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Pro Tier Open and Master Tier Open Prizes

• AvatarLee 1,644 Posts

  Mon, Apr 26 2010 1:21 PM

  Snaike:

  The only solution that comes to me is an advancement in tiers correlated to earnings.

  There is no other way to confront this type of scumbag that I can see.  There are no T&C violations, nothing black and white, but a glaringly large loophole that he/she has decided to call home.

  There is another way.... since the ONLY thing average does is determine which tier you play in for a tournament, the only thing that should affect average score are tournament rounds.  I know this can be somewhat exclusionary (if that's even a word) because of country gaming laws and such, so maybe make the average weighting something like 10:1 for tournament rounds vs. ranked rounds, and keep a lot more than just 10 of the last 14 scores.  

  Let's face it, this is not real life golf, there are always going to be people that manipulate the system who don't understand or appreciate the morals and honor of the sport in real life.  Some things from real life will simply not translate well here, and that includes this whole average score and tier determinations debacle.

   

• xSTILLFLY 66 Posts

  Mon, Apr 26 2010 6:14 PM

  AvatarLee:

  Snaike:

  The only solution that comes to me is an advancement in tiers correlated to earnings.

  There is no other way to confront this type of scumbag that I can see.  There are no T&C violations, nothing black and white, but a glaringly large loophole that he/she has decided to call home.

  There is another way.... since the ONLY thing average does is determine which tier you play in for a tournament, the only thing that should affect average score are tournament rounds.  I know this can be somewhat exclusionary (if that's even a word) because of country gaming laws and such, so maybe make the average weighting something like 10:1 for tournament rounds vs. ranked rounds, and keep a lot more than just 10 of the last 14 scores.  

  Let's face it, this is not real life golf, there are always going to be people that manipulate the system who don't understand or appreciate the morals and honor of the sport in real life.  Some things from real life will simply not translate well here, and that includes this whole average score and tier determinations debacle.

   

   

  How would that even work? I think every hole should count as a stat, regardless of quitting or not. that way if they do good or do bad the stat will stay

• AvatarLee 1,644 Posts

  Tue, Apr 27 2010 7:55 AM

  xSTILLFLY:

  How would that even work?

   Well, the way it is now, it's too easy to just post a couple of bad scores to inflate your average before you enter a 'premium' tournament (as shown in the score history posted above).  By making tournament scores worth more in your average than a regular ranked round, it would make it a lot harder (not impossible) to manipulate your average this way.  And it would be a truer representation of how you normally play when there is something on the line.  Being a tournament, it is also less likely that a person will turn in an outrageous card, because there is actually something on the line.  

  By having regular ranked rounds count at all allows those who are just starting or cannot enter anything but free tourneys to still progress in the average, it may just take more time (which I don't see as an issue because tier progression is too fast anyways!).

  As far as using only 10 of the last 14 scores, this only aids in the ability to sandbag.  Again if they were to use say 30 out of the last 40 rounds, and drop the bottom and top 5 scores, then the average is much harder to manipulate.

  *edit* you could also implement a maximum score submission of say no more than a certain number of strokes above your current average.

  But this is just a concept, WGT will address this issue as they see fit.  I'm just throwing out ideas, trying to help.

  P.S. this will probably also help with the reverse sandbaggers too (aka quitters)

  xSTILLFLY:

  I think every hole should count as a stat, regardless of quitting or not. that way if they do good or do bad the stat will stay

   Sorry, but this does nothing to deter the issue of sandbagging being discussed in this thread.  In fact it would probably make it easier.

• AvatarLee 1,644 Posts

  Tue, Apr 27 2010 3:27 PM

  HELLO...Hello...Hello....hello...

  Anybody out there...there...there....there...

  ECHO...Echo...Echo....echo...

  No, really, am I off base here?  Is this a smaller problem than we are making it out to be?  WGT are you listening? (I know you are Niv)

  Anything?

• WGTniv 1,788 Posts

  Tue, Apr 27 2010 4:44 PM

  Always listening.  Couple of things to respond to here...

  We will be changing the prize values in May so that the Master Tier prizes are more valuable.  It is that way in the majority of the tournaments offered, however there will be times when the prize values will be the same or similar in value.  It's not meant to encourage sandbagging, but rather to give the pros (the majority of whom are legitimate players) a chance to win a "big" prize too.

