It is October, and for those that follow USTA League you know that Nationals are taking place for the 18 & over and 40 & over men's and women's leagues.
A few of the levels have finished, and as is usually the case, particularly at the lower levels, the observations and accusations about players that appear to have skills well above the level they are playing at and are sandbagging are flying.
The scenario is this. Players that haven't played USTA League before self-rate according to documented guidelines. Unscrupulous captains and players may deliberately rate a level or two too low in order to have a competitive advantage. There are provisions in place to automatically bump a player up a level if their results indicate they self-rated too low, but at the lower levels, there is a large buffer to allow a player to improve without getting disqualified at a given level.
The result is that you find several to many of these players at Nationals, someone that looks like a 3.5 or even perhaps a 4.0, playing at 3.0 for example. One could argue that to get to Nationals and do well, you actually need to have several of these players on your roster and there is some truth to that. If you are the best from your area, district, and section, you probably are playing at the very top of it not above the level in question.
Now, one might argue, and many have, that an easy solution to this is to not allow self-rated players to play in the playoffs or at least not allow them to play at Nationals or Sectionals. There is some merit to this, but it would only be a partial solution as it only delays the problem and doesn't address a segment of the players at Nationals.
Go back to the scenario above. If our player is really a 3.0 and self-rates at 2.5, they likely get bumped up to 3.0 at year end and have a 3.0C rating. Now, in playing a year, they probably improved some and are able to play at a 3.5 level. But they are a 3.0C so they sign up for a 3.0 league the next year, and with a little coordination join a team that has a few other players in their same situation. They dominate their local league, start getting excited about the possibility of going to Nationals and get some lessons and their games improve to a near 4.0 level.
This team now shows up at Nationals and looks like a bunch of sandbaggers, just like the self-rated player would look, but they have followed all the rules and are C-rated players so can't be DQ'd and the proposed rule not allowing self-rates to go to Nationals doesn't affect them.
Second, players playing well above their level didn't necessarily self-rate too low. Some players simply decide to improve their game and the yearly cycle of re-leveling players allows for someone to improve enough to be well above their level.
This second issue is just an unavoidable part of having tiers/levels of play and these players shouldn't be punished. There will always be players at the top of the tier and even above it that are on their way to being bumped up. The very nature of Nationals dictates that you have to have these players to get there, so we shouldn't expect 3.0 Nationals to look like a regular season 3.0 match in our local league play. By definition almost, it is going to look like 3.5 players.
Now what I'd propose would help address the first issue of self-rated players self-rating too low would be two things.
First, while I can see the argument for not allowing them to go to playoffs, another solution would be to tighten up the buffer given to allow for natural improvement. Simply lower the threshold for strikes and these players would get DQ'd and bumped up and be ineligible to play on the team.
Second, and more important, I would institute a rule that any self-rated player that gets DQ'd or bumped up in their first year should be treated as a self-rated player again the next year. And if it happens in their first two years, they are still treated as self-rated in year three, etc. I don't think you could extend any prohibition on going to Nationals to year two, but this would at least preclude them from sandbagging their first year to get a C rating and then being protected from DQs.
There is no panacea for this, having levels of play will always result in issues where the levels meet, but a few minor changes could reduce the opportunity sandbaggers have to cheat the system.
There is a way to stop much of this: punish the captains! When a captain repeatedly has players self-rate far out of level, the captain should be suspended from all USTA activity for a few years, and should be kept under a watchful eye when (s)he returns. For example the 7.0 mixed national champions from the eastern third of the country were carried by two self-rated 3.5 men, who two years later were rated 4.5 and 5.0. I think captains should be punished for abusing the self-rating system in this way. Actually I checked that that captain did the same thing every year, getting a new batch of self-rated players who all got bumped up one or more levels after one season. Stopping this sort of perennial ratings-cheat would go a long ways towards making the USTA leagues serve their intended purpose of letting players play competitive matches against opponents at around the same skill level.
ReplyDeleteClarification: these were the 7.0 champions from 2008. Having two players who never lost guaranteed they would be national champions, but 5.0's have no business rating themselves as 3.5's.
DeleteYour suggestion is a good idea, the key thing though will be how you determine "abuse". I don't think it can simply be having players that get bumped up, that is a normal thing that happens. Perhaps it could captains that repeatedly have players that get DQd? But in the example you provide, they are playing mixed where DQs don't really happen so not sure what you could do.
DeleteMixed in a whole other beast in and of itself that is open to abuse since it has its own set of ratings that don't matter if you have a gender specific rating.
Also, if you go with something that only looks at DQd players, that only stops part of the issue.
I would still be a proponent of tightening up the thresholds and requiring any DQd player to be treated as self-rated the next year so they are subject to DQ again.
If a captain repeatedly self-rates players whose rating goes up by 1.0 or more within two years, that's a sign that the captain is getting players to self-rate too low, and the captain should be punished. Going up by 0.5 I can understand, but not 1.0, and definitely not 1.5. I would enforce this especially strongly in mixed, where it is so easy for correctly-rated players to win by bringing in a new incorrectly-self-rated partner every year. Also if a captain repeatedly has self-rated players who get DQed because they violate the elite player guidelines, then again I would kick out the captain for a few years.
DeleteDQs are so rare in adult leagues that they don't impact things much. Anyway, I think it's a great idea to treat DQed players as self-rated the next year. I'm also fine with tightening the DQ thresholds. Also, in addition to not letting self-rated players play in the playoffs, I would bump up self-rated players at the end of the year if their rating was within 0.15 of the threshold. I would do this because the levels overlap enough so that the player could surely compete well at the next higher level. It doesn't make sense to me that a self-rated player should self-rate at a level where he/she is one of the top players, if the player could compete at the next higher level. The playoffs should reward long-term improvement, rather than the willingness of a player to join the system with an inappropriately low number by his/her name.
I would also compute mixed ratings for players who play in adult leagues, and examine cases where those ratings differ by too much. For instance, I have seen some very strong players who dominate mixed doubles nationals every year, but keep their ratings down by playing a few adult matches each year and losing them 6-0 6-0. In cases like these, I would ignore the adult matches and base the new rating on the mixed rating.
Finally, I don't know what the rule is now, but a few years ago it was the case that if a player self-rates in violation of the elite player guidelines, but nobody finds the player's history and files a complaint during the self-rate year, then the player can continue with the computer rating gotten at the end of that year. If people later find that the player used a different name (say) when playing on the ATP tour, then nothing can be done about the fact that the player previously violated the elite player guidelines, as long as the player has generated a computer rating. This seems ridiculous to me.
I have always felt a player should not be eligible for the playoffs until he has played in 10 USTA matches or Usta sanctioned tournaments. After the 10th match his rating is adjusted, and if still down he is eligible for the playoffs at that level. If the player wishes to throw this many matches for the sake of a lower level championship, then he deserves one and can display their trophy with pride. It would be tough to make the playoffs after throwing that many matches..Just my two cents worth. I have been burned on both ends of sandbagging, and agree it needs to stop..BTW great site....Rudd McGarity PNW Northern Oregon
ReplyDeleteAgreed - that is how USCF (Chess) is done. You get a "provisional rating" until you have played enough matches to get your real rating. Also their ratings are live so you can instantly see what are the rating changes for each match won or loss.
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