nah i dont think that'd really work

since only one person walks away a winner...I think there should only be 2 ratings...winners and losers.

It appears that Ed has added some things to his earlier proposal while I was figuring out and typing mine in. I suppose a rating based on a low score could be used with the deal I came up with too.

<20 player pond Ed's proposal
Z = 20
1st gets 40, 2nd gets 20, 3rd gets 10 , 4th gets 5, 5 to 8 get 0, 9th loses 24, 10th loses 27, 11th loses 30, 12th loses 33, 13th loses 36
14th loses 39, 15th loses 42, 16th loses 45
17th loses 48, 18th loses 51, 19th loses 54
20th loses 57
I suppose when two or more people drop on the same round the points would work the same. Or you could add up the total and divide equally rounding where necessary. Seems like it'd work. Start everyone at zero. Nothing wrong with a negative rating in my book. Or start at whatever is the starting point here and limit the lowest to 100. Tripling the score for the early droppers seems kind of harsh to me. Why not just double it or leave it single based on when you drop? Perhaps a scale would work to smooth out the edges too. A power function with 2 as the base? Or "e" the base of the natural logrithms?
Here's a formula that'd work as a smooth curve and wouldn't be too harsh to people that drop early while only awarding the most points to the very last players in. At the half way point the award for winning starts. Before then deduction takes place, less as you last longer.
Z = The starting amount of people
e = the base of the natural logrithms
P = final position of player
C = constant (this can be changed to increase or decrease award given. In my examples that follow I use a value of C = 1)
R = rating points awarded or deducted
Top half finishers award:
R = (Z/2) times [(e raised to the reciprocal of P)-C]
Bottom half finishers deduction:
R = (Z/2 - P) + .6 then rounded
In the 20 player game example the values would be
1st gets 17
2nd gets 6
3rd gets 4
4th gets 3
5th gets 2
6th gets 2
7th gets 2
8th, 9th, and 10th get 1
11th stays even
12th loses 1
13th loses 2
14th loses 3
15th loses 4
16th loses 5
17th loses 6
18th loses 7
19th loses 8
20th loses 9
You could double or triple the deductions if you wanted to.
In a 100 player pond the awards would be
1st 86, 2nd 32, 3rd 20, 4th 14, 5th 11
6th 9, 7th 8, 8th 7, 9th 6, 10th 5
11th 5, 12th 4, 13th 4, 14th 4, 15th 3
16th through 20th-- 3
21st through 33rd-- 2
34th through 50th-- 1
51st stays even
52nd loses 1 and so on

It's kind of hard to write mathematical formulars on this keyboard, but those that know this stuff can see what I'm angling at. A curve with a gentle slope until the very end when the reward for winning or coming in close increase a lot. If you make it half way, you'll not lose rating points. The deduction can be varied also, but keeping it a straight linear type of penality is easy to understand and most people go along with that. Lowering the constant C will increase the award. I hope the numbers line up after I enter them to post.
20 player pond
-------> C = 1 C =.5 C = 0 C = -.5
1st place 17 22 27 32
2nd place 6 11 16 21
3rd place 4 9 14 19
10th place 1 6 11 16
100 player pond
1st place 86 111 136 161
2nd place 32 57 82 107
3rd place 20 45 70 95
10th place 5 30 55 80
25th place 2 27 52 77
50th place 1 26 51 76
The divisor of Z can be varied to, but first this whole idea has to be figured with if it's acceptable for using as a rating system. Also using C = 1 you could multiply the whole award by some number to put the range of awards to whatever value seems appropriate for the size pond in question.

2¢

i like it, the method and the acronym.

ok, i got the revised post. The inverted rating system is worth a shot, i'm trying to think of anywhere else a similar mode is in use.

Then I think ratings should just become the "grade point average" score, maybe call it the "pond accumulation score system" or "p.a.s.s."

That way, you only care about lowering your score towards a perfect 1.0

So, if you come in 10th out of 66, 30th out of 212, 13th out of 102, and 4th out of 40, you have a "p.a.s.s." of...

