Is your handicap league fair?

[bltuneup]

Hi guys. I’m new to this forum, but I’ve been a league bowler for decades. I’ve always wondered whether my handicap leagues were truly fair. That is, did all teams have a realistic chance of success? That’s obviously true when the handicap percentage is 100% (and the handicap base is high enough), but what about the majority of leagues that use a lower percentage to give a deserved advantage to teams with higher averages?

In recent years, my team finished near or at the bottom of the standings for 10 straight seasons in my company’s bowling league, which used a 90% handicap percentage. Even when we bowled well relative to our capabilities, our results were always the same. This seemed to be strong evidence our league was not fair. But could I prove it? I decided to put my background in math and computer programming to work to see if I could.

In researching this subject, I found no evidence anyone had ever taken a scientific approach to determining the proper handicap percentage to assure a particular league’s fairness. Instead, I found huge amounts of misinformation and cockamamie theories being disseminated on a multitude of bowling websites. (No…allowing negative handicaps or setting the handicap base number too high does not punish good teams! No…putting an upper limit on handicaps or setting the handicap base number too low does not promote fairness…it destroys fairness!)

I was particularly horrified to find that the worst offender in the misinformation department was the U.S. Bowling Congress itself, with that ridiculous study of theirs that concluded the playing field isn’t completely leveled until the handicap percentage goes all the way up to 116%. If anyone were ever silly enough to set up a league this way (I sure hope no one has!), the poorest teams would win almost every season.

After five years of research and coding, I am proud to have created an app called Bowling League Tuneup that does what I believe no software has ever done before. It evaluates a league’s fairness and helps find a league’s optimal handicap formula, given the attributes of the league and its specific mix of bowlers and teams. It determines each team’s odds of success (you know your odds when you play blackjack or craps…you should know them when you enter a bowling league too!), and it can also detect sandbagging and dumping, help explain league outcomes, and produce bowler performance sheets that can be distributed to league bowlers.

My app showed that, as I suspected, our company league was grossly unfair. Poorer teams like mine would have needed superhuman performances to have had a fighting chance against the higher-average teams. After using my app to evaluate many other leagues, I can say the league fairness problem appears to be widespread.

I of course want to make Bowling League Tuneup known to league bowlers far and wide, and I invite everyone to get more information about it at http://www.bltuneup.com. But my primary goal in writing here is to find out if the bowling community shares my perceptions and concerns about league unfairness and its effects on the popularity of league bowling. I would also love to help dispel the misinformation floating around in cyberspace about the proper ways to set up handicap leagues. I’d greatly value the thoughts and questions any of you might care to share. Thanks!

[bowl1820]

Okay basically ad for bowling software.

Give us a example of a league and the fair handicap your software came up with and explain why it is fair?

[bltuneup]

Okay basically ad for bowling software.

Give us a example of a league and the fair handicap your software came up with and explain why it is fair?

OK, now I’m sorry I put in my URL. Please don’t consider this to be an advertisement. I am not a company trying to find a free place to advertise. I am genuinely a league bowler who has been obsessed (to an unhealthy degree) with the issue of league fairness since I found my league to be grossly unfair way back in 2009.

But all the work I put into creating software seems to have been the easy part. Getting the bowling community to know about what I’ve done is the hard part. This looks like a very popular bowling site, so I thought I’d post here.

I know this is a problem at my own bowling center here in the Los Angeles area. They said they can no longer fill their leagues because people are sick of seeing the same teams winning season after season. That should not happen in a handicap league. What team would join a league knowing they have almost no chance of success?

To answer your request for an example, I’ll use the small 16-week 2009 summer league I was in that served as my motivation for beginning my project. Our handicap formula was 90% of 220. But one bowler got his average up to 233. Since negative handicaps were not allowed, his handicap bottomed out at zero, giving him and his team a tremendous unfair advantage. I was stunned to find that most league bowlers thought he was actually at a disadvantage because we all had handicaps and he didn’t. I found that trying to explain basic arithmetic to my fellow bowlers was futile.

There were eight teams in the league with averages of: 769, 719, 712, 707, 699, 591, 590, and 577. Yes, this is a huge range of averages, which was of course one of the problems. (I was on the worst team, of course.) The 233 bowler was on the team with the 712 average. So we have two questions to answer:

1. If every team bowled basically their average in this league, what were each team’s chances of a first-place finish with a handicap formula of 90% of 220 and negative handicaps not allowed?

2. What would those chances be if the handicap formula were changed to 90% of 240 to accommodate the 233-average bowler?

You’d think (or at least I would) that someone somewhere would have had software that could make such a computation. Not that I can find. So I made my own software, which calculates the chances of each team coming in each possible place of finish. The approximate probabilities of each team coming in first place, using the original handicap, are as follows:

769: 23.9%, 719: 12.2%, 712: 47.4%, 707: 10.2%, 699: 9.0%, 591: 1.3%, 590: 1.3%, 577: 1.0%

Results total a little over 100% because ties credit both teams with the higher place of finish. Notice that the third-best team can be expected to come in first place almost one season out of two. And guess what? That team ran away with first place that season.

Adjusting the handicap to 90% of 240 (or just allowing negative handicaps) changes the results to this:

769: 35.1%, 719: 18.5%, 712: 16.8%, 707: 15.7%, 699: 14.1%, 591: 2.3%, 590: 2.3%, 577: 1.8%

The 233 bowler no longer had an unfair advantage, so at least now the results have a correlation between team average and expected chances of success. BUT…this league is still horribly unfair, with the three poorest teams expected to come in first place about one season for every 15 or 20 seasons the best team will.

Adjusting the handicap formula to 95% of 240 puts more emphasis on bowling well relative to ability and less emphasis on high scoring. The results now:

769: 24.2%, 719: 17.2%, 712: 16.3%, 707: 15.9%, 699: 14.9%, 591: 6.5%, 590: 6.4%, 577: 5.9%

You can see how much fairer this league would be. You can also do what I call “what-if” analyses to determine what kinds of performances a team like mine would need to have the kinds of chances the best teams would have.

There is much more to explain, including how things like league length and splitting seasons affects teams’ chances, but this note is far too long already. I just want to make it clear what my software does and – most importantly – that way too many leagues are simply not fair because there have never been any tools to measure fairness. Unfair leagues are killing league bowling and I don’t want that to happen!

I understand your skepticism about my intentions here, but please please believe me that I’m not just here to sell something.

[bowl1820]

Taking a quick look through the manual, it's similar to a Sabermetrics program.

It's basically taking statistical data on player performance and using that to track trends and compute the probability of who will win and then allowing you to adjust the parameters to get the out come you want. So you could set up a league based on those new parameters.

The program looks good, I'll have to read the manual more in depth (the idea of dual handicaps in a split season looked interesting.) and try the free trial.

[Aslan]

I've been in 80% 240, 90% 220, scratch, and 100% 210.

As far as how fair they "Seemed"...

4) Scratch- Because the absent bowler got a 160 average in a sport league...so if you don't average 160...you're always hurting your team.
3) 100% of any number is just silly. My team was relatively BAD...3 guys that have rarely bowled and one guy that hasn't bowled in decades...and we finished 4th.
2) 80% 240 seemed stupid because nobody in the league even averaged over 220...and guys with high averages were still getting handicap...making it even harder on below average teams to be competitive.
1) 90% 220 seemed fair. The better teams were near the top of the standings...but so were some lesser teams.

