Rankings

[silentoutcry]

I'm a little confused about the rankings. What is a good ranking, and how do they determine your rank?

[BOliver]

Go to:

http://www.usfencing.org/Documents/R...sMan/Class.asp

This is a breakdown of the different ratings, and the relative strengths of the competitions that will allow you to earn a particular rating.

Basically, win a tournament that has good fencers in it, and you get a letter rating. A is the highest, E the lowest. (Unclassified until then)

Ratings are used to seed fencers into a tournament, so that there is a fairly even distribution of strength in each first round pool.

Ratings also serve as personal goals - merit badges for training hard.

[silentoutcry]

awesome, so I will be unranked until do well at a competition. Hmm i better get training then, lol. Thanks man.

[Artisan]

Originally Posted by silentoutcry

awesome, so I will be unranked until do well at a competition. Hmm i better get training then, lol. Thanks man.

To be clear, there is a difference in ratings and rankings. They are unrelated. Ratings are A-E and U. Rankings are where you are on a points list. Points are earned at National Competitions and and International competitions, are awardd by where you place in an event are used to determine national team selections, as well as "who's first."

[noodle]

Originally Posted by Artisan

To be clear, there is a difference in ratings and rankings. They are unrelated. Ratings are A-E and U. Rankings are where you are on a points list. Points are earned at National Competitions and and International competitions, are awardd by where you place in an event are used to determine national team selections, as well as "who's first."

they're slightly related
for example, you have to at least be a C to have senior national ponits

[C.J.]

There is something really funny about the way USFA assigns ratings. For instance, placing 25th in the Div I tournament gives you about 300 points or so, which is enough to put you on the top 50 ranking list, but only earns you a D. Do the good folks at USFA really think that some who's skill's on that level really only deserves a D?

[noodle]

well
it doesn't really matter.
div 1 NACs require you to have a C (for now) to enter, so the D doesn't matter.
div 1 nationals is even tougher to get into, seeing a C there is even more rare.
they make the tournament give out as many ratings as it can and then on top of that gives out national points. national points are significantly harder to obtain than an A. if you earned points at a div 1 touranment, im willing to put money on the fact that you're an A or a B.

its like this. you can have one A and 5 Us fence a tournament. the A will probably win, but do you think they only deserve the E they would earn?

[C.J.]

Originally Posted by noodle

well

its like this. you can have one A and 5 Us fence a tournament. the A will probably win, but do you think they only deserve the E they would earn?

Well, that's another example why the current rating system doesn't work.

[oiuyt]

You could be a U and have national points. Any open tournament in Europe can be submitted for national points (numbers dependent on placement and the same Strength Factor calculation that is used for US points from world cups). In theory if one were a USFA member who never fenced in the US (and therefore never earned a USFA classification) but was good enough to win something like a French or German circuit event, one could be on the points list with a U classification. While the USFA (nationally) can give classifications to people other than according to the classification chart (there's a provision in the ops manual that covers this I believe) I don't know that this ever happens. Heck, earn enough points by winning a couple of French circuit events to crack the top 16 and then start going to world cups and theoretically one could make a senior national team as a U.

Want to pick up just a couple of points (not enough to officially be on the points list or, therefore, officially be ranked) and all you have to do is fence in any open tournament in Europe, place in the top 32, and send the results in to the national office. For the next year there're be a notation at the bottom of the applicable senior points list showing that you fenced in the tournament, placed 23rd (or whatever), that the strength factor was .023 (or whatever) and that you have 8.832 (or whatever) points. To make the list you need to have at least 275 points, but they'll keep track below that level (and list it on that page) in case you get above that threshold and officially get listed. Note that the numbers I gave as examples are the actual numbers that would be used if you finished DFL in a 23-person tournament that had no one of high caliber (people in the top 100 or better of the FIE standings start increasing the SF of the tournament). It's very easy to pick up 10 points here or there. It's completely useless to do so other than to be able to say "I have 10 national points".

-B :)

[o4aversob]

can your rating drop if you do poorly at a competition? (ex. C to D) ?

[swordsen]

I don't know, if you had the money you could go to Europe, finish DFL in a bunch of events and end up on the points list.

[glowstix]

Originally Posted by C.J.

