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[stalkor]

i got this email a few days ago from a league player

Hello! Vortex gave me your e-mail address.

I've been thinking a long time about the league and I think I may have identified a serious psychological problem. I actually like the current system somewhat but I've noticed some people are becoming discouraged.

What I think is, the league structure right now, may actually discourage participation. The reason why is that the league is getting choked up with strong players at the bottom. Allow me to explain by example. Let's say ten strong players joined the league -- doesn't matter all at once or even just two a month. say, 4-dans and 5-dans like raptor, cyc, even myself if I may be so bold and give myself an extra stone or two. Given the current structure of the league, assuming that each of these ten players were promoted each month (at the rate of two per month) it would take seven months for them to all reach Alpha. That's because as two per room in delta and gamma are promoted, that becomes two per beta (but four joined beta). That means after a while, the system becomes bottom-heavy; there are too many active and strong players below who simply cannot get promoted - perhaps, ever. The theory here is that due to the popularity of the ASR, it is attracting increasingly stronger players. So this post is really about catering to the stronger players in the league, making it more popular as a whole, and so on. As for me personally I think it's clear I am benefiting from the system as it stands as I'm not the strongest player in Gamma III (cyc, mafuchin and raptor are all stronger). So I hope my comments are not seen as self-serving.

The problem is actually a little worse than I described. Because not only does it take a minimum of 7 months for the league to right itself, during that time no one can promote other than those people. In the third month for example, Gamma and Beta would each have four strong players, meaning the normal players wouldn't stand a chance at promotion for months until they all passed through. I believe this is causing extreme discouragement and is why some people aren't caring about their matches.

I think there are a few approaches to this problem. I'll try and avoid the ones we have previously discussed, just because I just wanna bounce my new thoughts off you.

ONE. Introduce a rank requirement to join the league. If players are weaker than (for example) 5k, perhaps they shouldn't be allowed to join the league. REASONING: This will make the league smaller. As a result the two-person promotion rule will not choke up the league to the extent it does with 170+ people in it. I know the league wants to encourage participation but clearly the system as it stands is choking up at the bottom end.

TWO. Consider temporarily seeding any new mid dan on the waiting list directly into alpha or beta. Theory being if the league was top heavy it would be a much better place for learning. As it is now most people in a room simply have zero chance of promoting because the rooms are too uneven.

THREE. Increase the number of games required to stay in the league from four to eight and do NOT allow exceptions!!! If someone can't even play 2 games a week they are not going to improve, seriously. Four games is extremely low considering no one in the top 4 positions in any room played less than 16 games this month. If you are going to reward activity like that it just doesn't make sense to keep people who can't play 8 games in a month. If the reasoning here is mainly to make the league smaller, then increasing the number from 4 to 5 is also good.

FOUR. Cap the participation reward. Some rule such as "you must have a 50% win rate to be considered for promotion". This can be worded in a number of ways; A way I think is very good is to state that you cannot have more points from lost games than from half your wins. Meaning, if someone has ten losses against different people and three wins (in a 14 person room) their total points are 6 for the wins, and 6 (not 10) from the losses.

In closing I hope you consider the "solutions" I proposed. I think that they would really tighten up the league and as a result of that it would actually attract many more stronger players by offering them a slightly more "quality" oriented environment (versus quantity).

i replied like this

let me go over every solution one by one and let me rant about what i think is right or wrong about it.


ONE. Introduce a rank requirement to join the league. If players are weaker than (for example) 5k, perhaps they shouldn't be allowed to join the league. REASONING: This will make the league smaller. As a result the two-person promotion rule will not choke up the league to the extent it does with 170+ people in it. I know the league wants to encourage participation but clearly the system as it stands is choking up at the bottom end.


Introducing rank requirement is one of the things i dont want in the league, i think everyone is allowed to play in this league no matter what their strength is. most weak players know in advance they have strong players in their class, the downside is that the players of similar rank are not as active as the stronger ones and thus they tend to play only stronger players. I know of this flaw and ive been thinking about promoting/demoting 3/6 ppl per class but that makes the demotion range way too big i think so thats a problem. furthermore, i know gamma class chokes every strong player now. delta layer is supposed to have 8 classes (so that the 2 promote 4 demote in gamma is correct) and since i ALWAYS seed strong players (this month was bizarre with sign ups) it shouldnt be a problem.