There's no perfect system. The teams that generally win...have a formula that works well in handicap leagues. 2 above average bowlers, a good female bowler, and 2 low-level bowlers that will get better. The good guys sandbag in the first few weeks...the low level guys establish horrible averages...and then the better bowlers start performing while the beginners learn the game and rapidly improve.

My team right now is completely non-competitive. We have no chance of ever winning. Because we have a 100 average girl bowler with no interest in bowling "properly" and we have an elderly guy that isn't going to get any better. Since they rarely have a really good game (much less series)....their handicap doesn't come into play. If I was putting together a team to dominate a handicap mixed house league...I'd find an elite male anchor, an elite/good female, and then I'd look for two young men that are new but taking lessons, practicing, etc... Then the next season, I'd replace the two new guys with two other new guys that practice, take lessons, etc... You'll win every year.

[bltuneup]

Taking a quick look through the manual, it's similar to a Sabermetrics program.

It's basically taking statistical data on player performance and using that to track trends and compute the probability of who will win and then allowing you to adjust the parameters to get the out come you want. So you could set up a league based on those new parameters.

The program looks good, I'll have to read the manual more in depth (the idea of dual handicaps in a split season looked interesting.) and try the free trial.

Yes, that’s basically it. This tool allows a league manager to set a handicap formula that gives appropriate weights to the two main factors that influence a team’s success in a handicap league: average and performance relative to average. Once that’s been done for a league, the teams joining the league can be assured it has been configured to give every team a realistic chance to succeed. I don’t know of any other tool that can give league bowlers that assurance.

Again, I am trying to ascertain how much of a problem league fairness has been considered to be by league bowlers. I must admit that for my first 20 or 30 years of league bowling, I just assumed that the standard handicap formula my bowling centers have used for all their leagues must work just fine. Now I know that is not the case. I would love to hear from forum participants about whether you perceive fairness (assuring every team has a fighting chance to succeed) to be a potential problem in your own handicap leagues. If this is a problem that is not perceived to even exist, that will obviously be a pretty big impediment to my pitching a solution!

bowl1820, I really appreciate your interest and would greatly value any feedback you may have!

[bowl1820]

Again, I am trying to ascertain how much of a problem league fairness has been considered to be by league bowlers.

Given if you go by just what has been said on the bowling forums, the perceived problem with the current handicap system is that it gives low average bowlers/teams too much of advantage. Which causes the secondary problem being that of sandbagging.

For the years that handicap horse has been beat to death, the main conclusion which everyone seems to have reached.

Is that it's not so much the handicap system, it's the fact that easy conditions and ball advancements allow lower average bowlers to bowl more over their average, more often than higher average bowlers are able to.

There is also the thought that the average system currently used is part of the problem, in that it doesn't represent the bowlers true ability well enough. Thus skewing the amount of handicap a bowler receives.

This connected with the high handicaps that low average bowler/teams have, is perceived as making it unfair to high average bowlers/Teams. (The high average bowlers always over look the long term statistics that show they win more often than not.)

As for sandbagging again given if you go by just what has been said on the bowling forums. Then everyone is a sandbagger except for "Me and Thee".

[bltuneup]

I've been in 80% 240, 90% 220, scratch, and 100% 210.

As far as how fair they "Seemed"...

4) Scratch- Because the absent bowler got a 160 average in a sport league...so if you don't average 160...you're always hurting your team.
3) 100% of any number is just silly. My team was relatively BAD...3 guys that have rarely bowled and one guy that hasn't bowled in decades...and we finished 4th.
2) 80% 240 seemed stupid because nobody in the league even averaged over 220...and guys with high averages were still getting handicap...making it even harder on below average teams to be competitive.
1) 90% 220 seemed fair. The better teams were near the top of the standings...but so were some lesser teams.

There's no perfect system. The teams that generally win...have a formula that works well in handicap leagues. 2 above average bowlers, a good female bowler, and 2 low-level bowlers that will get better. The good guys sandbag in the first few weeks...the low level guys establish horrible averages...and then the better bowlers start performing while the beginners learn the game and rapidly improve.

My team right now is completely non-competitive. We have no chance of ever winning. Because we have a 100 average girl bowler with no interest in bowling "properly" and we have an elderly guy that isn't going to get any better. Since they rarely have a really good game (much less series)....their handicap doesn't come into play. If I was putting together a team to dominate a handicap mixed house league...I'd find an elite male anchor, an elite/good female, and then I'd look for two young men that are new but taking lessons, practicing, etc... Then the next season, I'd replace the two new guys with two other new guys that practice, take lessons, etc... You'll win every year.

Aslan, you’ve put your finger on a key to success in a handicap league: in-season improvement. Lower handicap percentages put more emphasis on high scoring; higher handicap percentages put more emphasis on improvement…specifically, on bowling better each week than whatever average is being used to set your handicap. This is, of course, why sandbagging is such a huge problem.

Fortunately, as my app shows, the use of book averages for some number of weeks to start the season is highly effective in preventing sandbaggers from cheating the system. I think all handicap leagues should use book averages for this reason.

You said the 240 base number of the handicap formula was “stupid” because no one in the league was averaging anywhere near that. The base number is in the formula solely to turn high averages into low handicaps and low averages into high handicaps via subtraction. It is not there to influence competitiveness; that’s what the percentage is for. Whether that number is 240 or 260 or even 300, the results of your league would be exactly the same!

Suppose the league’s best bowler had an average of 220 and you had an average of 180. If the formula were 90% of 220, your handicaps would be 0 and 36, respectively. In other words, you’d get 36 more pins added to each game you bowled than he would…almost, but not quite, making up for the 40-pin difference in your averages. If the formula were 90% of 240, your handicaps would be 18 and 54. You’d still get 36 more pins added to each game than he would. So he gets no advantage from that handicap. Even if the formula were 90% of 300, there’d still be a 36-pin difference between your handicaps. High numbers have no effect on a below-average team’s ability to be competitive!

Low base numbers, on the other hand, can take a fair league and destroy it. If the handicap formula were 90% of 200, the 220 bowler would have a handicap of 0, while you’d have a handicap of 18. Before, if you both bowled your averages, you’d lose by 4 pins; now you’d lose by 22 pins. You’ve essentially said to the 220 bowler that you’ll let him add 18 extra pins to every game he bowls before determining the winner. You’d never overcome that kind of disadvantage in the long run.

The only problem with using high base numbers is that handicap scores tend not to look like bowling scores anymore. It looks stupid to beat someone 348 to 323. If that bothers people in your league and you therefore want to keep the base number low, it is imperative to allow negative handicaps. If the handicap formula were 90% of 200, your handicap would still be 18, but the 220 bowler would have a handicap of -18. In other words, he’d have 18 pins SUBTRACTED from his score each game. Again, people think this punishes the good bowler…but it doesn’t! You’d still get 36 more pins added to each game than the 220 bowler would and he'd still win by 4 pins if you both bowled your averages. If all leagues used negative handicaps, it would put an end to all the discussions about what base number to use and all the problems about what happens when a bowler gets his or her average over that number! Negative handicaps should be mandatory for all leagues because there is no downside to using them. But it appears psychology keeps triumphing over math, all to the detriment of league fairness.

As for your evaluations of the success of various handicap formulas, please keep in mind that these are your perceptions of what worked for those specific leagues. There is no one-size-fits-all handicap formula that works for all leagues. The length of the league, the difference in skill levels (averages) between the best and worst teams, and several other factors all have profound influences on what handicap formula should be used to maintain a league’s proper competitive balance. And you’d really need hundreds or thousands of seasons of results to derive a mathematically sound conclusion about what formula works well and what doesn’t. No one can do that, which is why I wrote my app.

