Post by: JOE FALCO on September 04, 2003, 04:28:04 AM
League established .. defining HANDICAP as 90% of difference between average and 215. This is understandable and I realize it favors bowlers that are closer to the 215 average (i.e., a team of 200 bowlers bowling against a team of 190 bowlers .. all bowling AVERAGE .. the 200 team would win). What I don't understand is a bowler with a 225 average receiving a 0 handicap. Shouldn't the 225 average receive a MINUS 9 to make the handicaps respectable? The higher average maintains an ADVANTAGE with this method .. otherwise the 225 is really TAKING ADVANTAGE of the other bowlers.
Am I MISSING SOMETHING? Could it be that this PERCENTAGE of 215 was developed for bowlers where there were NO AVERAGES over that average? It doesn't sound FAIR to ..me
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Hit them light and watch them fight
J O E - F A L C O
Post by: mumzie on September 04, 2003, 07:35:54 PM
Personally I won't bowl a league that takes pins away. I work too darn hard to knock 'em down!
I would rather that handicap be 110% of 300 than have negative handicap!
Post by: JOE FALCO on September 04, 2003, 07:45:14 PM
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Hit them light and watch them fight
J O E - F A L C O
Post by: dicnic on September 04, 2003, 07:52:18 PM
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What's with the Braille on a drive-up-ATM?
Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
Post by: JOE FALCO on September 04, 2003, 08:13:12 PM
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Hit them light and watch them fight
J O E - F A L C O
Edited on 9/4/2003 8:23 PM
Post by: charlest on September 04, 2003, 08:52:13 PM
Yes, you are right, BUT if the league does not have a rule to cover this, then the guy gets .....
The handicap should be based on a number higher than the highest average or even the highest expected average. The rules should state what it is.
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"Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it."
Post by: JOE FALCO on September 04, 2003, 09:16:19 PM
Thanks again!
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Hit them light and watch them fight
J O E - F A L C O
Post by: CB on September 05, 2003, 12:14:06 AM
As a result of just that situation several of the leagues in my area have gone to team handicap. One leagu, a just for fun Vegas league, uses 100% of the difference between team handicaps. Another uses 90% of 945, the league team max. It makes it a more fair playing field and takes into account the high average bowler. We used the 90% of 945 during the summer and it kept the teams pretty evenly matched. No one ran away with the league.
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I have no life, therefore I bowl
or I bowl, therefore I have no life? Okay here is the truth I bowl, therefore there is life Post by: MI 2 AZ on September 05, 2003, 01:38:00 AM
On my mixed league, I managed to convince the league to adopt a 90% from 220 a couple of years ago (there were no bowlers over 215 and at the time I had a 202 entering average). Then, the following year, the manager (averaging 210) joined the league as a bowler and told the league that that was unfair to the lower average bowlers because bowlers who average over 200 should get zero handicap. So they passed the handicap to be 90% from 200 while there are bowlers in the league with over 210 averages.
It seems obvious to me that a 215 average bowler could have an off night and bowl 45 pins below his average (for the night) and not hurt his/her team. But for some strange reason, the lower average bowlers cant see this. They only see that the 'better' bowlers are getting handicap if the cap is at 220.
Post by: Enzo on September 05, 2003, 03:13:35 AM
PS : I am a 180+ bowler, not a 220+ but I admire those guys and working my way up to a 200+...
Post by: cgilyeat on September 05, 2003, 06:35:17 AM
Post by: JOE FALCO on September 05, 2003, 08:51:39 AM
The Questionable case is where BOWLERS in a league are averaging HIGHER then the CUT OFF .. these bowlers have an UN-QUESTIONABLE advantage that knocks competition out of the box.
Example .. the CUT-OFF is 215 .. a BOWLER enters with 225. That bowler throws a 175 .. he's 50 below his average .. the scoring will show him as 40 below .. if he does that for three games he would have 30 points more then he should .. and that's a lot of wood to MAKE-UP to beat a guy who BOWLED LOUSY!
