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Thread: Figuring progressive handicap

  1. #11
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    HI bltuneup it's been awhile it looks like you updated the program. I downloaded it and will take a look, Do you have a test league file to try it out?

    Note:
    For those interested this is similar to a Sabermetrics type program. It's basically taking statistical data on player/team 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 then that information and use it to set up a league based on those new parameters.

    Right handed Stroker, high track ,about 13 degree axis tilt. PAP is located 5 9/16” over 1 3/4” up.Speed ave. about 14 mph at the pins. Medium rev’s.High Game 300, High series 798

    "Talent without training is nothing." Luke Skywalker

  2. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by bowl1820 View Post
    HI bltuneup it's been awhile it looks like you updated the program. I downloaded it and will take a look, Do you have a test league file to try it out?

    Note:
    For those interested this is similar to a Sabermetrics type program. It's basically taking statistical data on player/team 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 then that information and use it to set up a league based on those new parameters.
    Yes, version 3.0 was released in May (just in time for league bowling to have been rendered non-existent by COVID). This version refines just about all aspects of the program, and it adds the ability to import bowler scores from electronically stored recap sheets.

    The documentation is extensive because it is a full examination of the art and science of setting up bowling leagues. The USBC director picked up the user manual, derisively tossed it on the table, and said, "Who's gonna read this?" That was very disappointing coming from someone whose job is to assure the success of league bowling! Anyway, that taught me to create the Quick Start as a short separate manual to get you going quickly.

    As described in the Quick Start, a set of sample files is included with the installed app. A PDF file is included that describes each of the sample files.

    Bowling League Tuneup requires that genuine Microsoft Excel (2010 or later) be installed on your computer. I think that may have been your stumbling block last time because you were using an Excel knockoff. I'm terribly sorry if that's still the case, but I had to write to the Microsoft API, which apparently isn’t fully supported by imitators.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by bltuneup View Post
    Bowling League Tuneup requires that genuine Micro soft Excel (2010 or later) be installed on your computer. I think that may have been your stumbling block last time because you were using an Excel knockoff. I'm terribly sorry if that's still the case, but I had to write to the Microsoft API, which apparently isn’t fully supported by imitators.
    Yeah I see it still uses Microsoft Excel and Yes I use Apache OpenOffice which is open source software. So no I can't use this prog. and try it out.

    Your interface looks okay though and I found the sample files, Openoffice opened them easily

    Right handed Stroker, high track ,about 13 degree axis tilt. PAP is located 5 9/16” over 1 3/4” up.Speed ave. about 14 mph at the pins. Medium rev’s.High Game 300, High series 798

    "Talent without training is nothing." Luke Skywalker

  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by bowl1820 View Post
    Yeah I see it still uses Microsoft Excel and Yes I use Apache OpenOffice which is open source software. So no I can't use this prog. and try it out.

    Your interface looks okay though and I found the sample files, Openoffice opened them easily
    Again, I'm sorry you can't try out the program. Use of Excel was a design decision that (a) saved me a lot of coding and (b) allows league files to be shared among people who don't have Bowling League Tuneup installed. Situations like yours, however, show a major downside of that decision.

    My goal was to build a model that could calculate teams' probabilities of success in a scratch or handicap league – something I could find no evidence anyone had ever done before. Excel greatly eased the process of building that model, which I am happy to offer to the league bowling community. But only a reasonably high level of usage and/or interest in Bowling League Tuneup would sufficiently incentivize me to rewrite the system to remove the Excel dependency.

    If you're a Windows user with genuine Microsoft Excel installed on your computer, I hope you'll give Bowling League Tuneup a try on your own leagues. I truly believe it will settle discussions like those in this thread about the proper handicap formula to use for a given league. Thanks!

    Richard

  5. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by boatman37 View Post
    Your league rules should state your handicap calculation. Our fall league is 90% of 230. So if I have a 180 average I take 230-180=50 then 50 x 90% = 45 pin handicap. And yes, it will change every week based on your average. And you may have a max handicap. In our league the max handicap anyone can have is 85.
    I forgot to comment on boatman37’s statement that his league caps handicap at 85. Can anyone explain why on earth a league would ever set a maximum handicap? In a 90% league, poorer bowlers are at a disadvantage already. This is by design. Capping handicap at 85 puts crippling penalties on any team in the league that has bowlers with averages below 135 (i.e., with handicaps that would be over 85).