Regarding your result in the 100% league, keep in mind that while a scratch league rewards only high scoring, with your performance relative to your average being irrelevant, 100% leagues are exactly the opposite. Your average is irrelevant, and only your performance relative to your average matters. The problem is, only the average is published, so you have no measurement of your performance relative to your average. My app computes this latter value (I call it the bowler’s trend), helping to explain handicap league results that simply can’t be explained when the only published value for each bowler is his or her average. I’m guessing your team achieved a very good trend value that season, explaining your 4th-place finish.

[bowl1820]

Fortunately, as my app shows, the use of book averages for some number of weeks to start the season is highly effective in preventing sandbaggers from cheating the system. I think all handicap leagues should use book averages for this reason.

The majority of leagues have been doing that already. (using book averages and holding them for several weeks at the start of the season just for that reason. And going a step farther with the use of a 10 pin drop rule.)

[bltuneup]

Given if you go by just what has been said on the bowling forums, the perceived problem with the current handicap system is that it gives low average bowlers/teams too much of advantage. Which causes the secondary problem being that of sandbagging.

For the years that handicap horse has been beat to death, the main conclusion which everyone seems to have reached.

Is that it's not so much the handicap system, it's the fact that easy conditions and ball advancements allow lower average bowlers to bowl more over their average, more often than higher average bowlers are able to.

There is also the thought that the average system currently used is part of the problem, in that it doesn't represent the bowlers true ability well enough. Thus skewing the amount of handicap a bowler receives.

This connected with the high handicaps that low average bowler/teams have, is perceived as making it unfair to high average bowlers/Teams. (The high average bowlers always over look the long term statistics that show they win more often than not.)

As for sandbagging again given if you go by just what has been said on the bowling forums. Then everyone is a sandbagger except for "Me and Thee".

I must respectfully disagree that current lane and ball conditions somehow benefit lower-average bowlers more than higher-average bowlers. An equally persuasive argument could be made that only very good bowlers are able to take advantage of specific oil patterns and the monster hooks that today’s balls facilitate, giving poorer bowlers an even bigger disadvantage than they had before.

In any case, saying any factor can allow a bowler to bowl over his or her average more often doesn’t make much sense to me. Even if specific conditions do raise a bowler’s average, that has nothing to do with being able to bowl above your average…which is presumably even harder to do after you’ve raised your average. At the end of the season, each bowler will have approximately the same number of games above and below whatever average he or she achieves. That’s how averages work.

I completely agree with you about the PERCEPTION that poorer teams are given too much of an advantage in handicap leagues. I’ve argued (oops…I mean I’ve had level-headed conversations) about this in my own leagues constantly. It’s always the teams that always finish at the top of the standings that ***** about low-average teams being given too much of an advantage…despite the fact they keep finishing at the top of the standings. We’d need to consult a psychologist to explain this phenomenon, I think.

The perception boils down to the notion that any time a low-average team finishes high in the standings or (heaven forbid!) in first place, the whole idea of handicapping is fatally flawed, as it must be giving poor teams an unfair advantage. The best bowlers and teams tend to believe they should win every season…because they’re better!!! They also tend not to be able to articulate an answer to the question of why a lower-average team would ever want to join that league. In my app’s user manual, I call this “scratch-league mentality.”

I believe the problem with perception is that when a poorer team does well in a handicap league, there’s often no way to know WHY it did well. So everyone becomes a conspiracy theorist and concludes the league must be giving an unfair advantage to poorer teams.

Scratch leagues reward high scoring. Period. 100% handicap leagues reward bowling well in relation to your established average. Period. Leagues with a handicap under 100% reward a combination of the two. The lower the handicap percentage, the more high scoring is rewarded; the higher the handicap percentage, the more personal success is rewarded.

The problem? Everyone knows everyone’s average, but no one knows how everyone has done in relation to their averages. Without that second number, you can’t understand why a poorer team ended up so high in the standings. My app computes this second number, which I call a trend. Simply put, it’s the average number of pins that you’ve bowled above or below the average being used to set your handicap, computed over the entire season.

In the user manual, I give an example of a real league in which a very poor team finished in second place. I show that its trend was far better than any other team’s. So the league wasn’t set up poorly…it rewarded the team that did better in relation to its established level of performance than any other team. Which is what handicap leagues are supposed to do.

[bowl1820]

I must respectfully disagree that current lane and ball conditions somehow benefit lower-average bowlers more than higher-average bowlers. An equally persuasive argument could be made that only very good bowlers are able to take advantage of specific oil patterns and the monster hooks that today’s balls facilitate, giving poorer bowlers an even bigger disadvantage than they had before.

To say that "only" very good bowlers are able to take advantage of specific oil patterns and the monster hooks that today’s balls facilitate or to say it has inflated everyone equally is a little naive

Yes, Very good bowlers are able to make the best use of today's equipment and specific oil patterns. Which is as it should be, if they are better bowlers.

But lower average, less skilled bowlers have benefited greatly if not more from easy conditions and the powerful balls used today.

You can see it when the 200+ ave. house "Hack" goes to a tournament with a hard (compared to his normal THS) condition And their scores plunge. A actual "good" bowlers score may go down, but not like the house hacks will. The house hack's skill is dependent on equipment and conditions.

Beside bowlers even the USBC and most of the experts in the bowling industry have stated that easy conditions and equipment have inflated peoples averages.



In any case, saying any factor can allow a bowler to bowl over his or her average more often doesn’t make much sense to me. Even if specific conditions do raise a bowler’s average, that has nothing to do with being able to bowl above your average…which is presumably even harder to do after you’ve raised your average. At the end of the season, each bowler will have approximately the same number of games above and below whatever average he or she achieves. That’s how averages work.

It is harder for higher average bowlers to bowl over their average as compared to a lower average bowler.

Now this might not be worded well:

Lower average bowlers can bowl over ave. just by sparing more to begin with, But when you couple that with the easy conditions most bowlers have and balls that increase their margin of error and carry on poor shots. So When they do have a better night They strike more and their POA is able to go even higher.

High average bowler's on the other hand "have to strike" to bowl POA, They are consistent to begin with, not making as many mistakes as a lower average less skilled bowler. While the ball and conditions may be helping them some also, it's not helping like it does for the lower average bowler.


If you really want to see a discussion make that statement that you disagree that current lane and ball conditions somehow benefit lower-average bowlers more than higher-average bowlers." Over on Ballreviews.com, bowlingballexchange.com or forum.bowlingchat.net

Those are the hardcore bowlers and ones that have been around a long time. They'll give you a thoughts on the state of handicap, averages etc.

This is a beginner board.

[JJKinGA]

We are ignoring the biggest question: What is FAIR?
Is fair meaning any team regardless of skill has an equal chance to win the league? This was the USBC postition for 116% handicap
Is fair meaning the highest average team should win? then scartch is the fairest way
Is fair meaning that on any given night the lowest average team can beat the highest average team? If scores are normally distributed (They are pretty close - I have also read references that log-normal distribution is better) then you need the average minus one standard deviation for the highest team to be equal to the lowest average plus one standard deviation. I have never tried to convert that to a simple handicap formula (perhaps if I have time today I will see what works well for the data I ahve for the past few season in my league). I suspect it will be very difficult to find a simple way to make that work universally.
Is fair that the low average teams are not dead last, but the high average team has some benefit? For this you would want something like 100% of 180, so that the lower skill or casual bowlers can compete with talented bowlers, but the dedicated/talented bowlers have an advantage most of the time.


