The IRF Racketlon World Rankings System - Principles
Date: 2004-11-22
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For the revision history of this document see end of document.
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The ranking is based on hard factual results in recent tournaments of the IRF Racketlon World Tour.

Fundamental to the system are the "Base Points" that are awarded based on victories in individual matches. No victories means no points. Final, semifinal and quarterfinal victories give a premium number of base points as follows:

Special rules, exceptions and clarifications:

The number of total base points for each tournament are then multiplied by four simple factors representing Prestige, Class, Erosion and Quality.

1) The Prestige factor varies depending on the tournament. The World Championships carry twice as much weight (prestige factor 2) than any of the other tournaments on the tour (prestige factor 1, given that the tournament attracts at least 50 participants. Fewer participants than 50 mean a proportionately smaller prestige factor so if e.g. 25 people attend the prestige factor will be 0,5.)

(Note that the prestige factor adjustments are made to the "elite" draws only and not to any lower classes. This means e.g. that a Class 1 draw in a World Championship will have prestige factor 1 and not 2. This is based on the fundamental principle of the ranking system that the base points should be multiplied with a (total) factor representing the average standard of the draw. It is furthermore assumed that the average standard of a Class 1 draw will be of average Class 1 quality even in a World Championship (and so will an amateur draw) while the elite draw will be better than a normal elite draw since all the top people will gather. Another way of looking at this is that the ranking system only recognizes the elite draws as true World Championships. (The winner of the amateur draw is not a true world champion.))

2) The Class factor makes sure that a victory in e.g. the Elite Class pays off more than a victory in the Amateurs Class. It increases with a factor 10 for each step in class as follows:

Elite Class: Class Factor=100
Class 1: Class Factor=10
Amateur Class: Class Factor=1

3) The Erosion factor makes sure that recent results carry more weight than older ones. The ranking points erode (=decrease) slowly, day by day, linearliry, until they finally - after 3 years - disappear. According to the following figure:

 


The erosion of ranking points over time. How 1200 points will erode over three years. (See example below)

 

4) To make it possible for good players who only take part in a few tournaments but perform very well to still get fairly high positions on the ranking list a quality mechanism is applied meaning that only the nine best results are counted and that the three best results are given three times as much weight. (The eroded ranking points of the remaining six tournaments are divided by the Quality Factor = 3 ).

Then, the ranking points for each individual player are summed up over all registered tournaments during the last three years to form a total that will decide that players position on the ranking list.

Plate tournaments count as normal tournaments but their Class Factor is "one step below" that of the main tournament. So, e.g. an Elite Plate counts as a normal Class 1 tournament.

 

Example:

A fictitious Scotsman, Phil, takes part in the World Championships in Gothenburg in November 2003. He enters the Elite Class and goes all the way to the Final, where he looses (by 40 points to an unknown Australian). Since the Elite Class was an incomplete last-32 draw Phil only had to win one match to get to the quarterfinal and in total he got 1+2+3=6 base points. In a normal Prestige Factor=1 tour event this would have meant 600 ranking points (given Elite Class Factor=100) but since this is the World Championships (Prestige Factor=2) he gets twice as much, i.e. 1200 ranking points. When the ranking list is compiled one year later two thirds of those points have eroded away to become 400 "eroded ranking points". Since this was Phil's only final during that last year those 400 points is the best result that he has. This means that they escape the quality mechanism and a division by 3. In November 2004, one year after the tournament, its contribution to his total ends up at 400 points.

 

For full details on how the ranking list has been compiled see the underlying spreadsheet (excel). This is where to go if you want to see how your ranking points will age in the future. Fill in any date in the green cell and you will see directly how many of your points - and your competitiors' - that remain at that date.

It will be the ambition of the IRF to publish an updated ranking list here on Racketlon.com within one week after every tournament on the tour.

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Revision history:
2003-02-12: first version
2003-08-22: Added "first round exception". Modified the quality mechanism to mean a division by three for the lower standard tournaments instead of a multiplication by three for the top three results. The purpose of this is to make the points more intuitively understandable. E.g. a hundred points will now correspond to one recent match victory in the Elite class.
2003-08-24: Added the section "special rules and exceptions" with a documentation of the rule that "group" final can give bonus points.
2003-09-26:
Added clarification on walk-over rules. (As of 1 January 2003 all walk-overs count as normal match victories. No attention is given to HOW the matches are won.)
Changed the number of points awarded for match for 3rd prize victory. It was earlier 2 points, which is considered too much since it meant that the number 3 only got 1 point less than the number 2 (or not even that if the number 2 had a bye). As of the ranking compiled after Austrian Open in September 2003 the match for third prize counts as any other match, i.e. 1 base point. This change applies retroactively to tournaments in the past.
Added description of "attendance points". (Attendance points were introduced to the ranking system in May 2003)
2004-04-11: Modified the quality mechanism so that only the 9 best results are counted. This rule took effect as of Canadian Open in March 2004.
2004-11-22: Clarified the rule that it is only the prestige factor of the elite draws (NOT that of the lower classes) that are affected when "prestige factor adjustment" is applied (as at e.g. World Championships). This is a rule that has been applied consistently from the beginning of the ranking system - although it has not been clearly documented.

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