PDGA payouts to top 50% of the field..Too Deep?

[shinypickle]

Too deep. If you give out prizes to the top half then there is NOT as much glory for placing in the top 3 if lots of others win stuff too.

 

[scarpfish]

Too deep. If you give out prizes to the top half then there is NOT as much glory for placing in the top 3 if lots of others win stuff too.

I placed in the top 3 in an unsanctioned tournament last year. Granted there were only five of us to start and two people DNF'ed, but hey I won something just for sticking around to the end.

Placing in the top 3 has a lot more so called "glory" when you're competing against a field of 30+, versus a field of 5-10.

 

[shinypickle]

I placed in the top 3 in an unsanctioned tournament last year. Granted there were only five of us to start and two people DNF'ed, but hey I won something just for sticking around to the end.

Placing in the top 3 has a lot more so called "glory" when you're competing against a field of 30+, versus a field of 5-10.

Yes, I agree that it holds more glory but it takes away some when the "everyone is a winner" thing comes into play. It rewards those who just are not a cut above the rest. People should have to earn the way to the top to get a prize, not just be a middle of the pack player. Then again it is diffrent if you are only playing with 5 people because then you have to reward half the competition. I guess that I was thinking more of like 30+ people.

 

[Lewis]

This thread inspired me to look up the PDGA payout tables and try to see how they're calculated. I figured there must be a fairly simple formula, probably something exponential or at least geometric, that determines how much of the total purse a player in nth place wins. Call me crazy, but I like to pass my spare time with stuff like this.

So after a few days of fooling around in the wonder of the interwebs, I came across this post on the PDGA forums from 2004:

I cannot help myself, I must get into this conversation. The Pro Payouts follow a formula of sorts and if you plot them on a 3-D graph you will see that they re relatively smooth. The other divisions are variants of the Pro tables that have been flattened out over the years. I did EXTENSIVE curve fit analysis to find an equation or set of equations to set up the payouts and the results, while farily close to the PDGA payout tables are not exact. Too many people have played with the tables over the years and they are a little non-uniform in some areas. I submitted the equations to the PDGA last year for consideration in extending the tables and there has been some discussion, but as of today the payout tables handle everything except a few situations at Worlds, so there is no reason to use my equaitons.

http://www.pdga.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=17896

So what this guy is saying is that even after he spent all-caps effort to discover the formula, he could only approximate it. I also found an excel spreadsheet where I could read the formulas for calculating the payout tables as of 2008, which I think is an out-of-date spreadsheet. The formulas in Excel are a half mile long with no apparent rhyme or reason. Like somebody had no plan but fiddled and tinkered until he happened into a curve he liked. Maybe these are what the guy above came up with?

(0.9563*(E$5*$A11)^(-0.5937))/(0.9593*E$5^(0.09226-0.04832*LN(E$5))+0.0762*LN(E$5))/(SQRT(1.035-0.000004*(E$5-75.82)^2)-0.003956*LN(E$5))/(0.9995+0.00004428*E$5-0.0000009458*E$5^2+0.000000006169*E$5^3)

(where E5 is the cell for the # of places paid out)

ROUND(((-0.3881+$A11)/(-0.1837-0.9021*E$5^2)+1.57/E$5)/(1.016-0.1248/E$5+0.1208/E$5^2),E$5-1)

(where E5 is the cell for the # of places paid out)

http://www.pdga.com/documents/2008-payout-calculator

Why would the PDGA have such a mysterious payout plan? Why not have something more transparent? Or am I missing something?

 

[scarpfish]

Why would the PDGA have such a mysterious payout plan? Why not have something more transparent? Or am I missing something?

This, perhaps?

http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/09PayTables.pdf

 

[Dillon_Gourley]

I was having a discussion with one of my friends about a payout, PDGA B tier. Tell me if you think I got shafted. Usually INT payout in all tournaments is 1/2 the field (50%) unless stated otherwise.

I placed 5th out of 10 in INT and did not cash, only payed out 4, 40%

However, ADV Master payed out 2 in a 3 man divsion, 66% , INT Women payed out 2/4 , 50%

Shafted or not?

 

[scarpfish]

I was having a discussion with one of my friends about a payout, PDGA B tier. Tell me if you think I got shafted. Usually INT payout in all tournaments is 1/2 the field (50%) unless stated otherwise.

I placed 5th out of 10 in INT and did not cash, only payed out 4, 40%

However, ADV Master payed out 2 in a 3 man divsion, 66% , INT Women payed out 2/4 , 50%

Shafted or not?

I'd have to see the payout for the rest of the large divisions. In a division of three people you can only pay out 33% or 66%. In a division of four, you can only pay out 25%, 50%, or 75%. Maybe the TD was aiming for 40%, but felt anything below that was too top heavy.

 

[Dillon_Gourley]

Pro payed out 3/9 , 33%
Adv payed out 4/9 , 44%

The event payed out more than 100% in $ , which isn't my arguement, just not deep enough in INT, only 40% deep.

Not really trying to blame a TD which is a good guy just trying to get other's thoughts on what payout should be.

 

[Lewis]

This, perhaps?

http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/09PayTables.pdf

For sure I know they've published the fractions. Maybe I'm more curious than anybody else, but how they came up with those numbers interests me. Knowing the formula would also mean anyone wondering if the TD shafted somebody or miscalculated their payout would be able to run the numbers themselves on the fly with a pocket calculator. But no big deal. I'm probably just showing my nerdy side.