What does everyone think is fair to expect for a handicap league?

[bowl1820]

What does everyone think is fair to expect for a handicap league?

And there's the rub! What is fair!

Really there is no fair handicap, there's only the one that everyone ultimately agrees to settle for. Someone is always going to feel slighted.

Note for everyone about the USBC handicap study and the 116% handicap, they have never said that a league should use it.

USBC:


If a handicap percent of 116% would result in absolutely equalizing competition in
handicap leagues, then why doesn’t the USBC advocate the use of that percent of handicap
to the exclusion of all others?
FACT: Nobody wants to deprive the more skillful of the benefits of their superior skill. If the
more proficient bowlers have an edge, it is one they’ve earned. It is a premium, which comes
from more diligent efforts to improve their capabilities. That incentive should not be taken
away, regardless of the level at which a bowler competes.



Asking what a fair handicap is, is like asking what is a fair prizelist is. You'll never have one answer every agrees on totally.

[jab5325]

To say that "only" very good bowlers are able to take advantage of specific oil patterns and the monster hooks that today’s balls facilitate or to say it has inflated everyone equally is a little naive

Yes, Very good bowlers are able to make the best use of today's equipment and specific oil patterns. Which is as it should be, if they are better bowlers.

But lower average, less skilled bowlers have benefited greatly if not more from easy conditions and the powerful balls used today.

You can see it when the 200+ ave. house "Hack" goes to a tournament with a hard (compared to his normal THS) condition And their scores plunge. A actual "good" bowlers score may go down, but not like the house hacks will. The house hack's skill is dependent on equipment and conditions.

Beside bowlers even the USBC and most of the experts in the bowling industry have stated that easy conditions and equipment have inflated peoples averages.




It is harder for higher average bowlers to bowl over their average as compared to a lower average bowler.

Now this might not be worded well:

Lower average bowlers can bowl over ave. just by sparing more to begin with, But when you couple that with the easy conditions most bowlers have and balls that increase their margin of error and carry on poor shots. So When they do have a better night They strike more and their POA is able to go even higher.

High average bowler's on the other hand "have to strike" to bowl POA, They are consistent to begin with, not making as many mistakes as a lower average less skilled bowler. While the ball and conditions may be helping them some also, it's not helping like it does for the lower average bowler.


If you really want to see a discussion make that statement that you disagree that current lane and ball conditions somehow benefit lower-average bowlers more than higher-average bowlers." Over on Ballreviews.com, bowlingballexchange.com or forum.bowlingchat.net

Those are the hardcore bowlers and ones that have been around a long time. They'll give you a thoughts on the state of handicap, averages etc.

This is a beginner board.

Totally agree, 1820.

The team I bowled last week is a perfect example of what you're talking about. They have one bowler (fingerless cranker) with a 200 average, and a 150-average loud, obnoxious galute that literally heaves the ball to the arrows. The galute had a 215 and just shy of a 600 series last week by making spares and having an "on" night, while the fingerless cranker was just about 20 pins above his average and had something in the 620s.

[Amyers]

We are ignoring the biggest question: What is FAIR?
Is fair meaning any team regardless of skill has an equal chance to win the league? This was the USBC postition for 116% handicap
Is fair meaning the highest average team should win? then scartch is the fairest way
Is fair meaning that on any given night the lowest average team can beat the highest average team? If scores are normally distributed (They are pretty close - I have also read references that log-normal distribution is better) then you need the average minus one standard deviation for the highest team to be equal to the lowest average plus one standard deviation. I have never tried to convert that to a simple handicap formula (perhaps if I have time today I will see what works well for the data I ahve for the past few season in my league). I suspect it will be very difficult to find a simple way to make that work universally.
Is fair that the low average teams are not dead last, but the high average team has some benefit? For this you would want something like 100% of 180, so that the lower skill or casual bowlers can compete with talented bowlers, but the dedicated/talented bowlers have an advantage most of the time.


What does everyone think is fair to expect for a handicap league?

I agree that fair is a difficult concept I don't know that I think a 120 avg bowler should have exactly equal chances of beating a 200 avg bowler. I think the general idea is to even the playing field so the lower average bowlers have a chance. I will say I bowl a league that has a element of singles competition to it and beating bowlers who's average is over the handicap scale is darn near impossible short of them having a bad night and me having a above average night. League has a 90% of 220 handicap we have two bowlers who average in the low 230's I think their record is about 40-10.

[Aslan]

Aslan, you’ve put your finger on a key to success in a handicap league: in-season improvement.

You had me at "You've put your finger on a key to success…"

[bltuneup]

And there's the rub! What is fair!

Really there is no fair handicap, there's only the one that everyone ultimately agrees to settle for. Someone is always going to feel slighted.

Note for everyone about the USBC handicap study and the 116% handicap, they have never said that a league should use it.

USBC:



Asking what a fair handicap is, is like asking what is a fair prizelist is. You'll never have one answer every agrees on totally.

Granted, “fair” is a subjective concept. But that doesn’t mean fairness can’t be strived for in an objective way. Let’s start with an assumption I hope we can all agree on.

Any handicap league must give every team that enters a reasonable chance of success. If it doesn’t, it’s stealing money from and basically lying to the teams that have little chance to succeed. My company league recruits bowlers by saying, “It doesn’t matter if you’re not a good bowler because it’s a handicap league. Everyone has a chance. So come join the fun!”

If we can agree on this criteria for a handicap league, the fairness question boils down to simple arithmetic. If we can compute each team’s odds of finishing in first given the attributes of the league and the averages of the teams, subjective judgments could then be made about whether those objective odds give all teams a reasonable chance.

The problem, of course, is that no one has ever (as far as I can tell) tried to compute those odds. Many would argue (and have argued) that it can’t be done. If you accept that, there will be eternal debate about various theories (e.g., “poorer teams have the advantage because they have more room for improvement” or “modern lane conditions give poorer bowlers an advantage”) that don’t address the real problem. If any of those theories is true, averages will change in the predicted way, thus altering the odds of success in the way predicted by those theories. But who cares? You still haven’t determined if the specific handicap formula used for a specific league with a specific mix of bowlers and teams gives every team a fighting chance. Mathematics must be used to do that.

To see that odds can be computed, let’s consider an extremely simple four-team scratch league with one bowler per team bowling one game per week for 50 weeks, with the winner being the bowler with the most wins at the end of the season. If all four bowlers ended up averaging 180, I think we can all agree that each team has an equal chance to finish in first. If two teams tying for first both get credit for a first-place finish, the actual probability of a team finishing in first is closer to 27% than 25% because about one season in 12 will end in a tie. There. We’ve computed odds.

Now, what if one of the bowlers ends up averaging 181 instead of 180. We can all agree that bowler’s odds are better than his opponents’. But can we compute how much better? Yes we can. It turns out that the 181 bowler has about a 32% chance of coming in first, with the other three bowlers each having about a 25% chance.

I won’t lie and say it’s easy to come up with these numbers. If it were, someone would have done it years ago. I spent five years figuring out how to do it and implementing the solution. It involves using Monte Carlo simulations of every relevant aspect of a league and (as one responder suggested) relies on the fact that bowlers will bowl scores in an approximately normal (OK, log-normal) distribution around his or her average. I even allow characterization of each bowler on a range from rock-solid consistent to having wild swings in scoring. (For mathematical types, this would define each bowler’s standard deviation.) Using these techniques, complications like multiple bowlers per team and the use of handicap formulas can be easily incorporated into the model.

