Is point playing in Killer fair?

Yes. If you play a 10-man game and win, you get the lion's share of the points, simple as. Plus, the earlier you exit, the greater your points reduction will be.

Depends on how it might be unfair, though. How do you think it is?

Sorry, not the issue. Scenario, you have 3 lives and I have one. Rather than playing a fair shot to pot, you play a snooker.
Thoughts?

Ah, yes. That's probably the one "fault", but there's really nothing you can do about it as it's impossible for the website to judge the sporting merits of a shot. Of course, if it backfires, then I have 2 lives and you have 1. But I've had it done to me and I haven't been too bothered; it's like the opponent with the three lives playing a safety, except he has chosen not to pot a ball as he/she does it. But fortunately the situation doesn't come up too often, as the only sane situation where someone would play such a shot is in the scenario you described with no other players remaining.

Thanks for listening and I realise that its impossible to judge, but you'll agree that its poor ettiquete.

Regards

It's sort of poor etiquette in and of itself, just as people look down on snookering in the other games as well, and it's not a shot I think I would try, I but once the rules of the game allow it, for good or for bad, people will try to exploit it. Glad to help

Pfftt...the object of the game is to be the last person alive, and if I have 3 lives left and I'm up against 1 other person with 1 life, and I have the opportunity to lay up behind another ball I'll do it...unless it was one of those games where I had 30/30 pots, then I'd try pot something...unless there was absolutely nothing on, in which case I'd roll up behind another ball

I hear ya... In fact, if I had 3 lives and had no pot on at all, I'd probably play a safety as I'd end up losing a life anyway; might as well seeing as a missed attempt will in all likelihood set up my opponent. This would happen regardless of how many lives the opponent had.

Yes. No more, no less.

The points you win or lose are directly reflecting the chance you have of winning the game. It may seem wrong to be compared toward only the winning player, but this is in fact not unfair or incorrect in any way. Over time, it is as correct as it gets.

Incorrect cloone.

The points you lose is a result of the winner's rank compared to your own, including newbie status if applicable, and nothing else what so ever.

Whether you exit first or as the runner-up makes no difference in the world, and nor should it.

There is a reason why you end up in the scenario you describe: One player have played better and/or been luckier than the other. At that point, playing a snooker is a sound tactic toward winning the game and perfectly intentional.

I personally avoid it if having pots I can safely make, but no hard feelings to those who choose to play their cards as optimally as possible.

Emmm...

From http://www.funkypool.com/help/killer: "As this game is multiplayer at the game end the winner is regarded to defeat each player in turn", and that turn is from the last player to the player who came second.

What this means, from my understanding, is that if 9 players with rank of 750 play and 1 player of 800 play, and the 800 player wins, the following happens:
- The player who comes last gets his/her rank reduced from 750 to whatever the exact amount is, let's say for example that it's 747. The winner's rank will increase to 800+.
- The player who comes second last gets his/her rank reduced from 750 by a lesser amount, because now the calculation is based on a higher winner's score. So it'll be, say, 747.2 or something. The winner's rank goes up to 800++, we'll call it.
- The who comes third last gets his/her rank reduced from 750 by a lesser amount again, as 800++ is greater than 800+. And so on.

And here comes the science bit...

http://www.funkypool.com/help/rankings says that 2 - 2^(dif / 100) is in the middle of the whole ranking change process for the losing player, where dif is the difference between the winner's score and the loser's. dif after the first calculation (for the winner and 10th place) in our example is 800-750 = 50. After this is done, the winner's rank goes up. The value of dif for the next calculation (for the winner and 9th place) is 800+ - 750 = 50+. If dif has increased, then:
- dif / 100 increases;
- 2^(dif / 100) increases, and
- 2 - 2^(dif / 100) decreases, meaning the player finishing 9th has a smaller rank reduction than 10th, 8th has smaller than 9th, and so on.

I hope I have understood the ranking help page correctly, although it does not give the formula for how an individual game result is calculated.

I never really managed to gauge how the rankings for killer exactly work...so what you're saying jan, is that if I was first out in killer I'd lose the same amount of points as I would coming second? And that if a 660 intermediate won the game, and not an 880 professional, I'd lose more points? I find that hard to believe...I always thought it was based on some sort of average points loss across the different ranks.

Say, for example, there's a 10 player killer game with 9 other high ranked players, and I lose whatever amount of points by being first out...then I go play another 10 man game where there are 8 intermediates, and the same professional who won the other game I was just in...and he wins this game again...does that mean I'll lose the same amount of points I would have ordinarily lost if all the other players were also pros and not intermediates? Surely I should lose more because of the weaker opposition...and likewise gain proportionally less in the second game than the first if I won both.

You are massively over-engineering the truth here cloone. Each loser is compared to the winner, individually. That's what's meant with "in turn", nothing more. The sequence has no bearing on this, all losers are as far as I know compared to the winner's rank at the time the game was played, not a sequentially growing rank as each loser adds to the winner rank. The winner rank gets added to only once for each game (the contribution from each loser added up and applied only once)

I could be wrong, but have never seen anything to indicate that I am.

Edited at 16:28 Wed 4/11/09 (GMT)

So... it is the same relative deduction, and if all losing players have the same rank before the game, they'll still have the same rank afterwards?

That's my understanding yes, and also my experience this far.