BGA has a serious bully problem

[Gooorn]

I see there is a very serious discussion about how to find the best of each game, but there is little talk about how to filter/evaluate the lower levels of players - although I think this part would be much more related to the topic title.

We should also talk about how to filter out in SIMPLE GAME MODE those who don't even know the basic rules of the game, those who are already aware of the basics of the game but don't know the different strategies/tricks yet, and those who are above this level.

I forgot to mention different game modes and versions. Some of them are like two different games, and a player can be expert in one mode but beginner in other with same ELO points.

[Ceaseless]

To say a player that hasn't achieved any titles is a failure in their career is ludicrous, especially if we're talking team sports, where a player's impact on the outcome is even more limited than in standalone events. Results are a useful tool for analyzing things, but trying to substitute your brain with the outcome of the game is nothing but delusion. The outcome of the game is just another fact, which you can analyze with other data to come to a conclusion. Without proper judgment, that conclusion is going to end up being rubbish.

You are talking about victory as if it was a detail, just another metric.

Winning is the point of games, and the way you play is the tool to get there. Analyzing things is good, but that should never lead us to rewrite history and act like the person who won something wasn't actually the best at that event. You have to understand that those are two separate discussions.

Your concession standards are hilariously at odds with your claim that winning is the point of games. A player concedes, the other wins, the point has been made, and yet you aren't happy. You should really get that sorted out.

Victory is one of many details. Even if you want to say winning is the point of games, to confuse victory in a single instance with the full picture remains a delusion. The best players lose, and the best plays can be the cause of those losses. Failure to apply that lesson will only lead to more losses down the line. I've won games where my opponent was better than I was that game and have lost games where I was the better player that game.

If I play a game where a player tells me if my 100-sided die will land on a 1 or not and they just keep saying it will, we don't say they won the 1/100 games they take because they played the best.

It doesn't matter what the odds are. They guessed correctly where it would land, so they were the best at the games they won. The results are what counts.

Your attitude is very unsportsmanlike and stands against everything that games are about.

By your logic, if someone has a 99% chance of winning when they play their last turn, but then on their opponent's last turn, they get the winning roll they had a 1% chance of getting, then according to you the first player played better because they were much more likely to win before the last moment.

That's not how games work. You don't rewrite history by invoking probabilities. Probabilities help you make your choices and determine the most likely path to victory, but the moment the curtains fall and the game is over, probabilities don't matter anymore and there is only one reality. The player who actually wins is always the deserving victor and the one who played best.

The one who won, won. To try and invoke that they must always be deserving or always played best is an attempt to rewrite history. Better play leads to better results, but only on average. It makes no promises for the outcome of every moment.

No need to imagine, I just called them entertainment. The players in these events are entertainers first, competitors second. It's a spectacle for the benefit of the spectators. To give credit where credit is due, it's quite an impressive scale for entertainment. I hear there's quite an event in the Superbowl, the commercials.

Are you aware there are sports that barely anyone watches?

Imagine telling the best athletes in the world that they are entertainers before being competitors.

The fact that many people watch certain sports is a bonus. It's not why athletes play sports. They play because they want to surpass themselves or be the best in a discipline. You don't need a crowd for that (just as when we compete for titles here, we generally don't have a crowd watching us).

On your last line, if this is your outlook on sports and, well, life, why are you even on this website?

There are always things barely anyone watches. It does not change anything here. Tell the athletes what you want. As for why athletes play sports, they're not a monolith. I'm also not sure why you've decided to generalize my statement to saying the entirety of sports has been relegated solely to entertainment. I haven't made such a statement.

I don't see anything in my last line that would conflict with a motive for being on BGA.

[FrankJones]

So, in this thread it has been stated (I'm paraphrasing from memory, not quoting verbatim):

1) Elo is better for zer0-luck games,
2) because it actually can be used to predict who "should" or "will" win.
3) Elo is bad for high-luck games because of the variance and volatility.


Sooooooooo ,

Suppose two players play:

Player A: 47 games, 47 wins, 486 Elo.
Player B: 34 games, 34 wins, 596 Elo.

What does Elo "predict"? Because I see no way anyone could conclude anything beyond "It's probably a 50/50 between two players who are likely both higher skilled than their current Elo indicates".

And yet one player stands to potentially lose 13 Elo or gain 7 Elo, while the other stands to potentially gain 13 Elo or lose 7 Elo. In a zero luck game.

In other words - Elo isn't perfect for zer0-luck games either. Because, a player's Elo in a zero luck game is not guaranteed to reflect the player's underlying ability.

[Ceaseless]

So, in this thread it has been stated (I'm paraphrasing from memory, not quoting verbatim):

1) Elo is better for zer0-luck games,
2) because it actually can be used to predict who "should" or "will" win.
3) Elo is bad for high-luck games because of the variance and volatility.