So, if one accepts that I’ve done a good job of modeling a league (I promise I have), then one accepts that the numbers my app comes up with can be trusted. At this point, we can discuss fairness in purely mathematical terms.

For instance, what do we say about a league’s fairness if the best team has a 33% chance of finishing in first (i.e., it can expect to come in first place one season out of every three this league bowls together) and the poorest team has a 1% chance (coming in first only one season in every 100)? At this point, subjectivity comes into play about whether this is fair. But now fairness is being evaluated based on actual numbers!

There is one additional complication. Just because a team enters a league with a certain book average, that doesn’t mean that’s the average that team will achieve. So we need to determine what kinds of improvements a team would need to make to boost its chances to compete on par with the best teams. My app lets you model this as well. Here again, fairness comes down to looking at numbers and deciding subjectively whether teams have odds that seem to fairly reward their hypothetical performances. Once you’ve done that, you’ve “tuned up” the league to optimize its fairness to all teams.

This probably all sounds more complicated than it is. The point is that right now, there is no way to determine with any certainty whether a sub-100% handicap league gives all teams a fighting chance to succeed. My app aims to change that.

[bltuneup]

Note for everyone about the USBC handicap study and the 116% handicap, they have never said that a league should use it.

USBC:
If a handicap percent of 116% would result in absolutely equalizing competition in
handicap leagues, then why doesn’t the USBC advocate the use of that percent of handicap
to the exclusion of all others?
FACT: Nobody wants to deprive the more skillful of the benefits of their superior skill. If the
more proficient bowlers have an edge, it is one they’ve earned. It is a premium, which comes
from more diligent efforts to improve their capabilities. That incentive should not be taken
away, regardless of the level at which a bowler competes.

The USBC’s contention that 116% absolutely equalizes the competition is absolutely laughable. I would challenge any league to try it for one season if it wouldn’t be so cruel to the bowlers. You would not find results that randomly mix up good teams and bad teams, which is what you’d expect if competition were “absolutely equalized.” You would find the very worst teams in the league at the very top of the standings.

I have tried to figure out how the USBC’s study went so horribly wrong. All I can come up with is that sandbagging, dumping, and too-low handicap base numbers were allowed to run rampant in the leagues they studied, skewing the results to the point that they became meaningless.

Also, plenty of leagues use 100% handicaps, which do absolutely equalize competition. While this is not a good approach for competitive leagues, which should reward bowlers for their superior skills, some bowling centers like to have “fun” leagues for bowlers who don’t take the game seriously and just want to have a good time. So I’m also in disagreement with the USBC that “nobody wants to deprive the more skillful.” Some leagues do want to do that.

[bowl1820]

Okay loaded up the trial version of Bowling League Tuneup.

Pros:
It has a nice clean interface, entering information is pretty straight forward.

Cons so far:
It requires you use Microsoft Excel.
(That's a deal breaker, I and many others use Apache OpenOffice (Which handles Excel files just fine, but doesn't appear to work with BLT.) or other spreadsheet programs.

Which I assume is what caused the error messages I received:
When clicking the Analyze button: BLT2.blt File not found or Contains invalid Data (The file is there in the directory, so it must be invalid data.)

When trying to save league: Error saving league file: ActiveX component can't create document.

Program is limited to 24 teams (We have several full house leagues of 32 teams)

While maybe not a major concern, it can't factor in the Match Point System. Which is a common league format.

Suggestion:
Program should include a sample league file (or a download link for one)

[bowl1820]

My company league recruits bowlers by saying, “It doesn’t matter if you’re not a good bowler because it’s a handicap league. Everyone has a chance. So come join the fun!”


Just curious, you've mentioned how your team "finished near or at the bottom of the standings for 10 straight seasons".

What handicap was your league using then? and how many teams did it have?

What was your team average then? and what were the averages of the teams that won?

When your ran the numbers for your league and it showed your company league was grossly unfair.
What did it say would have been a fair handicap for your league?

[swingset]

No handicaps are fair. Giving pins that aren't earned is never fair.

[bltuneup]

Okay loaded up the trial version of Bowling League Tuneup.

Pros:
It has a nice clean interface, entering information is pretty straight forward.

Cons so far:
It requires you use Microsoft Excel.
(That's a deal breaker, I and many others use Apache OpenOffice (Which handles Excel files just fine, but doesn't appear to work with BLT.) or other spreadsheet programs.

Which I assume is what caused the error messages I received:
When clicking the Analyze button: BLT2.blt File not found or Contains invalid Data (The file is there in the directory, so it must be invalid data.)

When trying to save league: Error saving league file: ActiveX component can't create document.

Program is limited to 24 teams (We have several full house leagues of 32 teams)

While maybe not a major concern, it can't factor in the Match Point System. Which is a common league format.

Suggestion:
Program should include a sample league file (or a download link for one)

Bummer! Well, I genuinely appreciate your trying it out. Yes, those errors indicate my app desperately wants genuine Microsoft Excel and not an imitation. I really didn't want to require it, but it saved me from a hellacious amount of coding and the use of a separate database. I'm using Microsoft's Excel object library, so I guess it's not a huge surprise it doesn't work for non-Microsoft spreadsheet software, even when it’s in Excel mode.

Your other comments are quite valid. I apologize in the user manual for limiting league size to 24 teams. User interface issues became too hard for me to deal with beyond that, so I reluctantly set that limit. I also mentioned in the manual there were league formats that weren't handled yet, but could be in the future. I had to limit my feature set lest I be coding the system for 10 years before releasing it! The good news is that it shouldn't be hard to adapt my code for other formats in the future.

You’re in agreement with a friend of mine who said I need to include some sample files (a la the Northwind database that comes as a sample file in Microsoft Access). You're both right, but just adding some sample files to what I distributed with the app wouldn't be enough. I'd then need to have a section in the manual to guide a new user through the use of those files. Again, I opted to draw the line somewhere so I could make an initial release in this lifetime. But your point is very well taken, and in the next release I think I'll rewrite the Quick Start section of the manual to include loading and working with the sample files.

Not that I'm anxious to criticize my own app, but you didn’t mention what I feel is the app's biggest shortcoming. You can get so much more out of it if you input bowlers’ league scores, but typing scores in manually can be very time-consuming. So the app really needs an import feature. From what I can gather, CDE Software’s BLS system seems to be widely used, so I'm in the process of trying to contact them in Seattle to find out what it would take for me to be able to export bowler data from BLS.

Again, thank you for taking the time to look at the app. This kind of feedback means a lot to me!

[Mike White]

Just curious, you've mentioned how your team "finished near or at the bottom of the standings for 10 straight seasons".

What handicap was your league using then? and how many teams did it have?

What was your team average then? and what were the averages of the teams that won?

When your ran the numbers for your league and it showed your company league was grossly unfair.
What did it say would have been a fair handicap for your league?

The $64,000 question, unfortunately so far hasn't been answered.

To me, for a handicap league to be "fair" from top to bottom in averages, there needs to be limits on teams entering averages.

If a league consists of mostly 160-180 4 person teams, you might want to limit each teams entering average to 700, or 850 based of 4 or 5 members, and suggest the minimum team entering average be 650, or 800. That way no team can enter above the limit, and teams entering below the minimum accept the "unfairness" ahead of time.

If rules like there were common, I think there might be a revival in scratch leagues.

One handicap league I bowled in recently shocked me as to the "stacked" teams.

My team consisted of 190, 160, 210, 210 average bowlers, and the opposing team was giving us 70+ pins of handicap.

[Aslan]

I must say, Mike's comment is spot on.

