Would you like to see ELO ratings applied to pro players?

[driversbeat]

The fact that Ayhika Mukherjee and to a lesser extent Hirano barely benefit from their wins over Sun Yingsha is evidence that the current ranking system sucks. Wang Yidi also wouldn't be ranked no.2 with ELO ratings. A win against WR1 should not be the same as a win against WR999, and players shouldn't be rewarded for playing more tournaments badly.

 

[NextLevel]

The fact that Ayhika Mukherjee and to a lesser extent Hirano barely benefit from their wins over Sun Yingsha is evidence that the current ranking system sucks. Wang Yidi also wouldn't be ranked no.2 with ELO ratings. A win against WR1 should not be the same as a win against WR999, and players shouldn't be rewarded for playing more tournaments badly.

This perspective is a bit one-sided, there are many situations where world ranking in points based systems does perform better than ELO. It's ultimately a balancing act, and the points systems do encourage tour participation to maintain ranking, while ELO systems were difficult to use to encourage activity. Tennis has a points system with all the strengths and weaknesses there in and it doesn't have that many people complaining about it because it has been around forever. They used to have bonus points for beating top ranked players then they eliminated them because it didn't do much. You can't sell a tour if participation isn't the priority.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

The fact that Ayhika Mukherjee and to a lesser extent Hirano barely benefit from their wins over Sun Yingsha is evidence that the current ranking system sucks. Wang Yidi also wouldn't be ranked no.2 with ELO ratings. A win against WR1 should not be the same as a win against WR999, and players shouldn't be rewarded for playing more tournaments badly.

A win against WR1 in a teams format is the biggest issue

If India does get to 5th position, which I doubt.
Ayhika will get 5+ points at best.
And the calculation is by number of wins, not against who

Here Qualification exit has more points than winning in teams

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

This perspective is a bit one-sided, there are many situations where world ranking in points based systems does perform better than ELO. It's ultimately a balancing act, and the points systems do encourage tour participation to maintain ranking, while ELO systems were difficult to use to encourage activity. Tennis has a points system with all the strengths and weaknesses there in and it doesn't have that many people complaining about it because it has been around forever. They used to have bonus points for beating top ranked players then they eliminated them because it didn't do much. You can't sell a tour if participation isn't the priority.

you just can't balance continental
there need to be another way to balance continental

Asian players outside of the top 3 countries are all at a disadvantage.

ELO with "non active" temporary point reduction, I think is the best option, other than rising prize money to encourage participation

the current system has been scrutinized for a while now and good wins does mean nothing, especially teams

 

[driversbeat]

This perspective is a bit one-sided, there are many situations where world ranking in points based systems does perform better than ELO. It's ultimately a balancing act, and the points systems do encourage tour participation to maintain ranking, while ELO systems were difficult to use to encourage activity. Tennis has a points system with all the strengths and weaknesses there in and it doesn't have that many people complaining about it because it has been around forever. They used to have bonus points for beating top ranked players then they eliminated them because it didn't do much. You can't sell a tour if participation isn't the priority.

You said it yourself, this system prioritises commercialisation over the reflection of actual strength. Of course balance is needed, but the volatility of the current system has been a known fact for awhile. Let points expire after two years, or at least halve the points after the one year mark, give bonus points for beating higher ranked players, deductions for losing to lower ranked players. So many ideas to make a more nuanced system and you can't tell me that it's not doable with 2024 technology. The current ranking system lacks nuance. It's all about the luck of the draw and how far you make it within the prestige level of a tournament, not the actual level of the opponents you face.

Edit: And if you're talking about encouraging participation, the fact that Lily, Amy, and Calderano chose to sit out of WTTC of all events shows that the current ranking system isn't doing it's job in that aspect either. Same case with Timo and Ovtcharov for WTTC 2022, and the whole debacle with gathering enough Japanese players for XTC 2023.

 

[NextLevel]

You said it yourself, this system prioritises commercialisation over the reflection of actual strength. Of course balance is needed, but the volatility of the current system has been a known fact for awhile. Let points expire after two years, or at least halve the points after the one year mark, give bonus points for beating higher ranked players, deductions for losing to lower ranked players. So many ideas to make a more nuanced system and you can't tell me that it's not doable with 2024 technology. The current ranking system lacks nuance. It's all about the luck of the draw and how far you make it within the prestige level of a tournament, not the actual level of the opponents you face.

Edit: And if you're talking about encouraging participation, the fact that Lily, Amy, and Calderano chose to sit out of WTTC of all events shows that the current ranking system isn't doing it's job in that aspect either. Same case with Timo and Ovtcharov for WTTC 2022, and the whole debacle with gathering enough Japanese players for XTC 2023.

We are mixing up a few points here (whether the current system should give points for tesm events or continental events or national events) vs tour events vs points and ELO. The WTT is trying to create a professional tour in an atmosphere where national affiliation is the core of the tour. There are problems. But just pointing out that those are not the same as the limitations of the ranking system. The points ranking system in addition to encouraging participation has a results standardizing effect - you get rewarded not for who you beat, but how well you play at events. Is it more important to beat the WR #1 or to win the event? That teams events don't easily fit in one thing, but it is not the same as saying that point systems don't work or are flawed.