TWO. Consider temporarily seeding any new mid dan on the waiting list directly into alpha or beta. Theory being if the league was top heavy it would be a much better place for learning. As it is now most people in a room simply have zero chance of promoting because the rooms are too uneven.


This is the thing i REALLY want to avoid. in the old system (which was classes beneath eachtother with unlimited room) i thought it was REALLY unfair that a new player got high in the league immediately solely relying on the rank. Also with the upcoming huge prizes, is it really fair to have a new player seed into alpha while another player has struggled really hard to get there? i think the system should be equal to everyone to avoid being in a role where i put ppl in front of others because i think that it is right.


THREE. Increase the number of games required to stay in the league from four to eight and do NOT allow exceptions!!! If someone can't even play 2 games a week they are not going to improve, seriously. Four games is extremely low considering no one in the top 4 positions in any room played less than 16 games this month. If you are going to reward activity like that it just doesn't make sense to keep people who can't play 8 games in a month. If the reasoning here is mainly to make the league smaller, then increasing the number from 4 to 5 is also good.


i want to keep the league active but also make it "social". The point is that quality is also (in my view) a small review of what went wrong or right in the game, although some might play less then "active" players, they might still enjoy a good review or talk about the game afterwards. I think you are right about 4 being not enough, im being lenient as it is just accepting 4 games, not as the rules say "at least 4 different opponents". i will have a talk with the other admins and try to raise the minimum to 5 or 6 games.


FOUR. Cap the participation reward. Some rule such as "you must have a 50% win rate to be considered for promotion". This can be worded in a number of ways; A way I think is very good is to state that you cannot have more points from lost games than from half your wins. Meaning, if someone has ten losses against different people and three wins (in a 14 person room) their total points are 6 for the wins, and 6 (not 10) from the losses.


if a player play 39 games (all ppl in their class three times) and loses them all their point total is 22,75 this is equal to winning 12 games versus different ppl (12 x 2). the point is that an active player SHOULD be rewarded, they are that eager to play. at some point for the weaker players it will be impossible to promote due to the opponents strength. this is still balancing out and i reckon it will take another 2 months to get a good balance, after that a weak player will hit a huge wall at beta and will have a hard time staying in their class. you could argue that the stronger player is "lazy" but i wont:P

i hope to hear more productive thoughts from your side.

on a side note, is it good to post this discussion on the website or on the L19 forum?

greetings,
Bas (stalkor)

i wonder how you guys think about these points, if we have enough data we might be able to change some rules and improve the league:)

[Marcus]

I do have to say that it is a little discouraging when you have so many strong players in what is ideally the lowest league.

I don't have an easy answer for you, though. During a period of ramp-up, where 50% of the players have joined in the last two months (not sure about that figure, but it feels close to correct), you are going to naturally have a much-higher-than-average strength level in the entry-level tier.

Perhaps the answer is to have a phase-in league, where players spend a month before being placed in the regular leagues.

So, here's my proposition for structuring the league (note that much should remain the same as it is now):

Leagues:

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Alpha - 14 players
Beta I, II - 14 players each
Gamma I, II, III, IV - 14-16 players each
Delta I-VIII - number of players/leagues based on participation levels
Omega - phase-in league, all new players this month

Prizes (this is speculative, but would promote the idea that getting to higher tiers is a good thing, while ensuring that those doing well without reaching promotion can still reach for something):

Code: Select all

Alpha - teaching games, at least two, ideally 3, for the top 2-3 players; this should be encouragement to reach Alpha, to keep players striving for it.
Beta I, II - two teaching games, one each for the top player of each league, perhaps a group lesson for the 4 players ranked 2 and 3 in each league.
Gamma I-IV - a teaching game for each top player in this tier of leagues
Delta I-VIII - promotion only; Delta leagues dictated by number of players beyond 98
Omega - teaching game for strongest newcomer; only applies if Omega league reaches 8 or more players

League movement:

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All leagues (Exception: Omega with fewer than 8 players) - play fewer than 4 different opponents = removed for next month; must request to get back in
Alpha - bottom 4-6 players (if active) move to Beta tier
Beta - Top 2 move up to Alpha from each league, bottom 4-6 from each league (if active) move to Gamma Tier
Gamma - Top 2 move up to Beta from each league, bottom 0-8 (if active) move to Delta
Delta - See Below
Omega - See below

Omega allows players to get seeded into the leagues, and the seeding would be based on the number of (usually) active new players.

