Life In 19x19

I've been keeping a close eye on some of the points usagi has been raised recently on appropriateness of activity rewards, and 3 of his prime tenets were:

1) People with poor records (I'm going to use < 50% for the sake of this post) shouldn't be promoted / awarded things
2) People with lots of wins should benefit
3) People with good win percentage records should benefit

I was in the same division as him last month, so as it was one with good familiarity to both of us regarding availability and games, I thought I'd assess some of these premises. 3 people were basically inactive, so for the sake of argument I'd say 6th is the middle of the division, 1-5 the top half, and 7-11 the bottom half.

1a) Only one player with <50% record was in the top half, out of 5 players.
1b) Four players in the bottom half had a record <50%.

This is as I would imagine it, and it doesn't feel like the distortion effect is as bad as usagi seems to claim (with people able to promote simply by playing lots and getting 40-50% win records.

2a) 4 people got 10+ wins. These players occupied 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th.
2b) The top two players on wins alone finished 1st and 2nd.

Again, this fits nicely with usagi's hopes that people winning lots would finish highly.

3a) Best winning percentage came 1st. 2nd best came 5th. 3rd best came 7th. 4th best came 2nd.
3b) Most games game 3rd. 2nd most came 6th. 3rd most came 2nd.

So, best winning percentage doesn't correlate hugely strongly, and if anything total games correlates more closely. However, it is clear that winning percentage and total won games is at least as important overall as the number of games played, and for those that have played a large number of games winning percentage seems particularly important.

Obviously this is only a sample size of 1 (division), and is hardly significant or impressive - I just picked it because as we were in the division together I thought I'd use it as a pilot. I'd be delighted if other people did something similar if there was interest there.

However, while I genuinely understand where usagi is coming from, and understand his frustration, I do think he is hugely overstating the imbalance, and the size of effect the reward system is having on "punishing" stronger players. For what it is worth, the 2 promoted players have the highest KGS ranks on the division at that time, which I hope is reassuring.

The purpose of this post I suppose is also partly to ask: usagi, mathematically calculated theory aside, do we really have the problem you think we do in ASR, in practice?

topazg wrote:The purpose of this post I suppose is also partly to ask: usagi, mathematically calculated theory aside, do we really have the problem you think we do in ASR, in practice?

The room you want to look at for the highest occurrance of said problem is alpha, since players who score a large number of points via losses will tend to promote to near the top of the league. In alpha last month here's what the strength looked like:

1.fairgo1 83.3% (25/5)
2. highwayman 85.7% (18/3)
3. latias 80.9% (17/4)
4. mrznf 90.5% (19/2)

Not bad. Now take a look at the next five spots:

5. chemboy613 54.2% (13/11)
6. gabalon 22.6% (7/24)
7. imagineit 75% (15/5)
8. fengytreon 21.4% (6/22)
9. gaechka 10.7% (3/25)

My "problem" is that it seems like the league would be better off if some of these people were in beta instead. That way they would be able to teach more and it wouldn't be a handful of strong players teaching people far below them all the time. Maybe if some stronger players, players who were also reasonably active (and I think 15 to 20 games a month is probably active enough for a league).. that it would be a better value for strong players at the top..

we're all here to learn, I just think it would be a better place if it was a little more streamlined. As for me, pulling a 90% win ratio in beta and not getting promoted is a little frustrating, essentially what I am being told is that I am just here to teach and I am not allowed to join a higher class where I might get a lesson or two myself.

And all THAT being said, with the new prizes hopefully the wave of stronger players chasing them will just push out all the hyperactive kyus from alpha. Maybe, just maybe, there's nothing to be done.

I just pray to god that if/when the prizes abate the league doesn't collapse.

usagi wrote:The room you want to look at for the highest occurrance of said problem is alpha, since players who score a large number of points via losses will tend to promote to near the top of the league. In alpha last month here's what the strength looked like:

1.fairgo1 83.3% (25/5)
2. highwayman 85.7% (18/3)
3. latias 80.9% (17/4)
4. mrznf 90.5% (19/2)

Not bad. Now take a look at the next five spots:

5. chemboy613 54.2% (13/11)
6. gabalon 22.6% (7/24)
7. imagineit 75% (15/5)
8. fengytreon 21.4% (6/22)
9. gaechka 10.7% (3/25)

My "problem" is that it seems like the league would be better off if some of these people were in beta instead. That way they would be able to teach more and it wouldn't be a handful of strong players teaching people far below them all the time. Maybe if some stronger players, players who were also reasonably active (and I think 15 to 20 games a month is probably active enough for a league).. that it would be a better value for strong players at the top..

I don't know, apart from imagineit that all looks sensible to me so far

usagi wrote:we're all here to learn, I just think it would be a better place if it was a little more streamlined. As for me, pulling a 90% win ratio in beta and not getting promoted is a little frustrating, essentially what I am being told is that I am just here to teach and I am not allowed to join a higher class where I might get a lesson or two myself.

Not at all, just play me, stalkor, and especially karnesun. We played once, and I turned you down for the rematch because of being at work. I don't know whether you tried to get hold of the other two much, but you could have sent me a PM or something to arrange a match especially. I grabbed all three games against karnesun as soon as I could, but I'm also aware that at my rank I expect to be at the stronger end of my division until I hit Alpha.

usagi wrote:And all THAT being said, with the new prizes hopefully the wave of stronger players chasing them will just push out all the hyperactive kyus from alpha. Maybe, just maybe, there's nothing to be done.

I just pray to god that if/when the prizes abate the league doesn't collapse.

We'll see this month. There are already 29 games played in the first 15.5 hours, just under one every half hour! I suspect kyu players will struggle somewhat in Alpha this month. You also overestimate the value of prizes for many of the players. I don't mean to be critical of the prizes as I'm not, but the only one that interests me is access to that superleague, and even that isn't motivation for me to play. I just play because I want to keep playing serious games, and it's a good excuse to do so. The league will flourish with players that are in it not for rewards, but just for participation - there are more of those than, I suspect, you realise.

I think the main problem here is the promotion throughput. There are simply more strong players in the lower leagues than can be promoted.

Hmmm ... I think, now that I've been promoted to Beta, that I'm in the exact right place. I have stronger players, like usagi, fab, and lebertran, who can teach me, with enough players of equal or lower ranks to at least review with afterward, including a few that will benefit from learning from me.

This is a large change from Gamma in the previous month, where I felt mostly on-par in strength with the top players (and slightly below the two strongest). I think I can stay in Beta, but it will take a fair amount of activity. I don't expect to promote this month.

So, from my perspective, Beta this month matches what I would hope for in the ASR League, whereas Gamma last month, while active and fun, wasn't quite as interesting to me.