could be better than the current one. I agree with Iranu that the money list system works fine, and I would add that I actually like the clarity of it.

I don't think top player tournaments are automatically more prestigious, so I reject the notion that that would be an objective measure. All the top players can enter any 128-player tournament and often do apart from one or two guys. In my opinion, these limited-field events are not more difficult to win for the top players than those with 128 guys.

So you think a tournament with the top 16 players would not be more prestigious than one featuring 16 random players? That makes no sense.

I doubt my system with sensible parameters would work out very much different from the current prize money anyway. Beyond a couple of outliers like the Shootout.

You drawing that kind of conclusion from my post makes no sense. There are no tournaments with 16 random players. I'm saying I don't think a tournament with 32, 16 or 8 players, no matter how good, is automatically more prestigious than a tournament with 128 players with all of those top guys free to participate.

For the most part the system currently is: more frames to win -> more money/points, which I think is pretty fair. It's pretty much this Coral series and the Shoot-Out where this doesn't apply. I guess you could say that these are already weighted then.

You said that having top players doesn't make an event more prestigious. My hypothetical demonstrates the absurdity of that. All things being equal a more selective event would be more prestigious.

This doesn't mean that any top player only event is more prestigious than any given open event - it would also depend on the other aspects of the format like number of frames. Clearly (eg) China Open > Players Champ > Northern Ireland Open.

I did NOT say that. I said, and I repeat once more, that these "top player tournaments" that we were discussing (the Coral events) are not automatically more prestigious than tournaments with a flat 128 draw. They are not more difficult to win than the big Chinese events where you have to win seven matches with best-of-11s or longer throughout.

Okay, I said that I don't want events like the Coral stuff to be weighted in a ranking system just for being "top players only". I then realised that if you look at it from the "frames needed to win" perspective but within the prize money ranking system, they already are. I suppose that's fine, being shorter tournaments they kind of have to be. I do think they are a bit overweighted though, especially the Players Championship. Overall, however, I think everything's quite balanced.

This Koni boy is a spicy meatball.

Iranu wrote:

Johnny Bravo wrote:

Koninkaulus wrote:O'Sullivan has been more consistent in the tournaments he's played in, but it's not like he has reached the quarters or semis much more frequently than Selby.

Actually, he has. Selby hasn't been the top dog for about 2 years, he shouldn't be WN1 anymore.

And rankings should not be based on prize money, but on the importance of the event.

How would you determine prestige if not by prize money?

By the history of an event.

Johnny Bravo wrote:

Iranu wrote:

Johnny Bravo wrote:

Koninkaulus wrote:O'Sullivan has been more consistent in the tournaments he's played in, but it's not like he has reached the quarters or semis much more frequently than Selby.

Actually, he has. Selby hasn't been the top dog for about 2 years, he shouldn't be WN1 anymore.

And rankings should not be based on prize money, but on the importance of the event.

How would you determine prestige if not by prize money?

By the history of an event.

That would make the Welsh Open the fourth most prestigious event, and the Tour Championship one of the least prestigious.

Do you think the players would agree with you on that?

Iranu wrote:

Johnny Bravo wrote:

Iranu wrote:

Johnny Bravo wrote:

Koninkaulus wrote:O'Sullivan has been more consistent in the tournaments he's played in, but it's not like he has reached the quarters or semis much more frequently than Selby.

Actually, he has. Selby hasn't been the top dog for about 2 years, he shouldn't be WN1 anymore.

And rankings should not be based on prize money, but on the importance of the event.

How would you determine prestige if not by prize money?

By the history of an event.

That would make the Welsh Open the fourth most prestigious event, and the Tour Championship one of the least prestigious.

Do you think the players would agree with you on that?

I wasn't necessarily talking about how old an event is, but about the history behind it, how prestigios it has been since it's inception.
For example, the Masters is way more important than those events in China.
And the China Open should be more important than the International Championship.

Prestigios.

Johnny Bravo wrote:

Iranu wrote:That would make the Welsh Open the fourth most prestigious event, and the Tour Championship one of the least prestigious.

Do you think the players would agree with you on that?

I wasn't necessarily talking about how old an event is, but about the history behind it, how prestigios it has been since it's inception.
For example, the Masters is way more important than those events in China.
And the China Open should be more important than the International Championship.

China Open is more important than International Championship. Its winner is worth 225000 ranking points while IC winner is only 175000.