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1-4 new players - no games needed; all placed in Delta (or Gamma, depending on number of active players)
5-7 new players - league play; top 4 placed in Gamma; rest placed in Delta
8-15 new players - league play; inactive players dropped; top 2 placed in Beta; next 4 placed in Gamma; rest placed in Delta; newcomer prize awarded
16-23 new players - league play; inactive players dropped; top 1 placed in Alpha; next 2 placed in Beta; next 8 placed in Gamma; rest placed in Delta; newcomer prize awarded
24+ new players - league play; inactive players dropped; top 2 placed in Alpha; next 4 placed in Beta; next 8 placed in Gamma; rest placed in Delta; newcomer prize awarded

The number of new players also dictates the number of downward moving positions in each league, but the top 8 players in each league can be assured that they will NOT move down. Scoring remains the same. This allows for a few strong players to join without unbalancing the lower leagues. If, however, you have a month where a large number of new participants, the strength of the new participants gets distributed across the main league structure.

This has the added benefit of giving weaker (but active) potential players a chance to enter the league structure in a higher league during times where a large number of new players are joining ... which allows for a better spread overall.

I don't think activity would be a problem in the Alpha/Beta leagues. In Gamma/Delta, however, we need to be conscious of the number of players overall. Alpha + Beta + Gamma Leagues = 98 players

So, in periods of time where there are fewer than 98 players overall, the Gamma leagues might be a little short on players. In this case, new players from Omega may be seeded into Gamma instead of Delta, as the Delta tier would not exist.

If there are more than 98 players overall, we need at least 9 players to make up the first Delta league. If we have fewer than 9 extra players, we can extend Gamma to 16 players in each league, and re-adjust the next month, depending on inactive and new players.

Code: Select all

9-15 extra players - Only Delta I, all players, top 4 promoted to Gamma tier (if all Gamma leagues active; one demotion from each Gamma League)
16-23 extra players - Delta I/II players split evenly, top 4 in each league move up (2 per Gamma)
24-31 extra players - Delta I/II/III, top 4 move up (3 per Gamma)
32-64 extra players - Delta I-IV, top 4 move up (4 per Gamma)
65+ extra players - Delta I-VIII, top 2 move up (4 per Gamma)

If there are more inactives than there are promotions in a given league (including new players), the process to fill those places should be:

1) FIRST promote current active players from lower leagues (cascading down, so filling an extra Alpha spot from Beta opens up a spot in Beta for an extra promotion from the Gamma, and on down to Delta); this should be based on a wildcard strategy across the relevant Tier: the best score of those not currently being promoted is first in line for extra promotions
2) If there are still inactive spots left to fill, they will be in Gamma (and there will be no more Delta players) ... fill with new players from Omega who were not seeded higher

I think this structure covers the concerns that the person emailing you wanted to cover, and I think the mechanics work well to keep the league fun and encourage participation at all levels.

The only thing I can see being a discouragement is when there are less than 5 new players and they are all relatively strong. Those new players don't get the opportunity to be seeded higher. The only way I can see to alleviate this is to offer a choice to Omega League players the option to jump back into the Omega league within a month of being placed in Delta. So, if Month 3 has 3 players in Omega, but the Omega league has 10 players in Month 4, anyone from Month 3 that was placed in Delta (not any other tier) has the option to jump back into the Omega league that month and try to get promoted to Beta instead of Gamma. There are some edge cases I haven't examined yet here, so I'm not sure how sound the idea is. It looks promising, though.

