UNIRACK

WHAT'S UNIRACK?

UniRack is the Billiards Club's very own player skill assesment, rating, and handicapping system! We've experimented with many well known systems such as Elo and Fargo, and many others of our own design inspired by other systems, but none seemed to meet our needs until we invented UniRack!

CURRENT STANDINGS

WHY UNIRACK?

The beauty of the UniRack system is that it accounts for disparities in match quantity, gaps in a players tournament attendnace, differences in game and tournament scoring, differences in team composition, the age of the tournament, and more. The benefit over other systems is that it doesn't rely on players reporting match information which often doesn't interest our less competitve, more casual players who are the biggest beneficiaries from the handicapping possibilities rating systems provide. The scaling of UniRack scores is also soley based on those in our system, i.e. college students that range in skill from beginner to very skilled but won't reach the heights of ratings in other systems intended to compare full time professional players.

SCORES AND RATINGS

UR SCORE

The main output of the UniRack system is a player's UniRack or UR Score. A UR Score is a number on a scale of 0-1000 where higher scoring players are presumed to be of higher skill.

UR CATEGORY

Directly from a player's UR Score, they are placed into one of four UR Categories based on percentile:

S - Advanced

Those with a UR Category of S have a UR Score in the 85th percentile and are presumed to be the most advanced and skilled players in the club.

A - Above Average

Those with a UR Category of A have a UR Score in the 50th percentile meaning they generally possess a skill greater than the average of players in the club.

B - Average

Those with a UR Category of B have a UR Score in the 15th percentile are considered to be average players with an ordinary level of experience and skill.

C - Casual or Beginner

Those who don't qualify for other categories are given a UR Category of C which is typical of casual players and beginners.

UR10

A player's UniRack 10 Score, or UR10, is a derivation of the UR Score placed on a scale of 1 to 10, and adjusted so the amount of players assigned to each number are relatively even. In other words about the same amount of players will have a UR10 score of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. UR10 is primarily used and intended for algorithmic tournament handicapping.

HOW IT WORKS

At its core, UniRack is rather simple: It's a weighted average of a player's performance from each of our tournaments that they've participated in. How a weight and player performance is determined however changes based on the tournament.

TOURNAMENT WEIGHT

The weight assigned to a given tournament is made of to components that we call age weight, and competitive weight. Age weight is what makes older tournaments count for less and less on a players record as new ones occur. The most recent tournament entered in the UniRack system receives an age weight of 1, and that of previous tournaments descend as they get older in increments of 0.05 until reaching the bottom at 0.10.

A tournament's competitive weight in the UniRack system is selected by numerous factors including bracket type, team format, game played, and the resolution of performance scoring. For example, a basic Eight Ball singles tournament will have a competitive weight of 1, while the same tournament played in doubles format will have a weight of 0.5 since it is unknown how much of a team's performance is attributable to one player or their partner. Points based games like Fifteen Ball, or Straight Pool are typically worth a higher competitive weight, as their is more resolution or detail in their scoring data to interpolate a player's performance over win-loss games like Eight Ball.

PLAYER PERFORMANCE

A player's performance in a tournament is calcualted relative to how other players performed in that same tournament by means of a percent ranking system. For win-loss game tournaments, a player's percent rank is computed from their win percentage, meaning out of the matches they played, what percentage did they win? For points based games, it is found typically from the average of their match scores, though this may very depending upon the game and tournament as needed.

IS IT PERFECT?

No, but that's ok! We do not pretend that UniRack offers a perfect one to one rating assessment of players. Obviously many things can't be accounted for in the UniRack process like skill difference of players in matches and the nuances of different games, or if a player had an unlucky night in a given tournament, but it still provides a great approximation of a player's skill relative to other members which is precisely the point! It allows us to handicap future tournaments with satisfying accuracy, and gives players a rough idea of how their skill level compares to others in the club!

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