    I did not put a “maximum handicap” feature into Bowling League Tuneup because it never dawned on me a league might implement such an irrational feature. So I just modified the code to see what effect this ridiculous rule would have on a hypothetical league.

    Suppose you have a 2-team league with 4 bowlers per team, bowling 3 games per week for 30 weeks, with a handicap formula of 90% of 230. Team 1 has bowlers with averages of 175 – 175 – 175 – 175. Team 2 has bowlers with averages of 200 – 200 – 200 – 100. Both teams average 700 and they, logically enough, each have a 50% chance of finishing first in the 30-week season.

    But if you put a cap of 85 on a bowler’s handicap, Bowling League Tuneup shows that Team 1 will finish the season in first place literally 100% of the time. The last bowler on team 2 should have had a handicap of 117; setting it to 85 delivers a 32-pin penalty to team 2 in each and every game, which obviously is a death blow to the team’s chances over the course of the season. Does anyone consider this a good thing?

    Can anyone explain why a league would set a maximum bowler handicap – other than to tell poorer bowlers they are not welcome in the league? And does anyone know if (heaven forbid) this is a common feature in leagues that I should therefore implement in my league analysis application – if only to prove to the mathematically challenged that setting maximum handicaps should never be done?
    Last edited by bltuneup; 09-14-2020 at 04:42 PM.

  6. #16
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    Handicap percentage is always a lively discussion on league meeting night. People have in their mind that they want handicap to be the lowest possible. You throw out the 100% handicap figure, and people threaten to walk out. The general manager of our bowling center mentioned the 116% figure one time and it was minor chaos until he talked people down from the ledge. What people forget is that even at 100%, like you said, if both teams bowl average the higher average team will win. There are those wild card situations where a 150 or 160 average bowler puts together a 200+ game, or two such bowlers on the same team do it in the same game, and then that just throws everything out of whack.

    Capping handicap is interesting and I have personally never seen it. I have seen no-tap tournaments where score + handicap is capped at 300, but never capping handicap. Although, I know a ton of people around here would absolutely love it based on what I have seen.

  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ryster View Post
    Capping handicap is interesting and I have personally never seen it. I have seen no-tap tournaments where score + handicap is capped at 300, but never capping handicap. Although, I know a ton of people around here would absolutely love it based on what I have seen.
    Really? After reading what I just wrote, you still believe capping handicap is interesting and a ton of people would love it? Given my example of what capping handicap does, please explain why anyone would ever consider this good. Do you think that people here despise bad bowlers and want to make certain they will fail miserably if they ever have the gall to join a league?
    Last edited by bltuneup; 09-14-2020 at 05:42 PM.

  8. #18
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    I have no idea why they cap ours, it has been that way since I started 3 years ago. Have never heard any complains about it but you are right, anyone below about 136 average is severely penalized. My wife just started bowling this year and her average is 92 after 2 weeks. She is on our team and I know we are being penalized by about 40+ pins every game. We have a womens league that bowls the same night as us but not sure what their handicap rules are or if their is a maximum or not.

    I don't like 100% handicap. 90% is fair. Not sure I get the 116% thing but even psychologically there is no negative to being a lower average bowler. But that is my mindset. I like rewards and something to strive for. If I have a 100% handicap then I feel there is no reason for me to get better. I need a goal to do my best and feel a 100% handicap would hurt me more than help me. But that's just my opinion. I'm sure others might feel different and that's fine.
    Arsenal "15# Global Eternity Pi-45x4.5x40" "15# 900 Global Xponent-60x4.5x40" "15# 900 Global Zen Soul-60x4.5x40" "15# Roto Grip Idol Helios-90 x 2.25 x 45" "15# 900 Global Altered Reality-50x3.625x30" "15# Brunswick Uppercut-80x3.625x35" "15# Brunswick Igniter-70x5.5x35" "15# Raw Hammer Pearl 45x5.75x40" "15# Brunswick T-Zone"
    Rev Rate about 270 @ about 15.5 MPH at the pins* High Game: 290 - High Series: 733. PAP: 5 1/8"x1" up; tilt 20*, rotation 75*. YTD highs - 290-733
    Oh, and LEFTY!!!