Anyways, please ask questions and comment on any portion. I think that the ASR League is a great idea, but I know there's room to make it better, and I'm willing to help work out the kinks.

[dfan]

TWO. Consider temporarily seeding any new mid dan on the waiting list directly into alpha or beta. Theory being if the league was top heavy it would be a much better place for learning. As it is now most people in a room simply have zero chance of promoting because the rooms are too uneven.


This is the thing i REALLY want to avoid. in the old system (which was classes beneath eachtother with unlimited room) i thought it was REALLY unfair that a new player got high in the league immediately solely relying on the rank. Also with the upcoming huge prizes, is it really fair to have a new player seed into alpha while another player has struggled really hard to get there? i think the system should be equal to everyone to avoid being in a role where i put ppl in front of others because i think that it is right.

Important note: I'm not a member of the ASR league so I may be missing a lot about the structure or the feeling of it.

But it seems to me completely and perfectly reasonable to have new players seeded into the division of the league that is most appropriate for them. It doesn't seem to serve anyone to have them trudge their way up for months destroying kyu players left and right.

I'm in a correspondence chess league in which players can move up and down between divisions based on their performance, and players are seeded into the correct division to start with, and it works great. There is also one "super division" that you can only get into by graduating from the highest seeded division, so no one can start at the very highest division.

[topazg]

1) I agree, there should be no lower cap. Also, I think 3/6 is better than 2/4 for promotion and relegation, at least to get more players moving for the time being. I would also include those not playing enough games in the relegation zone. That way, if 2 players are removed for inactivity, only a further 4 are relegated. That way 3 each can still be promoted from the lower tier, and the eliminations can ripple through as extra promotions from the tiers below (so those 2 removed would be replaced in the tier below by 2 extra promotions from two tiers below). This way, the promotion system can be nice and dynamic, particularly from the delta leagues replacing (in effect) those removed as inactive players from alpha and beta.

2) I think seeding is fine. I would say 3d+ go straight into beta, and 2k-2d go straight into Gamma, and everyone else into delta. That at least stops having 5d+ players in the bottom tier! The counter argument is whether it is a real benefit to have weaker players have the opportunity to play high dans as they work their way up. I know I'd want to. Don't mind either way.

3) I agree completely with stalkor on this - 4 games is fine. 8 is unnecessary for the time being - not everyone is in the league to win.

4) I wondered about this too. I actually like rewarding losses like this as it encourages more games, but I also think it is silly having people capable of scoring enough points with an 85% loss record to be competitive for promotion. The idea of getting only as many points from losses as total wins is a good one I think. So a 0-1 record is worth 0 points, but a 1-1 record is worth 3. I think this is quite a nice solution.


As an aside: I would also be more clear that the system doesn't work in the top-down hierarchy it looks like on the rules page. Delta 5 -> Gamma 3 -> Beta 2 sounds prescriptive, when actually players are moving sideways and being reshuffled a lot. Simply tiers without lines drawn between them is less confusing to me.

[kokomi]

the system of the league changes every month . Like somebody wakes up from dreams and says, oh, let's do this...

Be it good or not, can not the organizer make a stable system?

btw, now in Sep, how many ppl will be demoted from Gamma? Will new players be collected into new delta class or they will be inserted into exsited class to make a huge delta class as last month's gamma?

[daal]

the system of the league changes every month . Like somebody wakes up from dreams and says, oh, let's do this...

Be it good or not, can not the organizer make a stable system?

That the organizers are trying to learn from their mistakes should hardly be discouraged. I think it's great that stalkor is interested in what the participants think. I'd rather have a system that's unstable but improving than one that reliably unsatisfactory.

[kokomi]

the system of the league changes every month . Like somebody wakes up from dreams and says, oh, let's do this...

Be it good or not, can not the organizer make a stable system?

That the organizers are trying to learn from their mistakes should hardly be discouraged. I think it's great that stalkor is interested in what the participants think. I'd rather have a system that's unstable but improving than one that reliably unsatisfactory.