I've thought about creating a sport league where it's scratch but there are caps on the team averages. Thats really the only way a scratch league can be truly successful outside of Vegas. Sure, there are scratch leagues that exist...but they are few and far between and if you're not average 200+ there's really no point to it.

But, if you did a 3-man scratch, sport league...make 525 the cap...suddenly the league can be very competitive without any need for handicap (except for the occasional bracket and/or sidepot).

[bltuneup]

The $64,000 question, unfortunately so far hasn't been answered.

To me, for a handicap league to be "fair" from top to bottom in averages, there needs to be limits on teams entering averages.

If a league consists of mostly 160-180 4 person teams, you might want to limit each teams entering average to 700, or 850 based of 4 or 5 members, and suggest the minimum team entering average be 650, or 800. That way no team can enter above the limit, and teams entering below the minimum accept the "unfairness" ahead of time.

If rules like there were common, I think there might be a revival in scratch leagues.

One handicap league I bowled in recently shocked me as to the "stacked" teams.

My team consisted of 190, 160, 210, 210 average bowlers, and the opposing team was giving us 70+ pins of handicap.

Mike, it can certainly be helpful to cap team averages. I begged for that in our company league to prevent the team of four bowlers all averaging over 200 from dominating our league. The argument I got back was that people like bowling in the league because they’re bowling with the people they work with. Capping team averages would force teams to split up, at which point many would lose interest in being in the league. So much for that idea.

But even limiting team averages doesn’t solve the fairness problem…it can just make a league a little less unfair by preventing the creation of a full team of ringers. If some teams come in at the team maximum average and others come in way below that, you still have a fairness problem. If, on the other hand, people treat that maximum average as a goal to shoot for when assembling their teams and all teams therefore come in close to that average, fairness is no longer an issue. Such a league could even bowl scratch and all would be fine.

The big problem with setting team limits is the cheating that can go on to allow a team of ringers to get themselves under that limit. Determining team eligibility based on first-week scores is a recipe for disaster, as the good teams will have huge incentives to keep their scores down that week. Eligibility must be based on book averages. But any bowler without a sanctioned book average would still be able to cheat the system by deliberately bowling poorly to start the season. I really don’t like any rule that incentivizes people to cheat.

And in many of my capped leagues, the ultimate winner achieved an average above the cap, leading to a lot of grumbling and bad feelings among the other teams.

So I’ve come around to the notion that it’s better to give all teams a fair shot not by setting rules to try to create a league that will work well with the chosen handicap formula, but rather by setting a handicap formula that is tailored to the attributes of a specific league and the exact mix of teams in the league. My app lets you do that.

[Aslan]

Mike, it can certainly be helpful to cap team averages. I begged for that in our company league to prevent the team of four bowlers all averaging over 200 from dominating our league. The argument I got back was that people like bowling in the league because they’re bowling with the people they work with. Capping team averages would force teams to split up, at which point many would lose interest in being in the league. So much for that idea.

There's the rub. I've proposed multiple ways to improve league bowling...and most of them involve "inconveniencing" people...which everyone immediately says is a bad idea.

But...league bowling also has been dieing...and much of that is the result of making it "convenient" rather than worry about it being fair.

Points/Examples:
- > 175 average bowlers have no business in a no-tap league.
- > 190 average bowlers have no business in a handicap league.

Fix those two problems and then cap team averages and force any entering person to start with the league average on Day 1 or use their most recent USBC average (if they have one in the system)...and you've essentially solved the NEED for handicap.

[bltuneup]

Just curious, you've mentioned how your team "finished near or at the bottom of the standings for 10 straight seasons".

What handicap was your league using then? and how many teams did it have?

What was your team average then? and what were the averages of the teams that won?

When your ran the numbers for your league and it showed your company league was grossly unfair.
What did it say would have been a fair handicap for your league?

I had to go back through my league sheets to find the data for my company leagues. We had four-bowler teams, with league size varying from eight teams (summer leagues) to 16 teams. League lengths varied from 12 weeks (summer leagues) to 33 weeks. A 90% handicap percentage was used every season, with adjustments occasionally made to the base number in a (sometimes unsuccessful) attempt to keep it above the best bowler’s average.

The leagues set no caps on team averages, which created a large disparity between the best and the poorest teams. I’ll use my league sheet for the fall 2006 season. It was a 33-week league with 11 teams, using a handicap formula of 90% of 210 (which was greater than the best bowler’s average). The season ended with the teams having the following scratch averages (best-to-worst): 733, 708, 688, 665, 640, 631, 614, 598, 587, 561, 558. (I was on the 587 team. I ended with a 185 average, but my teammates obviously didn’t do nearly as well.)

My app didn’t exist back then, but running the numbers retroactively, here are the chances of a first-place finish for each of those 11 teams, based on their final team averages: 34.8%, 23.3%, 16.3%, 10.3%, 5.9%, 5.1%, 3.4%, 2.5%, 1.6%, 0.8%, 0.7%. Trophies were given to second-place finishers as well, so here are the chances of a team getting a trophy (derived from adding the chances of a first-place finish and a second-place finish): 55.4%, 42.8%, 33.2%, 23.4%, 14.6%, 12.9%, 9.1%, 6.7%, 5.2%, 2.9%, 1.6%.

Right off the bat, what strikes me (pardon the pun) is that one of the 11 teams is actually more likely to get a trophy than not. That just seems so wrong. (Oh, did I mention? That team ended up in first place.)

But before we declare this league to give the best teams too much of an advantage, we need to determine what kind of performance it might take for the poorest team to put itself into contention. Let’s assume the averages I gave are the ones the teams entered the season with, and let’s assume everyone on the poorest team was able to raise their averages five pins from these averages, adding 20 pins to the team average. This would be a tremendous team accomplishment. Let’s further assume that every bowler was able to average two pins over the average used to set their handicaps over the course of the 33-week season. This is the new measurement my app introduces, which I call a trend. The longer the season, the harder it is to maintain a very high (or very low) trend. Using tables I’ve published in my user manual, a team could be expected to achieve a cumulative trend of +8 in a 33-week season less than one season in 20. So a season in which a team both raised their average 20 pins and registered a trend of +8 would be a banner season for that team.

Running the numbers after making these assumptions (while keeping all other teams at their expected levels of performance) produces the following chances of a team getting a trophy: 53.2%, 40.3%, 30.4%, 21.6%, 13.6%, 11.6%, 8.2%, 6.0%, 4.5%, 2.4%, 17.8%. So yes, the poorest team’s chances went way up. But there are still four teams with better chances of getting a trophy, with the best team still three times more likely to get a trophy for bowling a typical season than the poorest team is for bowling the best season it’s ever likely to have.

As we’ve discussed, fairness is subjective. But I would strongly disagree with anyone who looks at these numbers and says this league is fair!

At this point, you’d try different handicap percentages to try to achieve a more competitive balance for this league. Going to 95% while continuing to assume a breakout season for the poorest team, we get these chances of getting a trophy: 33.6%, 27.8%, 23.8%, 19.9%, 16.4%, 14.5%, 12.3%, 10.5%, 9.6%, 7.2%, 34.6%. So this setting means that the best team bowling a typical season has the same chance of a trophy as the poorest team having a great season. That certainly sounds fairer to me!

Is this the best percentage? That’s where subjectivity comes in. Some might say there’s still too strong a bias toward the better teams. And should a team having the season of its life still only have one-third of a chance of getting a trophy? Personally, I’d say no, and I’d want to see what, say, a 97% handicap percentage does. Here are those numbers: 25.9%, 23.5%, 21.0%, 18.7%, 16.1%, 15.3%, 13.6%, 13.0%, 11.6%, 10.1%, 41.8%. Is this even better? You decide.

