One year left

[spherulitic]

UPDATED 8 Aug
Updated with latest Berkley results. Also I've broken out CSW and OWL peak ratings for people who may qualify on either.
To review:

• The US will have 14 spots at the next WSC
• drbing is the man
• Three spots will be decided at a qualifying tournament
• This leaves ten spots by rating
• Peak rating requirements:
  • Must have played 65 games
  • Must have played 30

Comments

[jalapic]

Am I the only person that feels that qualification ideally should have nothing whatsoever to do with TWL rating? I think that it should be by WESPA rating, then Collins Rating. I understand that for the last qualification period there were not sufficient players and TWL ratings were used to encourage more people to put their names down as potentially playing at the Worlds. However, there are sufficient CSW tournaments now. I don't buy the argument that if you are top in TWL then you should go and it will only take you a month or two of booking up to get as good at Collins. If you are that good, then I don't see how difficult it would be to play in one or two Collins tournaments to qualify.

This is just my view. It's impartial in the sense that I'm not American. It's not impartial in the sense that I would like the Collins community to grow.

[spherulitic]

You're not the only one; it's my guess that the +50 is a compromise between that view and the old status quo.

Not sure there's enough data points in WESPA ratings to use that vs NASPA CSW ratings but I do envision a glorious day when everything is solely WESPA rated and we only have one huge rating system. (Right now I think I have about five different ratings across the world.)

[jalapic]

Perhaps a separate thread is required for discussion of WESPA ratings. I welcome their willingness to rate every single NASPA sanctioned Collins tournament. I think that's great. I am a bit perplexed though that mostly elsewhere in the world they only rate big international tournaments or big national/majors type tourneys. I presume this is to stop people sandbagging local tournaments to artificially pump their rating. I'm not so sure that this would be such a big problem, and surely the ideal is to have one rating system that can be used universally for all tournaments.

[spherulitic]

I'm not sure that the one universal rating is the ideal espoused by WESPA but it shore would be nice. AFAIK WESPA rating every North American CSW tournament is an exception to their policy since for the longest time there was no way to rate North American CSW tournaments. Now that we have a NASPA CSW system, does WESPA get out of the ratings game except for tournaments which truly are international, or does it try and absorb more data points by expanding its rating sphere? I'd hope the latter.

[dugy1001]

This is awesome, thanks!! My 14 games were CSW, not OWL, by the way (and as you know).

[jalapic]

Sam- if you're around NY/NJ area this Summer, let me know if you're keen for CSW games. Cheers - James

[skin_it_mahatma]

most definitely! thanks james. vegas2013 flyer will be out by end of coming month, btw: you'll like some of the enhancements to the csw structure.

[jalapic]

cool. I'm looking forward to the tournament.

My offer of NY/NJ games is open to any Sam, or anyone else for that matter!

[magratheazaphod]

the +50 for collins ratings thing is completely ridiculous. I will keep saying this.

[spherulitic]

I kinda think it shoulda been based on CSW rating only -- to ensure that the team members representing us have a certain proficiency with the dictionary. But, shrug. I suppose it was a compromise.

[magratheazaphod]

I agree, CSW rating only. I understand that this would leave out some very good players (Koenig, for instance, wouldn't have qualified last year, but I'm not sure he would have objected if he were required to play a Collins tourney or two beforehand).

As much as I would love to be in the running for this, by rating it doesn't look promising. It might help if I played more than three tourneys a year. I guess the qualifying tournament is my only hope.

Lucas

[cesarsalad]

Yeah that's absurd. I would love to go to Worlds if I qualify.

[jalapic]

Chris - I have an extra question about this. I tried looking on the NASPA wiki but couldn't find it.

RE the qualifying tournament.

- is it one tourney or multiple?
- is it played in CSW
- if let's say the top 5 players had already qualified for worlds, would players that finish 6-8 in that tournament qualify or would the next 3 players down the list above qualify?

I still find it odd that one's TWL rating has anything to do with this. You either want to play Collins tournaments or you don't surely? (this last question is rhetorical, not expecting an answer for that one).

thanks.

[spherulitic]

The QT is one tournament, probably held in June or July 2013, location TBD. It is a CSW tournament, and the only allowed entrants are people who a) have not already qualified on rating / being Dave Wiegand and b) are committing themselves to attend the WSC should they finish in the top three.

[wordslinger_eh]

I'm not sure why people are so enamoured of WESPA ratings. The WESPA rating system was so flawed that there was just a major overhaul, with new ratings backdated to 2004. Even with this improvement, the WESPA ratings suffer from the major flaw that they are based on very few tournaments. I think that NASPA Collins ratings are based on a sounder rating system, and are more reliable for choosing US (and Canadian) participants to the WSC because the contestants are much more likely to have played rated games against each other multiple times. More data = more reliability. I also disagree about TWL ratings. I think TWL ability is relatively easily transferrable to CSW play, especially at the expert level. Someone who qualifies via their TWL rating who makes the effort will do well at the WSC, imo.

[spherulitic]

I suppose the argument isn't that top OWL players can't easily become top CSW players if they put in the effort, but that the players with top CSW ratings already *have* put in the effort. Having players on the team who show up but don't put forth their A games is a problem.

[jalapic]

I think Tony makes some sound points about WESPA and the reliability of data. I agree too with Chris - Given enough games, those players with the top TWL ratings are going to be the same people with the top CSW ratings. I think the issue is with people acquiring a top CSW rating without having played hardly any CSW games. Those people are going to be the top CSW players in the future, but at this moment in time they may not be.

[eurobikermcdog]

I agree with this. Someone like me whose NASPA rating is high could qualify for Worlds and then not prepare well enough and do terribly. I'd end up with a high WESPA rating but wouldn't do the team proud.