FAQ

Unlike high jumpers, who have height, swimmers, who have time, and javelin throwers, who have distance, pool players –pocket billiard players—have no absolute measure of performance. Skill at pool, like skill at chess, must be based on relative performance—upon who beats whom.

FargoRate rates pool players worldwide on the same scale based on games won and lost against opponents of known rating. We compute the optimum set of ratings—also known as maximum likelihood ratings—as those that best predict the outcome of all of the games amongst all of the players.

Professional players generally have ratings between 700 and 800. A random company holiday party might have many players rated between 50 and 200. Most people who play pool in leagues and tournaments are between these ranges, i.e., between 200 and 700. There is no top and no bottom to the scale.

Games are added to our dataset every day. And a new rating optimization, coupling everybody together around the globe, is performed every day.