Wildey wrote:

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote:

Truth wrote:I see, good point. May I ask what resources you used to check these results? I've not been able to locate any concise sources online that show the ranking points available for each round in historic tournaments. Or did you use the modern system of applying prize money for each round as ranking points? Also, how did you calculate rolling rankings in the 80s? Many open tournaments weren't rankers in the 80s, especially in the earlier part of the decade.

Thanks

I was just guessing based on the results each player had on cuetracker. I don't know what points they used in the 80's and 90's but Davis was well ahead of everyone else from 83-90 so he would have been safe. The early 90's is harder to tell.

Winner=6

Runner up=5
Semi finalist=4
quarter finalist=3
last 16=2
last 32=1
last 64-= merit points then frame won etc etc

World Championship
Winner=10
Runner up=8
Semi finalist=6
quarter finalist=4
last 16=2
last 32=1
last 48-=merit points then frame won etc etc

This is exactly what I found in my 1990 "Benson and Hedges Snooker Year" book. I'm not sure when the system started, but I'm quite sure it ended in the early 90s (when 1000s of ranking points seemed to be awarded).

If some rich person came along and sponsored - say - the Gibraltar Open and offered £2 million first prize, would Hearn:

refuse the money
accept it and agree that it was now the most important event
amend the ranking system

Dunno what else could occur.

Badsnookerplayer wrote:If some rich person came along and sponsored - say - the Gibraltar Open and offered £2 million first prize, would Hearn:

refuse the money
accept it and agree that it was now the most important event
amend the ranking system

Dunno what else could occur.

The Gibraltar Open is already the most important event though?

Alex0paul wrote:

Badsnookerplayer wrote:If some rich person came along and sponsored - say - the Gibraltar Open and offered £2 million first prize, would Hearn:

refuse the money
accept it and agree that it was now the most important event
amend the ranking system

Dunno what else could occur.

The Gibraltar Open is already the most important event though?

It is a serious question worthy of further input.

Badsnookerplayer wrote:If some rich person came along and sponsored - say - the Gibraltar Open and offered £2 million first prize, would Hearn:

refuse the money
accept it and agree that it was now the most important event
amend the ranking system

Dunno what else could occur.

Hearn's balls and head explode simultaneously leading to the first high-profile sporting case of the fabled "deathgasm"?

Badsnookerplayer wrote:If some rich person came along and sponsored - say - the Gibraltar Open and offered £2 million first prize, would Hearn:

refuse the money
accept it and agree that it was now the most important event
amend the ranking system

Dunno what else could occur.

He would probably try to make it an Invitational event...

D4P has provided the only sensible answer so far.

But presumably sponsors can offer whatever prize money they like. So if Kim Jong Un offered the prize of £2 000 000 in the DPRK Open, what is to stop it skewing the rankings?

Hearn could decree it as an invitational but the players would revolt wanting a slice of the Korean cake.

Sensible answers only please.

If I understand you correctly, you are making the same point that I have made regarding the lack of nexus between sponsor money and player quality. Our perception of how good a player is should not be determined by the amount of money a sponsor is willing to shell out.

That's not to say that player quality and sponsor money are completely uncorrelated, but the correlation is clearly not "very strong" and there are clearly other measures available that would do a more direct job of measuring the quality of a player's performance over time...

D4P wrote:If I understand you correctly, you are making the same point that I have made regarding the lack of nexus between sponsor money and player quality. Our perception of how good a player is should not be determined by the amount of money a sponsor is willing to shell out.

That's not to say that player quality and sponsor money are completely uncorrelated, but the correlation is clearly not "very strong" and there are clearly other measures available that would do a more direct job of measuring the quality of a player's performance over time...

Yes prexactly.

If a sponsor came in with megabucks the best players would enter for sure, but I am coming round to the view that there should be some sort of 'norming' of ranking events so that the ranking list is fairer.

I suppose it is totally democratic at the moment but it is skewed, particularly with some events only open to some players.

I need more time to think.

Badsnookerplayer wrote:If a sponsor came in with megabucks the best players would enter for sure, but I am coming round to the view that there should be some sort of 'norming' of ranking events so that the ranking list is fairer.

I suppose it is totally democratic at the moment but it is skewed, particularly with some events only open to some players.

Yes exisely

D$P - can you play snooker in America?

Badsnookerplayer wrote:D$P - can you play snooker in America?