 

[TensorBackhand]

The fact that Ayhika Mukherjee and to a lesser extent Hirano barely benefit from their wins over Sun Yingsha is evidence that the current ranking system sucks. Wang Yidi also wouldn't be ranked no.2 with ELO ratings. A win against WR1 should not be the same as a win against WR999, and players shouldn't be rewarded for playing more tournaments badly.

I agree!

Does anybody have the link to that Andro ELO tracker? Did Ayhika get a lot of points for her big win?

 

[Metaxa]

I agree!

Does anybody have the link to that Andro ELO tracker? Did Ayhika get a lot of points for her big win?

I think the Andro list is only for players from the German league.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

If you start "decaying" ratings due to lack of play then all the ratings will start to trend downwards. There will need to be some way of "adding" rating points back.

This is where Rating Central is superior to the ITTF or ELO. Ratings Central adds a variance to a player's rating that increases by 70 each year. Ratings with large variances are not as significant and will vary more due to wins and losses. So a player that doesn't play for a while will be hurt a lot if he doesn't win when he plays again.

There are many pro players and countries that already use Ratings Central.

I like rating central and have no problem with it

the current ittf, it is inflated to some extend and then also start going downwards with no activity. This is more obvious when a major tournament point, ie continental 500 points is gone from that month/week.

but I do agree with driversbeat, the current rating is based on luck of draw and hope you get easier opponent, to give you a chance of higher points
and then the interesting part where if you can beat WR1 in round 1, but if you loose in the 2nd round, your reward as a good as beating WR 1000 and will walk away with a round 1 win, just like all the other round 2 losers.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

BTW back in the late 1980s I entered my first and only chess tournament. I got a rating of 2057. In the US that is called expert and everywhere else it is candidate master. Life got in the way and so did making money. I would rather have the money than the rating. I think the table tennis pros think the same way.

Basically, money is more important that ratings.

I'm in circles with many national player and I know what you mean.

For them, world ranking is only as good as seeding purposes and getting into the national team without trial (up to 3 gets direct qualification if higher ranked than wr50).
Top 5 in the national team gets into world champs.
So the "glory" isn't WTT tours, but rather OG and WTTC/WTTTC

Other than that, they have funding to travel, otherwise, the prize money on WTT is a joke. I can't say players from other countries get all expense paid for, but for someone like Lily who won USD450 prize money, that isn't even enough to cover her entry fee + hotel bill at that event she won. So if the winner works away in financial arrears...that is a massive problem.

With all expense paid for, and if you young, it is "okay" to travel the world, experience different WTT events, but playing career is very short. You train from 8 to 21, (35+ hours a week, for 50 weeks a year, for 14 years), and hope to have an income as a player from 21~30.... so when players cry that the overheads are high and prize money is low, it is a big problem.

However, once you have some "good" world ranking, and in the OG of WTTC/WTTTC, you can get into more lucrative contracts with leagues in Japan, Germany, etc. That money there is easily way more than what you get in WTT.

That is why I am in the view that TT should not be a WTT, world tournament financial model, but rather be club models, since clubs have more money to look after players and have lower overheads.

I don't see FIFA or FIBA sceduling too many internatonal tournaments, so why does ITTF think they should flood the calender with 50+ tournaments a year. TT can't be like Tennis without the money, so they are trying with no ammonition

 

[Grumms]

Magnus Carlsen has a rating of 2880, the best Chess player in the world.

Apart from ITTF rankings, would you like to see ELO-style ratings also recorded for pro tour players? I would love to see this, it gives a fairly objective and formulaic way to see which players are best.

One of the cons of Elo is that, if you don't play for years, your Elo stays the same. Imagine Wang Chuqin does not any tournament for 1 year, it would be still n°1, which is not what would make the Tour very interesting.

 

[dingyibvs]

One of the cons of Elo is that, if you don't play for years, your Elo stays the same. Imagine Wang Chuqin does not any tournament for 1 year, it would be still n°1, which is not what would make the Tour very interesting.

That's a super simple fix. In the old ITTF rankings system inactive players simply don't get ranked regardless of their rating.

 

[Metaxa]

One of the cons of Elo is that, if you don't play for years, your Elo stays the same. Imagine Wang Chuqin does not any tournament for 1 year, it would be still n°1, which is not what would make the Tour very interesting.

Mmmmm, surely if his opponents accumulate points they can finish above him?

 

[Grumms]

That's a super simple fix. In the old ITTF rankings system inactive players simply don't get ranked regardless of their rating.

For how long? 2 months? 6 months? 2 years? What if the player is injured?

 

[Grumms]

Mmmmm, surely if his opponents accumulate points they can finish above him?

That's not how Elo works for the very top elite. The nº1 win almost no point again lower ranked player, and on defeat can make lose more point than 10 victories.

In chess, if Kasparov had decided to play gain last year, he would have qualified for the candidates after 30 random games.

 

[dingyibvs]

For how long? 2 months? 6 months? 2 years? What if the player is injured?

I think it was 1 year. When injured players start playing again they reclaim their previous rating.