This is the essence of tuning up a league.

[bowl1820]

I had to go back through my league sheets to find the data for my company leagues.

Okay summarizing that reply to my questions for the others.

1-What handicap was your league using then? and how many teams did it have?
Answer: 2006 season Handicap 90% of 210. Number of teams: 11 teams

2-What was your team average then? and what were the averages of the teams that won?

Answer: season ended with the teams having the following scratch averages (best-to-worst): 733, 708, 688, 665, 640, 631, 614, 598, 587, 561, 558. (I was on the 587 team. I ended with a 185 average, but my teammates obviously didn’t do nearly as well.)

3-When your ran the numbers for your league and it showed your company league was grossly unfair. What did it say would have been a fair handicap for your league?

This question isn't clearly answered.

this is what I feel is the main part that answers this question:

So a season in which a team both raised their average 20 pins and registered a trend of +8 would be a banner season for that team.
The breakout season for the poorest team^^

At this point, you’d try different handicap percentages to try to achieve a more competitive balance for this league. Going to 95% while continuing to assume a breakout season for the poorest team, we get these chances of getting a trophy: 33.6%, 27.8%, 23.8%, 19.9%, 16.4%, 14.5%, 12.3%, 10.5%, 9.6%, 7.2%, 34.6%. So this setting means that the best team bowling a typical season has the same chance of a trophy as the poorest team having a great season. That certainly sounds fairer to me!

The way I read it is, after making several assumptions about team performance. If the league went to 95% of 210 and the lower average teams bowled better. The lower average teams had more of chance to win.


So the main conclusion of this I see is that going from 90% to 95% only made a marginal change in where a team placed.

And what made a bigger difference was if the low average team increased their averages (Bowled better), they would have a better chance of winning.

Well DUH.



Is this the best percentage? That’s where subjectivity comes in. Some might say there’s still too strong a bias toward the better teams. And should a team having the season of its life still only have one-third of a chance of getting a trophy? Personally, I’d say no, and I’d want to see what, say, a 97% handicap percentage does. Here are those numbers: 25.9%, 23.5%, 21.0%, 18.7%, 16.1%, 15.3%, 13.6%, 13.0%, 11.6%, 10.1%, 41.8%. Is this even better? You decide.

Is going to 97% even better in this example? Yeah if you are the lowest average team. They have almost a 50% chance of winning, while everyone else is 25% or less!

I guess it's fair if you've always been in last place.

[bltuneup]

So the main conclusion of this I see is that going from 90% to 95% only made a marginal change in where a team placed.

And what made a bigger difference was if the low average team increased their averages (Bowled better), they would have a better chance of winning.

Well DUH.

Wow. I didn’t expect that kind of sarcasm in response. That’s clearly not my conclusion.

I’m not comparing how a team’s chances would be affected by doing better. I’m comparing how changes to a league’s handicap percentage affect the competitive balance of a specific league.

Conclusion 1: The best team in that league would expect a trophy more seasons than not, and over time could expect to get 35 trophies for every one trophy the worst team could expect. This does not appear to me to be fair. In fact, as I stated, I believe it’s “grossly unfair.” I personally would not have joined this league had I seen these numbers going in.

Conclusion 2: If the poorest team in the league did great, they would still have only an 18% chance of getting a trophy. Moreover, that team, bowling the best season it’s ever likely to have, still would only have one-third the chance of getting a trophy that the highest-average team had when bowling an unremarkable season. This reinforces conclusion 1’s assessment of the league’s inherent unfairness.

Conclusion 3: Raising the handicap percentage in this league will produce a more competitive balance that will give poorer teams a realistic shot at being rewarded for good performances, while still giving the higher-average teams an appropriate and fairly significant advantage. The fair amount to raise the percentage can be determined subjectively based on the analysis results I listed. I thought I was pretty clear in making the case that raising this league’s handicap percentage to 95% or 97% would both have been reasonable choices to make the league significantly fairer.

I should also add that this league disbanded a few years ago because the teams that never won a thing (including my own) eventually saw the futility of hoping for success and dropped out. My company could no longer convince enough teams to join, so the league disintegrated.

[bowl1820]

Wow. I didn’t expect that kind of sarcasm in response. That’s clearly not my conclusion.

I’m not comparing how a team’s chances would be affected by doing better. I’m comparing how changes to a league’s handicap percentage affect the competitive balance of a specific league.

I didn't think it was that sarcastic other than the Duh.

While You may not have intended to compare how a team’s chances would be affected by doing better, that's what happened.

First time you ran the numbers with no changes to handicap or trend. low was 0.7% chance of winning

Second time you ran the numbers, you had the low ave. team raise averages. This showed a change to 17.8%. in the lower average team chances of winning. So bowling better increased their chances of winning by 17.1 just by bowling a few extra pins all season.

Third time you ran the numbers, you added in a new handicap of 95%. This increased the chances of winning to 34.6% by 17.5.

I admit I was wrong earlier in saying that bowling better did more good than raising handicap in this instance (In this big mass of text it's hard to keep track of which line your looking at). But given if they didn't bowl better, that 34% would have dropped. The other teams percentages I assume would have raised up when the numbers ran. So the affect is still basically the same.

So the conclusion that shows is that while changing handicap flattens the chance of winning percentages some for the whole league. The thing that tips the scales for a teams chances of winning was a team increasing their average.


Conclusion 1: The best team in that league would expect a trophy more seasons than not, and over time could expect to get 35 trophies for every one trophy the worst team could expect. This does not appear to me to be fair. In fact, as I stated, I believe it’s “grossly unfair.” I personally would not have joined this league had I seen these numbers going in.
Now this is the area of being subjective as to what is fair.

You are saying here, that better teams have more of a chance to win/get trophies than lower average teams. .

I wouldn't say that is inherently unfair, I think most people would assume that better teams would win more.



Conclusion 2: If the poorest team in the league did great, they would still have only an 18% chance of getting a trophy. Moreover, that team, bowling the best season it’s ever likely to have, still would only have one-third the chance of getting a trophy that the highest-average team had when bowling an unremarkable season. This reinforces conclusion 1’s assessment of the league’s inherent unfairness.

Just because a low average team has it best season, doesn't necessarily mean that they are on par with the higher ave. bowlers. And that they should have higher chance of winning (ie: the 41.8% example) than the high average team has (ie: the 25.9% example)



Conclusion 3: Raising the handicap percentage in this league will produce a more competitive balance that will give poorer teams a realistic shot at being rewarded for good performances, while still giving the higher-average teams an appropriate and fairly significant advantage. The fair amount to raise the percentage can be determined subjectively based on the analysis results I listed. I thought I was pretty clear in making the case that raising this league’s handicap percentage to 95% or 97% would both have been reasonable choices to make the league significantly fairer.

As for Raising a league’s handicap percentage to make the league significantly fairer. That's what most all leagues have done over the years. just for that reason. The percentages years ago were only 70-80%, now we have 90-100% league handicaps.



I should also add that this league disbanded a few years ago because the teams that never won a thing (including my own) eventually saw the futility of hoping for success and dropped out. My company could no longer convince enough teams to join, so the league disintegrated.