Sooooooooo ,

Suppose two players play:

Player A: 47 games, 47 wins, 486 Elo.
Player B: 34 games, 34 wins, 596 Elo.

What does Elo "predict"? Because I see no way anyone could conclude anything beyond "It's probably a 50/50 between two players who are likely both higher skilled than their current Elo indicates".

And yet one player stands to potentially lose 13 Elo or gain 7 Elo, while the other stands to potentially gain 13 Elo or lose 7 Elo. In a zero luck game.

In other words - Elo isn't perfect for zer0-luck games either. Because, a player's Elo in a zero luck game is not guaranteed to reflect the player's underlying ability.

I'm personally betting on the guy that played fewer games and got more rating, more impressive run. So they've shown a stronger hand so far. But obviously the data is incomplete, we haven't confirmed any actual ceiling yet. I don't think this example shows a flaw with elo though. We're dealing with some outliers given the win rate going on for starters.

But on another note, nothing is ever going to be perfect. For one thing, players don't have a universal skill number to them. They have different skills in different areas that come together, and it can combine in some interesting ways from game to game, sometimes leading to situations they were uniquely qualified or incapable of handling. On top of that people aren't perfectly consistent, having good or bad times to play games. So there's going to be a bit of variation, but not so much that we can't make some believable judgments. Elo isn't a substitute for our brains, when there are obvious outliers that are skewing expectations we can figure that sort of thing out. It's just another tool that we use.

[FrankJones]

Agreed that my example does not illustrate a flaw in Elo.
I think Elo is fine for zero-luck games and also for games with luck involved.

I understand some of the potential concerns expressed by some in this thread with regard to games involving luck; I just haven't personally experienced these issues.

But, the games I play that I consider to "have some luck" may be considered to be so skillful that they don't qualify as "luck-based games" in the context of this thread. (Earth, Wingspan, Terraforming Mars, and to a lesser extent, Carcassonne.)

[Andrei3009]

If you want Elo to function more predictively, lowering the k-factor would give you a longer-term average. But bear in mind if we were to cut the k-factor in half, you’d get half as many points from each win (and lose half as many to each loss). Would you ever have hit 550 in such a case? I’d say not. Extremely generously, you’d have been lucky to hit 300. And guess what? Instead of bobbing up and down by 20 points out of 550 with each win and loss, you’d be bobbing and down by 10 points out of 300. And I think you’d still be unhappy with that, since everybody else would be bobbing as well and sometimes overtaking you and sometimes not, and you’d still have the same issues with that.

I will note that changing the k factor does not affect the average rating of a player, so if he had an average rating of 400+ (which is true for ChiefPointThief), then after halving the K factor, ChiefPointThief will still have an average rating of 400+, but is much less likely to reach 550.

Getting to number 1 arena for a luck-based game is about grinding for a good winning streak, and not being the actual best player.

Lowering the K-factor wouldn't help, because you still would lose points on average when you play a lower-rated player who can win due to luck more than what the elo formula expects..

Reducing the k factor in the arena will make it so that the weaker player is unlikely to win it. Let's take an example: players A,B usually score 1900 arena rating, player C 1800.

Let's say a winning streak of 200 rating is possible, if player C gets it and stops playing, players A and B will need to score 100 to catch up, which can be difficult. Now let's say the k factor has been halved. The average score of players A B C will not change and will remain 1900 1900 1800, however, the streaks will decrease by half and with the same level of play and the same luck, player C will only reach 1900, thus he will have almost no chance of winning the arena. However, in both cases, which player A or B wins the arena will depend only on the length of the streak where they score above their average score. (which includes being lucky not to lose to weaker players due to bad luck)

Conclusion: reducing the k factor in the arena will reduce the likelihood that weaker player will win, but it will not change anything between the top players. It will also increase the number of games you need to play on average to reach your normal level.

[Andrei3009]

It is important to understand that there is a big difference between sports and regular board games. Large sports events are primarily held for the entertainment of fans (and getting money from it), therefore, for example, conseding in these events is unacceptable as it will incur significant losses for the organizers and the reputation of the team, so examples from football are not suitable for discussing conseding to the bga, but this is a question of another topic ... Also in regular bga games between ordinary players there are practically no fans .

Imagine calling a world champion title or an Olympic gold just "entertainment".

But Of course, the participants of the competition themselves, as well as ordinary board game players, came for the sake of the game and for the sake of victory.

Or we can accept that the player who wins a competition was the best of that competition.

In any sports, it would be considered terrible sportsmanship to suggest that the winner is not also the best.