  9. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by boatman37 View Post
    I have no idea why they cap ours, it has been that way since I started 3 years ago. Have never heard any complains about it but you are right, anyone below about 136 average is severely penalized. My wife just started bowling this year and her average is 92 after 2 weeks. She is on our team and I know we are being penalized by about 40+ pins every game. We have a womens league that bowls the same night as us but not sure what their handicap rules are or if their is a maximum or not.

    I don't like 100% handicap. 90% is fair. Not sure I get the 116% thing but even psychologically there is no negative to being a lower average bowler. But that is my mindset. I like rewards and something to strive for. If I have a 100% handicap then I feel there is no reason for me to get better. I need a goal to do my best and feel a 100% handicap would hurt me more than help me. But that's just my opinion. I'm sure others might feel different and that's fine.
    I bet that somewhere in your league’s past, some hypercompetitive whiner(s) who bowled well but still fell short of first place complained that the bad bowlers were getting too much of an advantage from their huge handicaps, and the league responded by putting a cap on handicaps to quiet the whiner(s), despite having no understanding of the devastating effect of this change on the low-average bowlers and their teams. This is what happens when (a) bowlers don’t accept that they’re in a handicap league and (b) the league is run by people who have no idea what they’re doing. Which, I can tell you from my experience in researching league bowling, is a whole lot of people, if not most people, who run leagues.

    Of course you’ve never heard any complaints. How would anyone prove from just a few seasons of bad results that their team has no realistic chance of success? So the unfair situation goes on for years because (a) no one wants to sound like they’re whining and (b) bowlers assume the league officials know what they’re doing. In my work league, the poorer teams, after many seasons of failure, eventually came to understand they had no chance of success in the league (even if they didn’t know why), so they dropped out and the league disbanded.

    Creating a league which gives better teams an advantage while assuring that all teams have a realistic chance to finish in first place requires some non-trivial math, not opinions, educated guesses, or lively discussions on league meeting night. That’s why I wrote Bowling League Tuneup. And that’s why, in my humble opinion, literally every league out there should be using it!

  10. #20
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    You are probably right about somebody whining. We have our share of those guys. I wouldn't say a lower average team can't compete. There are a few teams that are very low average that always finish near the bottom but for the most part it's fairly even. 2 of my teammates won the summer league championship one year (2 man teams). Their averages were about 200 for each of them but there are several in that league that average over 220 and a few over 230. But yeah the teams that average closer to 150 do seem to always finish near the bottom. Our winter league is split into 2 halves. The first 2 years I was here our team won one of the halves. Our team average is about 180 each. There are a couple of teams that have a team average over 210. I'll have to look at last years standings to see who won and how their averages compared to the top teams. Will try to remember to do that tomorrow. You have me thinking about this now...lol. At a quick glance after 2 weeks in this league the 1st place team is about mid-pack of 11 teams in terms of average. The 2nd place team is the top average. The 2nd highest average team is in 7th. But after only 2 weeks that isn't good data. Will look at last years and post it.
    Arsenal "15# Global Eternity Pi-45x4.5x40" "15# 900 Global Xponent-60x4.5x40" "15# 900 Global Zen Soul-60x4.5x40" "15# Roto Grip Idol Helios-90 x 2.25 x 45" "15# 900 Global Altered Reality-50x3.625x30" "15# Brunswick Uppercut-80x3.625x35" "15# Brunswick Igniter-70x5.5x35" "15# Raw Hammer Pearl 45x5.75x40" "15# Brunswick T-Zone"
    Rev Rate about 270 @ about 15.5 MPH at the pins* High Game: 290 - High Series: 733. PAP: 5 1/8"x1" up; tilt 20*, rotation 75*. YTD highs - 290-733
    Oh, and LEFTY!!!

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