Brian Pace vs. Fang Bo

beat me to it, icontec. That was kind of humiliating to Brian Pace actually. Fang Bo was just messing around and refused to loop. He just pushed and lobbed from very low.

Give Fang Bo a run for his money.. LGL is smoking the good stuff

You seem to not understand just how low 1800 is compared to either of these guys, I'm positive either of them could beat an 1800 player 11-1 or better more often than not, even though this match had no point to be played at 100% there was still a lot of work on the ball

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That's exactly how it is playing a high level inverted player, you can if you are good enough vary the ball extreme amounts with inverted and do it exactly how you want, thus giving the next ball you are about to receive a high degree of predictability. Plus they have much better and faster over the table games to punish that next ball which they already know where and what height it will be from the moment they hit it the point before. Plus they have a powerful long range game to fall back on if they need it. An 1800 guy feels like that playing me, just like I would playing playing Brian Pace just like he does against the guys the next level up, just like Fang would to a lesser degree against Ma long

 

No wonder Fang Bo did not play seriously, there was no need to.

Na, it's pretty linear.  Points are exchanged only based on ratings differentials, not on the players' absolute ratings.  It only seems like 2500 and 2300 are closer than 1800 and 2000 because it becomes difficult to eyeball how good a person as levels go up, but 2300 don't beat 2500's any more often than 1800s beating 2000s.  For example, if you didn't know the head-to-head records, does Wang Hao's game look unbeatable compared to Mizutani Jun's?

 

The USATT scale cannot be perfectly linear; you are right in saying that points are exchanged on rating differentials, but that really only applies to rated players who play many matches. Statistics is really only a reliable predictor when it involves a very large number of trials. Unrated players throw off the system. Extremely good players also pose a problem to the scale; above a certain level (let's say ~2600), there are so few players with that rating range that the initial rating is often inaccurate in reflecting upon playing ability. Hypothetically, if a foreign player plays a tournament and creams all the top U.S. players rated 2600-2700 3-0/4-0, his rating would be a total stab in the dark. Since he didn't have any losses, or play anyone near his level, it is hard to accurately gauge his true playing level with a numerical rating. Sure, they could assign him 2900 or something. But does that mean his skill compared to a 2700 is the same as the skill of a 2000 compared to an 1800? Not really. In my opinion, the USATT scale is relatively linear, but it becomes unpredictable as you approach the upper limits of the ratings scale and there are fewer established players with those ratings.