Improved Ranking Scheme launched for 2012 Tour

The existing system works on the basis of a rolling 12 month period with all results in the qualifying period counting towards a persons ranking.  We also included current World points to try and reflect that some of our elite players like Calum and Jermaine play as much internationally and domestically.

This system has worked well in encouraging people to play in lots of tournaments to improve their ranking.  We now feel it is the time to adopt a system that tries to place a greater weighting on ability.  In the current system people can get into the top 20 by competing in lots of events in category B. This in itself is not an issue but as we use the rankings as a tool to select seeds for the tournaments it can have other implications.  The more regular players will get seeded in categories A and B rather than the "best" players.  This can then lead to very uneven draws and lots of seeds going out in early rounds as they face better but unseeded players.

The new system takes a player's best 8 results over a 24 month period inclusive of international and domestic events (which is same as the World rankings system).  Each tournament will have its own grading as before.  Therefore doing well in a large tournament will gain you more points than in a small tournament.  A player must play in at least 2 events to qualify for a a ranking and at least 1 event in the last 12 months.  This system does still encourage regular participation as if you have played in say 10 events then your 2 lowest scoring tournaments are disregarded when calculating the average.

The impact of this change is quite marked and can be best be illustrated by some real examples.

Under the old system Duncan Stahl topped the rankings.  Duncan is undoubtedly one of the top players in the country but is he better than the current domestic number 7 (the World champion Calum Reid). Calum by only playing in 4 domestic events has a much lower points tally than Duncan who played in 9 domestic events.

Similarly Keith Lesser and Rakesh Gupta were very high up under the old system via regular performances both domestically and internationally. Under the new system they move down the rankings as people like Alex Hartley and Chris Mckee who played in fewer tournaments in 2011 move up.

There is no one system that can cope with all potential permutations.  We will now award more points to a winner of class B than the last place in class A.  This overlap will vary by size of tournament and in a 16 person draw the top 3 in the category below will score more points.  This is designed so that people if they consistently come towards the bottom of their category will find their average reflecting that their standard is of the lower category and vice versa.

We will look to use the rankings to provide some objectivity into placing people into appropriate draws thus ensuring matches against people of a similar standard. As always it will not be the only factor but we will place a strong weighting to this factor.

More detail on actual rankings will follow but taking into account the recent Welsh Open the current top 10 would be

Name, Points

1) Calum Reid  1,354

2) Jermaine Manners 1,261

3) Ed Batson 1,200 (last played in March 2011, so will disappear soon)

4) Alex Hartley 1,183

5) Ray Jordan 1,178

6) Jason Granville 1,173

7) Stuart Hobden 1,150

8) Chris McKee 1,136

9) Paul Wallace 1,120

10) Duncan Stahl 1,111

Of the above only Calum and Paul have played in less than 8 qualifying events.  

As with the FIR system we will also run a calendar "Tour Race".  This will be based upon cumulative points in the current calendar year 

Across the 2 (Rankings and Tour Race) we are recognising both ability and participation.  Many permutations have been modelled for the new rankings model and although we cannot cater for every circumstance we believe the model selected represents the best solution (as illustrated by the top 10 above).

Full details will be published after the English championships.  At present we have only applied this to the mens rankings.  We will look to implement for all other categories during the year. 

 ERA Committee