There is something really funny about the way USFA assigns ratings. For instance, placing 25th in the Div I tournament gives you about 300 points or so, which is enough to put you on the top 50 ranking list, but only earns you a D. Do the good folks at USFA really think that some who's skill's on that level really only deserves a D?

i don't know..these are the same guys that give an E to someone who wins a 6-man tournament with 5 other U's.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by o4aversob

can your rating drop if you do poorly at a competition? (ex. C to D) ?

No, it only drops if you go 4 years without re-earning that classification. At which point it drops one level and the 4-year clock restarts.

For example, I have an A02 in sabre. If I finish DFL in every competition I enter (whether that's none or one a day (and twice on Sundays) forever) I will have my A until August 1st, 2006 at which point I will become a B06. Eventually I would become a C10, a D14, and an E18, until at midnight between July 31st, 2022 and August 1st, 2022 I would finally again become unrated. This, of course, assumes no changes to the classification system for the next 18 years.

-B :)

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by swordsen

I don't know, if you had the money you could go to Europe, finish DFL in a bunch of events and end up on the points list.

Still won't work. They are group I points. That is, the same group as a NAC or non-designated world cup. Only the top 2 (some years 3) group I results count towards your total. Unless the strength factor goes up enough to have your result be worth about 140 (or 90 in year when the top 3 count) points that still won't get you onto the list. In theory, if you could find a small enough competition that had some of the top people at it this could still work. Say the 23-person competition had 6 of the top 100 FIE fencers in it and an additional 6 fencers in the top 64 of the FIE. The strength factor for the tournament would be:

(23/10 + 4*6 + 2*6)/100 = 0.383

When multiplied by the 384 points that a 23rd place finish is worth you would receive 147.072 points. Manage to do that twice in the same year and you would debut on the senior points list at 294 points.

Euorpean opens are NOT the easy route to the points list. As far as I can tell they give relatively fewer points (significantly so) for the same level of performance as a NAC. If you can earn 300 points at a european open then you shouldn't have any problem making the top 32 of a NAC and doing it the easy way. In 2002 I took 9th (of 42) at a satellite world cup (Durham, England). I earned 28 US national points. If I had won that event I would have received 50.4 US points and 4 FIE points. This is NOT the way to increase one's standings on the US lists.

-B :)

[noodle]

Originally Posted by C.J.

Well, that's another example why the current rating system doesn't work.

actually i'd think its one of the few examples where it does work. having the one A in a small group of U's doesn't inflate the tournament strength in a manner that would cause everyone else to get ratings.

there are a lot of good reasons why the letter-based rating system doesn't work, but this isn't really one of 'em

Originally Posted by oiuyt

You could be a U and have national points.
... etc ...

-B

very true, though i didn't bother posting this since, after all, very very few people do this, if any and i didn't see it necessary to explode a newbie's head with european opens, circuit events, strength factors, and the like

[acfencing]

Classifications are basicly given out for having a good day at an event. National Points are really hard to get. You have to qualify for the event first and then come in the top 32 I think

I'm not sure why they both exist. Seems like classification are only ther to help seedings and don't relaly mean much while points are there to choise top athletes....

I'm not sure. I don't think anyone from our area has ever recieved points.

[neevel]

Originally Posted by acfencing

I'm not sure why they both exist. Seems like classification are only ther to help seedings and don't relaly mean much while points are there to choise top athletes....

Actually, you just nailed why the both exist with your question. The classifications are a rough, simple-to-administer way to do a "good enough" initial seeding of even small, local events. Since you only have to alter classifications when changes occur (including the end of season turnover), it's less of a workload than having to constantly update numerical classifications or rankings for all USFA members.

The National Rolling Points Standings are a more precise way of tracking the performance of elite and near-elite fencers for those instances where that's really needed (i.e., national team selection, eligibility for entry to World Cups & elite athlete support programs, etc.). Fencers in the top X of the rankings (X being dependent on what category the competition is-- i.e., Senior, Junior, etc.) will be placed ahead of other entrants when doing the initial seeding. Since only fencers who do well enough to earn points are in the system, it's less work to administer.

The Operations Manual and the Athletes' Handbook (both in .pdf at the US Fencing website) contain all the details.

-Dave