[fortheloveofbowling]

Handicap leagues should always use the previous years averages for the first 4-6 weeks. Depending on the house and the scoring pace base the handicap at 90% of 220-230 and base it by the team average. If you have 2 teams one averaging 850 and the other at 1050 you would have scores of 1075 and 1095 based on a 1100 average if the teams bowled exactly average. That is not even 2 marks mark over the course of an entire game for 10 bowlers. The key for handicap leagues and any leagues for that matter is consistency. I think you will find if you look at the history of your league it is the teams that are consistently around their averages more often that win. Go back and do a study of the least amount of variance per team in relation to their averages and i will bet the top teams have the lower percentages. For instance a 180 bowler who shoots a 198 or 162 would be off by 10%. The thing about fair is it goes both ways and it is also not fair to penalize bowlers who have worked to achieve a certain level of both performance and consistency.

[J Anderson]

For my answer I quote the late Lou Reed;"Life's good, but not fair at all." Should bowling be any different?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeIBfWQYbuI

[Mike White]

I think you will find if you look at the history of your league it is the teams that are consistently around their averages more often that win.


Consistency alone isn't the answer

Take a hypothetical league with two bowlers that is 54 games long.

Bowler one shoots a score of 181 every game except one where he shoots 127.
Bowler two shoots a score of 179 every game except one where he shoots 233.

Both bowlers end the season with exactly the same average, but Bowler one will have a lot more wins.

The idea that to be competitive in a handicap league you either have to improve significantly as the season transpires, is in direct conflict with detecting "sandbaggers".

My most recent team was just 4 people who joined as individuals and were put together as a team.

None of the 4 people knew each other before the league started.

One had no book average yet, and another only had 1 previous season of bowling.

Overall we had a middle of the pack average.

During the first half of the season we caught a lot of gifted wins where our opponents just bowled bad.

The last half of the season we had to fight to stay near the top.

We had a number of practice sessions trying to teach the lower average team members on the basics of spare shooting.

During the last couple of weeks the pressure was so intense I resorted to telling my teammates to stand on a specific board, and try to hit a specific target, no more explaining why. If they hit the target, good things happens, if not, oh well.

The idea was they weren't making mistakes in the decision making process, just occasionally in the execution.

We ended up winning the league on the 2nd to last game of the season.

One of our bowlers was awarded most improved. His average went from 140 Book to about 165 at the end of the season.

I was accused of "sandbagging" a few times, since I had started the season with a bad elbow so I couldn't carry well, and with about 2 months to go I felt healthy enough to throw the ball like I used to, and my average raised about 8 pins during that time.

[Josch]

Handicap in my league greatly benefits the worst bowlers. It's a youth league, which means that it's often the first league people join, and the new bowlers, and those who've only been bowling for a few years, get significantly better as the year goes on. They establish a very low average, and they bowl above average just by making a few spares or getting a few strikes. The handicap is based on 90% of 200. Prior to this year, the best team always won, but that team was broken up a few weeks into the season as they were all averaging above 200, giving them an even larger advantage.

Here is a current league standing sheet, with 5 weeks left in the season.

http://i.imgur.com/xgVKh5D.jpg?1

The teams with lower averages are higher on the standings, excluding the very bottom team.

i'm on team 4. We're second to last, despite holding all of the season high team scores. I have second or first for all of the personal season high scores. I know our pin count appears low, but that is due to one of my teammates showing up less than half the time. When he does show up he's out of practice, and his average drops most weeks. Our first year on the league we got second, because our starting averages were so low and improvement was easy. This is our 4th and last year as a team.

[J Anderson]

Handicap in my league greatly benefits the worst bowlers. It's a youth league, which means that it's often the first league people join, and the new bowlers, and those who've only been bowling for a few years, get significantly better as the year goes on. They establish a very low average, and they bowl above average just by making a few spares or getting a few strikes. The handicap is based on 90% of 200. Prior to this year, the best team always won, but that team was broken up a few weeks into the season as they were all averaging above 200, giving them an even larger advantage.

Here is a current league standing sheet, with 5 weeks left in the season.

http://i.imgur.com/xgVKh5D.jpg?1

The teams with lower averages are higher on the standings, excluding the very bottom team.

i'm on team 4. We're second to last, despite holding all of the season high team scores. I have second or first for all of the personal season high scores. I know our pin count appears low, but that is due to one of my teammates showing up less than half the time. When he does show up he's out of practice, and his average drops most weeks. Our first year on the league we got second, because our starting averages were so low and improvement was easy. This is our 4th and last year as a team.

Having a teammate who shows up less than half the time is probably costing your team at least 1 or 2 places in the standings. If your league uses the typical rule for blind scores, he's costing you ten pins every game. If you're already spotting most of the other teams pins, the last thing you want is to spot them an additional ten.

[larry mc]

handicap is fair unless u play with sandbaggers , if u dont like it go scratch

[Josch]

Having a teammate who shows up less than half the time is probably costing your team at least 1 or 2 places in the standings. If your league uses the typical rule for blind scores, he's costing you ten pins every game. If you're already spotting most of the other teams pins, the last thing you want is to spot them an additional ten.

My league gives average with no deduction for absences.

[JJKinGA]

I went back to some league stats I had from 2012. I had recorded team scratch scores for 28 weeks of league play (3 games per week). I made some arbitrary decisions. I consdiered a good score one that was in the top 1/6 of all scores for the team and a poor score in the bottom 1.6 of all scores for the team. This would be outside of one standard deviation in a normal distribution and i feel gives a good feel for the likely range of scoring.

Consider the lowest average team and highest average team:
Team A = {130, 134, 86, 158}
Team B = {192, 171, 203, 208}

Poor Median Good
Team A 396 428 460
Team B 680 728 780

Next I calculated the handicap needed for Team A's good score to equal Team B's poor score (so they woudl win 1/6 of the team), Team a's good score to equal Team b's median score (they would win 28.9% of the time) and Team A's median score woudl equal team B's median score (50% chance of winning). I did this off a few different handicap bases.

Base A Good = B Poor A Good = B Median A Median = B Median
% of 175 117.7% 143.0% 160.0%
% of 200 86.2% 105.4% 118.2%
% of 220 82.7% 101.2% 112.8%
% of 300 82.5% 100.6% 112.7%

What I concluded is that a lower average team shoudl want as high a base as possible and as high a percentage as possible.
However, as long as the base is higher than the highest average it makes very little difference. And if you want every team to have an equal chance of winning, the USBS guidelines is pretty close to that for this one real life example.

But if fair is that on a good night a low average team can beat a high average team on a poor night then almost any accepted handicap system works. This league has used 905 of 200 and 90% of 220. There really is very little difference for this caliber of league. At 90% the lwoer avearge team can bowl well and win only if the higher average team is sub par. The higher avearage team still wins if they bowl a median game. That may be as fair as anyone can ask for in a handicap league.

It also seems that in this league the variation in scoring is large and about the same for all bowlers. Almost all bowlers are +/- 25 pins between good/poor and median scores. the team scores reflect that and are roughly +/-30 from median to good/poor with the gap to poor smaller in all cases. That elvel of variation further emphasizes that on any given night any team can win with any hanicap system.

The results are typical. If the higher average team wins, the low avearge team complains that they don't get enoguh handicap to compete. If a lower average team wins they are either sand bagging or we give too many pins in handicap. No one every looks at the typical results and sees that it is mostly equitable. No one says I won becuae I bowled better or i won becuase I got all this hanidcap. Just whinning about losing. Just liek this case, i spend hours every year lookign for some angle to find a really good ahndicap system. The conclusion is always the same. There is not a gret system. All result in very similar outcomes over the long hual. None ever fix the whining. So I always jsut abstain from the leauge discussion and vote on handicap. I figure it really is a little deal and I just need to enforce the league's decision.