[10x66 + 30x212 + 13x102 + 4x40] divided by
[66 + 212 + 102 + 40]

= 8506/420 = 20.25, a very meaningful number.

Can't be -ive, 1.0 is the lowest and best score.

I think 1300 is the starting rating in other games.

EdTrice: in that way, there would very likely be a sizable population of negative ratings too after awhile, would you propose the floor be at zero? Are you assuming the base rating of 1200 like the other BKRs?

How about this system:

Let Z = the playing population of the whole pond.

Winner gets + 2Z rating points
2nd place gets +Z rating points
3rd place gets Z/2 (rounded) rating points
4th places gets Z/4 (rounded) rating points

5-8 no rating change

Everyone else loses 3 times the number of players that remains when you fall in.

Instead of counting "wins and losses", you have an aggregate score in your profile.

If you win a pond with 200 players, you get a score of (200 x 1)/200 = 1.0

If you then come in 4th place in a pond of 50 players, your score is now (200 x 1) + (50 x 4)/[200 + 50] = 1.6

It works kind of like a grade point average, only the lower the number, the better.

Someone who wins every pond will have a "1.0"

I think the stats should be collected on other positions, not just wins. I am at least interested in the number of top 3 finishes for instance.

on the other hand i also like ratings.

Walter Montego: actualy i look forward to people playing for statistics, they are easier to beat

After reading various posts and thinking about it myself, I've had another thought. Leave it as it is. No stats, no ratings, no nothing. Just play the game and have fun with it. There's just not a way to keep track of things like that that won't actually cause some players to play for the statistics instead of play the game to win. So let's not have any ratings or stats made for this one game. Or, at a minimum, just wins and losses. I think there's not much argument about those two stats. :)

It seems like the game is quite popular as it is without the stats. Work on things that can make the game more fun to play, rather than keeping track of you how people play the game. Like we posted about with giving the creator control over the starting point and bonus amount. I'm sure there's other things that could be thought up that could make interesting to play variants of this game. Like having a minimum bet or a maximum bet. Or letting you know your opponent's bets. Or making your opponent's bets for them, but if they're low, you get dropped! Lots of ways to play this game. Who needs stats?

This DB is for the discussion of the Pond game. Anyone who engages in verbal sparring or baiting or direct insults will have their post deleted. If they persist,they will be hidden.
If anyone would like to discuss Pond games using these tactics,then perhaps a fellowship with more liberal guidelines is the best option.

Lets get back to ponds now please

i don't like the idea of bifurcating boards as such, it does little to promote free exchange of ideas even though, ironically, that was his well-meaning purpose. It's akin to privatization.

Stevie: I'm not sure how his fellowship has evolved into what it is now. I'm not a member of any fellowships. He did mention in his invitation to me that it was uncensored and felt that your hand was a too heavy for his liking here. When I received the invitation I went to the list of people in the fellowship and didn't see your handle. In my response telling him that I wasn't joining I asked him about if he'd asked you to join. He said all that ask to join, can join the fellowship. So if you want in, you'll have to ask him. I'm thinking you two aren't on speaking terms, but you can put him to the test by joining and posting to his group and seeing if he can resist the temptation to edit, delete, and censor as he says is your wont to. Turn about is fair play, so to speak? :)

Walter Montego: Many there because it started off as unsensored debate fellowship didnt it?? LOL

I notice that his handle is no longer amoungst the posts here. I can only presume that one of our moderators has banned him or put him on hide. That's too bad, though I suppose I shouldn't say that unnecessarily since I must've missed something he posted that led to this action. Anyways, he asked me to join a fellowship that he's got going about this Pond game and any future multiplayer games that might be added to this site. I told him to post here to get people enterested in joining it and he said he couldn't. So I'm taking it upon myself to post about his fellowship. He said all that ask to join will be admitted, including Stevie. :) So there you go.
He said when I declined to join that I was the first one to do so. He has quite a group assembled so far, so get on over there! :)
http://brainking.com/game/ShowFellowship?fid=248

Scroll back a few Ed. A few people have had some ideas on it. I brought an excerpt of mine here.