Learning from mistakes is good, better not at cost of players. Then THINK before taking action. Don't make me wrong, I did not say the structure should stay unsatisfactory. Imprvoment should be made but at least with consideration. Jumps from one side to the other and jumps back and forth later?

[Kirby]

Actually, I like the current implementation of the ASR, and I'd be a little bit sad to see it change.

I understand the argument that it takes strong players a longer time to advance than they'd like, but I think that speaks to one of the unique aspects of the ASR: You can play stronger players in even games on a regular basis.

I think that it's good that there are strong players in the "lower levels", because having a mix of strengths allows for players to play against stronger people.

In my opinion, the ASR league is not all about dominating the levels to get to Alpha - we have regular tournaments to serve this purpose.

In my opinion, the ASR league is more about encouraging people to play one another and learn from one another. Therefore, I think that is makes a lot of sense to promote those that play the most - regardless of how strong they are.

I don't think that stronger players should be given special treatment.

If dan players have some competitive drive that makes them want to be in the alpha ranks, they can by all means do so - by playing people of weaker ranks. The people of weaker ranks will benefit, and grow as a result. I think that this is the beauty of the ASR. And I'd be sad to see it turn into just another tournament system.

[Marcus]

Actually, I like the current implementation of the ASR, and I'd be a little bit sad to see it change.

I understand the argument that it takes strong players a longer time to advance than they'd like, but I think that speaks to one of the unique aspects of the ASR: You can play stronger players in even games on a regular basis.

I think that it's good that there are strong players in the "lower levels", because having a mix of strengths allows for players to play against stronger people.

In my opinion, the ASR league is not all about dominating the levels to get to Alpha - we have regular tournaments to serve this purpose.

In my opinion, the ASR league is more about encouraging people to play one another and learn from one another. Therefore, I think that is makes a lot of sense to promote those that play the most - regardless of how strong they are.

I don't think that stronger players should be given special treatment.

If dan players have some competitive drive that makes them want to be in the alpha ranks, they can by all means do so - by playing people of weaker ranks. The people of weaker ranks will benefit, and grow as a result. I think that this is the beauty of the ASR. And I'd be sad to see it turn into just another tournament system.

I just had a discussion about this in the ASR, and the conclusion is that it is a much more complex situation than simply "encouraging stronger players to play weaker players".

Taka player of middling strength (around 4k or so). Drop them in the lowest league. Watch the games for 3 months.

Now, suppose that player makes an effort to be active, playing 15 games each month. Each month, of those 15 games, 2 are played with players of equal rank, or maybe one or two stones stronger. The rest are all games against players 4 stones weaker or less.

Will this person be promoted? Sure, there are stronger players who MAY be available to play the 4k, but usually they'll be playing the DDK players. Many of those DDK players have more time available to play more games. The stronger players will win their games, and two (or maybe 4) will advance, to be replaced by new players, leaving the balance of power more or less intact.

My guess is that the player will not be promoted, and after 3 months of playing various weaker players, begin to wonder "why am I doing this again?". There are many ways to get a few games against stronger players. If the goal is for weaker players to be able to play LOTS of games against stronger players (with the incentive for stronger players being competition for prizes), we're really not supporting the middle-rank players ... they aren't likely to win prizes, and they don't get more than a handful of games against stronger players, if that.

Anyways, just some thoughts on this one point.

[Kirby]

...

I don't know if I understand this reasoning. Stronger players can get more points per game played, but not significantly more than a loss. So stronger players are not necessarily promoted. It is easiest to get promoted by playing more games than anybody else, it seems to me.

I don't think many people (except maybe Chemboy613) drain out their game playing potential. If a middle ranked player plays a lot of games, they can be promoted, can't they?

I don't see what the problem is. If you aren't satisfied with your current group of opponents, play a lot of games and move up. I don't think that stronger players should get special treatment with this, though. Let anybody have this power. I think the current implementation does this well.

[topazg]

I can say I played more 4-7k players than any other grade. Of my 15 games, 10 were against that range...

[cgbspender]

It's been 1 year since I've started running the ASR, and lots of things were said since then. Lots have been discussed.

But I'd like to clarify some points about the league.