SAWBONES .. I bowl in leagues that do exactly as you describe .. and those leagues are a lot of fun .. I use them for PRACTICE .. in some (NOT ALL) these are NON-SANCTIONED leagues and the cost per session is $5 .. I love them! Now I also bowl in leagues where the cost is $20 per session. At the end of the season the PRIZE FUND is substantial .. entering a SCRATCH league where everyone KNOWS where the competition is .. ACCEPTABLE .. HANDICAP leagues where there are a NUMBER OF BOWLERS over the CUT-OFF .. TO ME UN-ACCEPTABLE and should NOT be TOLERATED by BOWLERS!
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Hit them light and watch them fight
J O E - F A L C O
Post by: MI 2 AZ on September 05, 2003, 11:59:13 AM
quote:
Those guys with higher average earn those "advantage", they work hard to get those high average. If you think they have unfair advantage, go to some place with lower average bowler.
Ok. That is what scratch leagues are for.
Amazingly, most of those '200+' average bowlers refuse to bowl in the scratch sport league. Yet, you find them bowling in almost all of the handicap leagues.
Out of the 13 bowlers that showed up for the sport league, only three were 200 average bowlers and one quit after the first week.
Post by: cgilyeat on September 05, 2003, 12:11:18 PM
I understand your frustation with the higher average bowlers, but I still feel that giving a bowler negative pins for handicap is penalizing that bowler for being good enough to have that average. If there are a "number" of bowlers in the league that carry averages higher than the handicap cutoff, then perhaps it's time to raise the cutoff average to something above the highest average. But, if there are only one or two averages that high, unless they are on the same team or every one else on the team is near the cutoff average, then it really shoudn't give the team a great advantage.
Post by: Steven on September 05, 2003, 01:36:54 PM
quote:
League established .. defining HANDICAP as 90% of difference between average and 215. This is understandable and I realize it favors bowlers that are closer to the 215 average
It's a common misperception that higher average bowlers always have the advantage in handicap. This may be true in situations where nobody is improving (i.e. seniors, mixed handicap 'just for fun', etc.). However, in leagues where folks are competitive (where you want to be), lower average bowlers have a better chance of improving, and therefore handicap works to their advantage. This is one reason I no longer bowl handicap.
quote:
What I don't understand is a bowler with a 225 average receiving a 0 handicap. Shouldn't the 225 average receive a MINUS 9 to make the handicaps respectable?
Good observation, but the answer here is to set the number on which handicap is calculated greater than the highest average in the league. So for example, if the highest average is 225, establish handicap at 90% of 230.
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"Advertisers -- you too can have access to this prime demographic"
Post by: da Shiv on September 05, 2003, 02:16:00 PM
This doesn't help when it comes to jackpots. In my leagues, the rules for the jackpots are established by whoever is running the jackpot. If someone is running a handicap jackpot that handicaps from 200 and there are 215 bowlers in that jackpot, the 215 bowlers have an edge and that discourages some of the lower bowlers from getting in. If the person running the jackpot wants that jackpot to have any size to it, they have to adjust the rules to encourage more bowlers to get in. If you feel the jackpot's rules are stacked against you, you have the option of not getting in--or starting a jackpot that has rules that suit you and try to drum up support for your jackpot.
quote:
It's a common misperception that higher average bowlers
always have the advantage in handicap. This may be true in
situations where nobody is improving (i.e. seniors, mixed
handicap 'just for fun', etc.). However, in leagues where folks
are competitive (where you want to be), lower average bowlers
have a better chance of improving, and therefore handicap
works to their advantage. This is one reason I no longer bowl
handicap.
In this quote, Steven points out the principle weakness of handicap leagues. Since not everyone can compete scratch, and it's safe to say that nobody wants to know that their 800 team is going to get stomped every week by the 1000 teams bowling scratch, just about the only way to keep lower average bowlers in the league is to have a handicap. This does occasionally result in the problem Steven pointed out. Personally, I like handicap leagues, and I've been fortunate to have not run into the situation Steven points out very much--or at least not to a dramatic enough extent that it enables a novice team to run away with the league. This did happen last year, however. In my Tuesday league, we had a new team of young guys. Just about every year we have a new team of young guys, but they usually don't take enough of an interest in the game to bother to learn to bowl better, and they stay down in the cellar. Last year, these guys got into it, and after establishing low averages in the early going, they started to get interested in the game and worked at it and in the second half two or three of them were shooting 100 pins over every night and their averages--while rising--didn't keep up. They ran away with the second half, and it kind of annoyed everybody. Since they were a friendly bunch and since we don't bowl for serious money anyway--and since a more experienced team beat them in the league playoffs--it didn't become a real issue. There was discussion of having some kind mid-season re-rating procedure for bowlers who had started to bowl well over average on a regular basis, but nobody came up with a system that was acceptable to enough people to pass a vote. We bowlers are an ornery bunch.
Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to finally getting started tonight.
Shiv
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Listening to the monotonous staccato of rain on my desk top
Post by: seadrive on September 05, 2003, 05:32:03 PM
quote:
It seems obvious to me that a 215 average bowler could have an off night and bowl 45 pins below his average (for the night) and not hurt his/her team. But for some strange reason, the lower average bowlers cant see this. They only see that the 'better' bowlers are getting handicap if the cap is at 220.
MI 2 AZ,
Just put together a couple of different scenarios, and show them that the lower the handicap base, the greater the advantage to the higher-average bowlers, since the lower the handicap base, the closer you are to scratch bowling. Everyone understands that higher-average bowlers have the advantage in scratch leagues.
Let's compare two bowlers, one with a 180 average, another with a 220 average.
Scenario #1: 80% of 240
Bowler #1 gets (240-180)*0.80 = 48 pins + 180 avg = 228
Bowler #2 gets (240-220)*0.80 = 16 pins + 220 avg = 232
So at 80% of 240, if bowler #2 bowls his average, bowler #1 has to bowl 5 pins over his average to win the game.
Scenario #2: 80% of 200 (no neg handicap)
Bowler #1 gets (200-180)*0.80 = 16 pins + 180 avg = 196
Bowler #2 gets 0 pins + 220 avg = 220
Under scenario #2, if the 220 average bowler bowls his average, the 180 average bowler must now bowl 25 pins over his average to win the game.
In a handicap league, you always want to set the cap above the highest average.
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seadrive
Cogito ergo bowl
Post by: MI 2 AZ on September 05, 2003, 06:11:52 PM
quote:
In a handicap league, you always want to set the cap above the highest average.
Seadrive, thanks. I understand that and managed to convince the league of that fact a couple of years ago but when the manager of the center who is a regional PBA cardholder told them that having a lower baseline (200) will benefit the lower average bowlers, they voted his way. Of course, his team won the league championship.
I had already committed myself to this season, so I will probably be looking for a new league next season.
Post by: JOE FALCO on September 05, 2003, 07:53:01 PM
I'm concluding from answers that a FAIR handicap method would be a PERCENTAGE (90% preferred)with a cutoff score of 5 over the highest average in the league. Naturally, someone might go over that CUT-OFF during the year .. but if we are working with established averages .. this should not happen.
I think I'd be very happy with that approach .. it appears to give the HIGHER AVERAGES a slight advantage .. but I CONCUR that they deserve it .. I believe (and other have stated it) that it is TOTALLY UN-FAIR to have ESTABLISHED AVERAGES in a HANDICAP league in excess of the CUT-OFF SCORE.
Incidentally DA-SHIVE .. I think your league approach sounds fair .. my only thought on that would be a STACKED TEAM .. in my concept .. 5 bowlers at 1050 gives 210 per bowler .. if a team was made up of 4 .. 220 bowlers and 1 .. 170 bowler they would meet your requirement and I believe would have AN ADVANTAGE .. but that's how I see it!
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Hit them light and watch them fight
J O E - F A L C O
Post by: Strider on September 05, 2003, 09:09:23 PM
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Penn State Proud ......THB with loft
Post by: JOE FALCO on September 05, 2003, 09:37:49 PM
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Hit them light and watch them fight
J O E - F A L C O
Post by: JOE FALCO on September 05, 2003, 11:20:05 PM
The more I consider STRIDER's league approach .. the more I like it. It's not something I HAVEN'T SEEN before .. it's just something I never THOUGHT ABOUT! I think the LARGE PRIZE FUNDS and the HIGHER AVERAGES made me SEE THE LIGHT!
I figure if they are going to take my money .. LET THEM BOWL FOR IT!
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Hit them light and watch them fight
J O E - F A L C O
Edited on 9/5/2003 11:32 PM