I was thinking of someting simular. Number of rounds that you last divided by the number of rounds the Pond goes on for. This would make the largest ponds equal to the smaller ones as far as a person's staying power is concerned. That, plus doing what fencer suggests and of course win/loss/wins per pond stats should be enough for record keeping.

Also to address something Bry said about falling in with no points left in the same round as someone that had thousands left. Why not also have the average amount of points that one has left when the game ends for that person as a statistic too? Would that show the difference between someone that bets high most of the time compared to someone that bets low?

I think that system looks fine

Binary sets would just make it easier for Fencer to code. If you want a complete emulation of a multi-player multi-round event, there are parallel ratings systems such as Glicko2. Good luck trying to encode it though.

My thinking is not constrained, I just offered something that would work. I did not see anyone else offering anything.

Sounds ok, but I don't know why you need to break it down into binary sets, you're thinking is constrained for some reason.

Tennis has a rating system based on performance in a tournament, why not emulate something like that?

The problem with a rating system for a game like Ponds is breaking down the game into binary sets for rating. For example, in chess, it is you against one opponent. The result is rated in a straightforward manner, since the goal of you and your opponent are "diamtetric opposites" -- you try to checkmate, and so do they.

In rating a pond game, it gets more complicated. When someone falls in on round 1, who did they lose to?

Will every player staying in have defeated this person? With the "faller" have lost to the N-1 who remained?

If so, in a pond of 50 players, the first one to fall out gets saddled with 49 losses.

The winner would also have a huge win count: 50 + 49 + 48 + 47... which would be 50 x 51/2 = 1275 at the end!

For rating purposes, I think it make sense to track two numbers: cumulative players defeated (as show above) and binary trials.

Cut the sections down into binary sets. In the case of a section of 64 players, perform the ratings as follows:

Players 1-32 get just one win against corresponding players from 33-64. So 1 beats 33, gets rated, 2 beats 34, gets rated... 32 beats 64, gets rated.

Players 1-16 get credit for a win against players 17-32.

Players 1-8 get credit for a win against players 9-16.

Players 1-4 get credit for wins against 5-8.

Players 1-2 get credit for a win against 3-4.

Player 1 gets credit for a win against 2.

That way, ratings will "stay close" to what we have come to experience as "normal" for other games on here.

And, pond winners in larger ponds will get more points than smaller ponds, yet those who exit early won't have their ratings totally sublimated.

I'm not so sure that a bigger pond is worth more, If you play in one of BBW's fast tourneys, your rating is calculated the same way as if you played in a larger tourney, more important is the ratings of other players

I would say a bigger pond is worth more, probably a linear relationship.

So the current system solves for wins (1.0), draws (0.5) and losses (0.0).

In Ponds for 16 players you could have:

1st 4.000
2nd 1.850
3rd 0.950
4th 0.500
5th 0.270
6th 0.150
7th 0.100
8th 0.060
9th 0.038
10th 0.028
11th 0.020
12th 0.015
13th 0.011
14th 0.009
15th 0.007
16th 0.006

Then you calculate the average rating of all your opponents, and calculate the rating the same way as other games.

Or something like that.

it's like any other game here, ratings and tourney's won, anyhow the winner would end up with one of the higher ratings

I don't agree with this. In my opinion, individual rounds are not important (and especially not the first ones). The final table is the only thing that should be taken into consideration.

Vikings: yes. Exactly.

you could give bonus points for having ther low bid in any givin round

how about ranking games like nascar, points for being in your position during the gameie, 16 players so first round ist place gets 100 points, 2nd place gets 98 points, 3rd gets 95, 4th gets 90, and so on. then tabulate the entire game, the higher finishers get rewarded much more than the lower finishers.

grenv: Hmm, sounds like a good idea. Does that solve your issue, Bry?

How do you score a win in a pond of ten vs a win in a pond of 100?

Here is what I think:

There should be a greater difference between rating points of 1st and 2nd than between 2nd and 3rd and so on down. So 1st and 5th in 2 poinds is better than 2 3rds etc.

