[EM] Thread on rec.sport.table-tennis

[josh at narins.net]

On Sun, May 04, 2003 at 02:47:46PM -0700, Rob Lanphier wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> There's currently a thread going on on the rec.sport.table-tennis Usenet 
> newsgroup:
> 
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=U_2cneATzah6cTujXTWcqg%40comcast.com&rnum=3&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522kenneth%2Barrow%2522%2BOR%2B%2522arrow%27s%2Btheorem%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26scoring%3Dd%26selm%3DU_2cneATzah6cTujXTWcqg%2540comcast.com%26rnum%3D3
> 
> The gist is that they are trying to figure out how to fix the way 
> rankings are done.  I haven't followed it fully, but figured that there 
> would be people here who might be interested.
> 
[snip] 
> I've come up with one very similar to Arrow's monotonicity criterion. If 
> player A is rating higher than player B before a tournament and A's 
> results (opponents' ratings along with wins and losses) are identical to 
> B's, then A should be rated higher than B after the tournament. This 
> criterion is obviously not satisfied by our current system. For example, 
> A is 1600 and beats ten 1600 players, +8 each, and comes out 1680. B is 
> 1500 and beats ten 1600 players, +20 each, and comes out 1700

I play Go.

Go rankings are all relative (for amateurs).
Best                                                          Worst
10d 9d 8d 7d 6d 5d 4d 3d 2d 1d 1k 2k 3k 4k 5k 6k 7k 8k 9k ... (30k)

If 10d can beat someone about half the time with a 5 stone handicap,
the other person is 5d
The max reasonable handicap is 9, so the scale is hardly perfect over
long distances.
tobe is 10d, i think he is nice :)
It's also obvious he's a pro who just wastes some time online.
http://igs.joyjoy.net

In Ping Pong, the handicap could be "spotted points."

The game is to 21, right?

Someone who can beat the best player, spotted 7 points, no more than 2/3
of the time....

It's not a perfect system.