About any victory. In games and especially in sports, it is necessary to distinguish between two types of randomness - the randomness built into the game (dice roll) and the quality of the participants themselves at a particular moment. A victory by one chance is substantially different from a victory in another, for example
1) some 2600 player A won Magnus carlsen today, but he didn't win before and after that. Why did he win? Maybe Magnus didn't get enough sleep or felt sick, maybe Player A played extremely well. Does it matter why he wins? No, it's important that he wins in a fair game by outplaying his opponent. In this case, player A played better and is the best player in this game. Is it possible to say that Player A is better? Of course not. Is it possible to say that Player A is better today? Definitely yes

The winner of any game or competition is definitionally the one that played the best, because they managed to win while others didn’t.

2) Let's imagine the final of a luck heavy game tournament. Player A plays much worse than opponent B on average and made objectively worse moves in the game, but still won due to luck. Why did he win? He was lucky. Does it matter why he won? It is important that he won not by outplaying his opponent, but by luck. Is it possible to say that Player A is better? Of course not. Is it possible to say that Player A is better today? No, because he did not show the level of play better than his opponent.

If I were player B, I would certainly congratulate my opponent on winning, but I would not hesitate to think and possibly tell somebody, that I lost because of luck. And i always acknowledge my opponent if i win due to luck

Due to the fact that sports almost always fall into category 1) unexpected victories are deserved, since one team really beat the other today, but everyone still understands that this is most likely an isolated incident and I will think so until the opposite is shown.

[Fuchur]

So, in this thread it has been stated (I'm paraphrasing from memory, not quoting verbatim):

1) Elo is better for zer0-luck games,
2) because it actually can be used to predict who "should" or "will" win.
3) Elo is bad for high-luck games because of the variance and volatility.


Sooooooooo ,

Suppose two players play:

Player A: 47 games, 47 wins, 486 Elo.
Player B: 34 games, 34 wins, 596 Elo.

What does Elo "predict"? Because I see no way anyone could conclude anything beyond "It's probably a 50/50 between two players who are likely both higher skilled than their current Elo indicates".

And yet one player stands to potentially lose 13 Elo or gain 7 Elo, while the other stands to potentially gain 13 Elo or lose 7 Elo. In a zero luck game.

In other words - Elo isn't perfect for zer0-luck games either. Because, a player's Elo in a zero luck game is not guaranteed to reflect the player's underlying ability.

I'm not sure what you're trying to show. You have to distinguish between ELO as a measure of past performance (always possible) and ELO as an approximation of a skill-meter. In the later case you have to wait until the value stabilizes (which is probably not the case for any of the players of your exemple) and you have to assume that measuring the skill with a single value is possible and that the formula you've used to calculate the ELO gives a good approximation of that skill-meter.
Even if the ELO-values in your exemple reflect perfectly the skill of both players that doesn't mean that B will necessarily win : The skill-meter only describes an average outcome -- if they play repeatedly against each other (without learning = changing their skill) B will win more often than A.

[FrankJones]

So, in this thread it has been stated (I'm paraphrasing from memory, not quoting verbatim):

1) Elo is better for zer0-luck games,
2) because it actually can be used to predict who "should" or "will" win.
3) Elo is bad for high-luck games because of the variance and volatility.


Sooooooooo ,

Suppose two players play:

Player A: 47 games, 47 wins, 486 Elo.
Player B: 34 games, 34 wins, 596 Elo.

What does Elo "predict"? Because I see no way anyone could conclude anything beyond "It's probably a 50/50 between two players who are likely both higher skilled than their current Elo indicates".

And yet one player stands to potentially lose 13 Elo or gain 7 Elo, while the other stands to potentially gain 13 Elo or lose 7 Elo. In a zero luck game.

In other words - Elo isn't perfect for zer0-luck games either. Because, a player's Elo in a zero luck game is not guaranteed to reflect the player's underlying ability.

I'm not sure what you're trying to show. You have to distinguish between ELO as a measure of past performance (always possible) and ELO as an approximation of a skill-meter. In the later case you have to wait until the value stabilizes (which is probably not the case for any of the players of your exemple) and you have to assume that measuring the skill with a single value is possible and that the formula you've used to calculate the ELO gives a good approximation of that skill-meter.
Even if the ELO-values in your exemple reflect perfectly the skill of both players that doesn't mean that B will necessarily win : The skill-meter only describes an average outcome -- if they play repeatedly against each other (without learning = changing their skill) B will win more often than A.

That's exactly the point I was making.

My post was a response to the notion expressed in this thread that Elo has little value in games that involve luck, but is infallible in zer0-luck games.

Regardless of the amount of luck in a game, Elo's ability to be a predicative tool has limitations.

[FSKFSK]

It is possible to have a system that fairly rates people for luck-based games, but that system isn't elo.

Someone asked "what does elo measure"? If someone has an elo of less than 100, they're new to playing that game on BGA. They may have already played in person and know the strategy well, or they might have only played a few times. If someone has an elo of exactly 100, that means they probably aren't very good at the game. I've seen people with an elo in the 200-300 range make boneheaded plays. The cutoff for "good player" varies by game.