  Concerning sandbagging itself, that's a significantly large grey area.  What is sandbagging exactly?  The examples posted in this thread certainly illustrate some of the more blatant activity, but at what point does a player transform from simply being inconsistent to a full-fledged "sandbagger"?  3 strokes?  7 strokes?  Eventually you have to draw a line somewhere and no matter where you draw it, some folks will undoubtedly fall on the wrong side of it.  Just as in real life, it's a tough thing to set a policy for and usually must be left up to discretion.

  Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to manually monitor every user's scoring activity, so we will need to rely on reports from our players through the members@worldgolftour.com email address.  Let us know when you see unusual scoring trends over 20+ rounds like the examples shown earlier in the thread.  Send us a link to the profile and whatever data you have to support the claim. If you have legitimate reasons to suspect that someone may be using more than one player account please share them with us.  We'll do our best to investigate any claims and if during that process we find it necessary to re-evaluate the tier progression system we will certainly do that.

  I hope that answers everyone's questions. =)

• andyson 6,415 Posts

  Tue, Apr 27 2010 4:53 PM

  AvatarLee:

  Anybody out there...there...there....there...

  Is this a smaller problem than we are making it out to be?

  Right now it affects Pros only, and a whatever Master loses credits to a sandbagging Pro in a RG or other All Player tournament.  Add another tier and the problem grows though.

  Your initial method of only taking the last 30 or 40 tournament rounds, and dropping the top and bottom 5,  works pretty good with the one sandbagger's score I tested.   Dropped the average 2.4 strokes. 

  Doing the same for the non-tournament ranked roundsproduces an average 6 strokes higher than the current average, 8.4 higher than the tournament only average.

  Blending these two averages at a 10:1 ratio produced a new average 1.5 lower than the current avg..  The really, really high non tournament average bumped it almost a full point even though it was a 10:1 ratio.  So it still can be manipulated with non tourney rounds.

  Maybe just take the lowest of the two averages, as long as they are non-zero.

  Also, before either the tournament or non-tournament averages would be a factor, would be good to require a minimum of 5 or 10 rounds in each catagory.  Otherwise, if you play your 1st tournament and shoot 33, bam, you average is 66 and you drop a tier.

   

• SweetiePie 4,925 Posts

  Tue, Apr 27 2010 5:27 PM

  Tournament play at any level are hard to win at the 1st or 2nd place. Anyone who has been there knows that only supreme play will produce such high placing. This would seem to be an indication of where to look to identify sand. When any player wins several events, over and over and over again, with the exception of the Master grade, BINGO!! Real simple stuff even I can understand.

• pricehcs 288 Posts

  Tue, Apr 27 2010 8:30 PM

  Hey Niv,

  No doubt you are listening, very happy to have you straddling the river with a foot in each canoe.  Also happy to hear about the May prize plans. 
  
  The policy on multiple accounts and the ramifications they will bring is clear.  My question is, what is WGT's policy (formal or informal) on sandbagging?  

  Like you say, we may not be able to quantify it exactly, but we know it when we see it (see earlier examples).  What are the actions to be taken by WGT upon using its discretion to determine that a player is a sandbagger?

• neildiamond11790 1,115 Posts

  Wed, Apr 28 2010 7:29 AM

  I like Lee's idea about tourney averages, but I think they should keep 2 averages:

  1)  the one they use now or preferrably a handicap (roadmap feature I believe)

  2) a premium/ready go average

  Its too easy to blow an unlimited tourney to raise your score, and the payoffs on the single play are nothing huge, so those sandbaggers could skip those or blow them up on purpose.  A premium/ready average will identify who people really are.  Then just take a stroke difference between those 2 averages of say 4 shots (for 18 holes), anyone who shoots 4 strokes or better with at least 10 ranked rounds gets placed in a tier to their tourney average.  I cant see anybody really arguing that they were unfairly placed if they are shooting 2 strokes per side better than their normal average.

  But some people will always blame it on ninja cats:

  

   

• griffygriff 597 Posts

  Wed, Apr 28 2010 10:47 AM

  Ninja cats have ruined many a score card over the years. But we shouldn't blame the cats, we should blame the owners who train them.