I have never done so, but I know that at least some of the "pool halls" have a snooker table too. I live in Canada now, where snooker is at least a little more popular than in the U.S.

D4P wrote:

Badsnookerplayer wrote:D$P - can you play snooker in America?

I have never done so, but I know that at least some of the "pool halls" have a snooker table too. I live in Canada now, where snooker is at least a little more popular than in the U.S.

Aaaah - Canadian players. What memories they left in the brief time their star rose.

'Big' Bill was my hero but I have fond memories of all of those guys. They were an awesome breed, on a one-way ticket across the water with a couple of hundred quid, a cue and a fuck-you spirit. As Neil Robertson says, non-UK players have a harder time but in the 70s and 80s they really had to graft to earn a crust.

I would have loved the Canadian cuemen to spawn a new generation of new-world romantics but it was not to be. Why the sport died there when it was in such a great position to thrive is a mystery to me.

What might have been....

HappyCamper wrote:

Johnny Bravo wrote:

HappyCamper wrote:He won two China opens, an International, and China championship in the last two years. Those are three of the biggest events on the calendar outside the worlds. And he won one of those as well.

But nothing in the past year. As 4 the events u mentioned, aren't the points from them supposed to be eliminated ?

China Champ was in September and China open last April. So both in the last year.

Events drop of after two years. So if Selby doesn't do well in the China Open/WC this year he'll lose top spot.

The ponts should really taper off, if the system were sensible. Say, 25% after 12 months, and another 25% after 18. Then nought after 24. But it's not.

i like the idea of the tapered system but i would take 25% every 6 months then a player would lose half his points after a year and still have the remaining 50% for the second year but where stuck with this stupid system while hearn is in charge

Koninkaulus wrote:

D4P wrote:Ranking Points™ should be determined separately, based on the prestige of the event, the quality of the field, etc. ...

How do you objectively determine the prestige of an event if not by the prize money on offer?

The quality of the field can't have anything to do with it. The number of ranking points on offer cannot be decided after players have entered.

in golf apart from certain events like the majors they do just that each top200 player is worth a certain amount of rateing points from 45 points for no1 down to 1 point for no101-200 not saying that"s what they should do but they could do it in snooker i think the previous points system should have been kept as it would of been fairer than the tiered system with the flat draws being introduced they could have adjusted the points as some people disagreed with the welsh or german being 5000
points to the winner and the worlds being 10000 ie the worlds only being double the riga. gibralter. and the paul hunter classic seems like world snooker has never had a decent ranking system. barry hearn cited the usa and european pga tours but they have switched to a points based order of merit

D4P wrote:

Badsnookerplayer wrote:D$P - can you play snooker in America?

I have never done so, but I know that at least some of the "pool halls" have a snooker table too. I live in Canada now, where snooker is at least a little more popular than in the U.S.

Probably due to the several famous Canadian players of the 1980s.

It only since 2010 that Snooker updated it's rankings more than once a year. I don't think they would be anyway capable of the complicated system Golf has.

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote:It only since 2010 that Snooker updated it's rankings more than once a year. I don't think they would be anyway capable of the complicated system Golf has.

true but it isn"t difficult to come up with a fair system which the current one isn"t. was checking last night if shaun murphy wins the worlds he could be provisonal no1 given the season he"s had that would be a joke

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote:I don't think they would be anyway capable of the complicated system Golf has.

I don't see why not.

1. Each event would have a specified number of ranking points for a given finish (e.g. L16, QF, etc.).
2. The number of points could vary across tournaments, with some events having more points available than others.
3. A weight would be applied to each event, with more recent events getting more weight than events farther in the past.
4. A player's ranking would be equal to a weighted average of his total ranking points (multiplied by their weights) divided by the number of events he entered.

csprince wrote:

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote:It only since 2010 that Snooker updated it's rankings more than once a year. I don't think they would be anyway capable of the complicated system Golf has.

true but it isn"t difficult to come up with a fair system which the current one isn"t. was checking last night if shaun murphy wins the worlds he could be provisonal no1 given the season he"s had that would be a joke

That is skewed.

csprince wrote:

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote:It only since 2010 that Snooker updated it's rankings more than once a year. I don't think they would be anyway capable of the complicated system Golf has.

true but it isn"t difficult to come up with a fair system which the current one isn"t. was checking last night if shaun murphy wins the worlds he could be provisonal no1 given the season he"s had that would be a joke

Third at the highest at least by my count