What its purpose is :

Provide an environement worthy of interest for all players who want to learn from strong players in even games, for all players who are here to make new friends... and more (and as a sidequest : win prizes)

This whole ruckus about changing this, changing that is, in my opinion, futile.
Contrarily to other leagues, go schools, whatever, the ASR has to administrate an almost 200 players-structure. Who else can say this much ? no one.

So let us not be surprised when we have to face unexpected issues and let's be satisfied with the solutions we come up with. I don' t understand comments like "the Insei-league works this way, and it works very well" : That's just normal. You can't compare both.

Yeah, there are flaws in our current system. And yeah there are some good things about it.
But also yeah, it will be the same regardless of what changes we opt for. There is no way we can satisfy 200 player's demands. We try our best to satisfy the majority.
From this state of fact : The League is successful.

Also, instead of just seeing what's going wrong about the League, here is a reminder of what is going WELL :

- Creation of a new partnership with Insei League by Alexander Dinerstein,in other words new prizes ! (see the website news)

- Creation of an ASR Go School (details being discussed)

- A huge increase of games played (70% of all Alpha and Beta class games in august!) Overall, 1030 games were played in August.

- Our partnership with Atsumi is still going well.

- More and more players seem to be helping us, offering teaching games for the monthly winners.

And last, but not least....

I want to congratulate all players who had signed up for the league last year and whom I still see signed up, and whose ranks are, for some of them, 5 to 15 ranks higher than they used to be. Congratulations for the good work.


Matthieu, aka Cgbspender.

[Kirby]

What I like about the ASR league is that there is a mix of strong and weak players.

If the players were completely randomly mixed, let's assume that the rank distribution is like this:



Most people are around the "mid-level" range. There are fewer very "strong" players, and fewer very "weak" players. It would probably be normally distributed for a random population.

Now, it is true that the people that are weaker benefit more from this type of a system: They can play against stronger players.

But the bulk of the population will be in the middle, so this is a good thing: Most people give some benefit to weaker players, and get some benefit from stronger players.

The people that get the "lowest benefit" are the people near the top part of the curve.

Now let's suppose that we change the ASR so that stronger players can enter at higher levels.

Now, instead of a curve like before, we might have sets of curves like this:




Now, there are actually a bunch of different distributions, with a lot of people at the "high ends". Here, 10ks, 6ks, 2ds, and 9ds will always have to play mostly weaker players.

If it's totally random, there are still handfuls of people that are at the "high ends" of their levels (the top of gamma 1, beta 1, etc. in strength), but I feel that forcing the stronger players into stronger bands is worse for a couple of reasons:

1.) In the first distribution, where there's a random mix of strength, it's unlikely that you'll be at the "very top" unless you are the strongest of the strongest. That is, there are fewer dan players, so there are fewer people that don't benefit.

2.) Those that are dedicated to the ASR will (usually) be playing both those that are stronger and those that are weaker. If they play a lot and become stronger, they will be giving more benefit to the ASR by playing a lot of weaker players.

If we put the dan players in their own league to start off with, it becomes very difficult for weaker players to get the chance to play the stronger players, which is the primary benefit of the ASR, IMO.

The problem of having to play weaker players is simply because there are fewer stronger players, on average. I think it'd be best if we treated these stronger players as a valuable and limited resource and spread them out uniformly.

[Kirby]

Hmm, maybe my distributions for the second figure aren't correct. There will be a lot of people toward the mid ranges, so it might not be bell shaped for some levels. I will have to think about this a bit.

My underlying point of wanting to mix strong players, I still believe, but my analysis may be wrong a bit.

[Kirby]

Now that I think about this more, my analysis may have been wrong. I think that the distribution if we split up the classes by strength first might be like this:



And this might not be a bad thing!

Groups "A" through "C" have mostly stronger players. Groups "D" through "F" have mostly weaker players in them.

So groups "A" through "C" will benefit the most from stronger players. Groups "D" through "F" will not benefit as much, but they are already strong. And I'm sure dan players would rather play with other dan players than kyu players, even if they are a bit weaker than them...

So scratch what I said before.

I think we should have entry levels for initial ranks