This way there is some factoring in of playing to win rather than just playing to finish high up.

But the Rovers made it to the semis while the Magpies didn't. That's what's making them better (in the FA Cup). They won their quarterfinal game and Newcastle didn't. Plus, why didn't they have a chance to get to the finals or win it eventually? There's always a chance. I assume you'd still call them worse team just because they're playing "bad", right?

BIG BAD WOLF: I agree.

Another example.... The (English) football followers will understand this.

Tranmere Rovers get to the semi final of the FA Cup. They were never going to win it. No Chance. They got to the semi final (with 1000 points to spare) and "ran out of points". Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea had 17,000 points each. Tranmere had done well to get to the semi final but had not played better than Newcastle united who went out the round before but had 16,000 points before they went out the previous round. Tranmere are not better than Newcastle United...

Anyway. That's me done.....

Bry: Because getting farther along should count for something, after all, you did beat some of the players, just not all of them. Essentailly, for scoring purposes, if there are N entrants in a pond game, it's N*(N-1)/2 smaller games, rather than one big game, so each 'game' needs to be scored. Plus winning or finishing high in a pond with 100 players is a bigger accomplishment than winning a pond with ten players.

I agree BBW

Well this is the problems with all "multi-player" games, which this just happens to be the first one on BK.

It's hard to determin "who played beter" - so the best, just like any major sport - Take the score at the end of the game and go from there.

Thad: so why not just rate Ponds on % wins to Ponds entered?

Bry: I see your point, but the same arguement could be made in other games. If you take all my pieces in chess and win, or if I checkmate you without capturing any of yours, who played better? If I beat you in pente, but you cap four of my pairs along the way, does that make the win weaker than a win with no stones capped?

It's all about winning (which makes a sad statement about our society, but that's a whole different discussion). How you get the win (as long as you play fair), or the final score doesn't matter (except in college football). ;-)

"failed" ..as in failed to read how the others are playing

Right!!!! If BBW disagree's i'm doomed LOL. Forget I ever mentioned it. I'm off sulking now.

but the player at top who suddenly falls in...is playing "bad" also because they took a risk and failed. I reckon it dont matter hopw many points you have...high or low. If you finish after more rounds...then you have played better :oD

I understand what Bry is saying, but will have to disagree.

For example, I know if a few ponds I took a chance with some higher bids to hopefully get the 500 point bonus to shot me in the lead - which when failed, left me far behind.

So now my goal is to last as long as possible to end up as high as possible - which means less chances by me, and meaning I will probable end up higher then some who took more chances. I don't see anything wrong with this.

Pedro Martínez: but playing how I call "bad" will NEVER get a win. Yet this player would be highly rated as a Pond player because they have completed more rounds.

i'm obviously outvoted here so i'll drop it.

Another example could be - I play Pente with Thad. My rating is 1300, Thads is 2200. This is so because Thad is a better player. I play 2 games against Thad. One I last 10 moves, the other I last 30 moves. The game I lasted 30 moves in before losing does not make me a better player. I would have lost (in reality) anyway. I just delayed the inevitable. I see it similar to Ponds. If you fall in with a high number of points, you had a better chance of winning than if you bow out with nothing left and other players have 17000+. Why should your BKR be good because you played but never had a chance of winning.

If this is the case, then there is no point going for the win, just bid much more than you need to stay in keep going until your points run out. No skill there then.

perfectly said, Harley

who is the thought to be better with his money .. the one buying a lot of lottery tickets with which he might become a millionaire (sp?) or the one who buys what he needs and nothing more, saves the rest and can retire when he is 40 making a nice trip around the world for 3 years (my dream! ;))

Bry: Thats the luck factor! I've played chess games, tablut games, checkers games etc where I've played great all the way through, I've been confident I would win, then played a silly move and lost, or drawn.
In backgammon, a luky roll of the dice can make the difference.
The play doesn't matter, its the end result. On your main page you have wins and losses, not wins, losses and near wins!

Bry: What you call "played badly", I call "played wise".