The Walleye Central Angler Ranking FAQ
(currently we are ranking Pros in FLW and PWT circuits, we are working on a "Team Ranking")

Q: How does the Ranker work?
A: The short answer to the question is that the ranker uses four parameters to calculate an angler’s current score, and then lists all anglers according to their current scores.

Q: What are those four parameters then?
A: They are “Strength Of Field”, “Normalized Tournament Score”, “Tournament Weight”, and “Tournament Age.”

Q: Okay, then what is the formula that is used to calculate the ranking?
A: Well, let’s take these one at a time first, so that they are all understood.

Q: Okay, what is “Strength Of Field?”
A: Strength of field is a measure that is applied to each tournament once the tournament is concluded and all the anglers who participated in it are known and archived off. At the beginning of each tournament there is a current ranking of the top anglers. The “Strength Of Field” is a straightforward calculation based on how many of the top anglers according to the current ranking are have participated in the tournament. There is a “base level strength of field” that would be used if none of the top anglers were in a particular tournament.

Q: Would you care to share the formula for “Strength Of Field?”
A: It looks like this:

strengthOfField = baseStrField +
(numTopAnglers /(numAnglers * (1.0 - baseStrField))

baseStrField = the minimum possible SOF
numTopAnglers = the number of top ranked anglers in the tournament
numAnglers = the total number of anglers in the tournament.

This formula has two effects, one obvious, one not so obvious. The obvious one is that the more top ranked anglers who fish, the higher the strength of field. The not so obvious one is that the larger the field of anglers for the tournament, the lower the strength of field. That’s intentional, it is meant to balance against an angler getting a high score simply from beating a whole lot of anglers who aren’t regular top-level pros.

Q: Okay, what about “Normalized Tournament Score” then?
A: “Normalization” is a process where a set of values is mapped onto a standardized set of scores. A “percentage” is a normalization, for example, it puts everything into a range that is easily understood. The Walleye Central Ranking system does a very similar thing. Basically it looks at any tournament and maps the placement of the anglers into a range of “1” to “100”, where “1” is first place and “100” is last place. Then we assign points to those values, which just to be confusing, we assign the value of “100” to the first place, and “0” to the last place. The way this is done is to simply calculate the slope of a line which has a y-value of 100 at the x-value of 1, and a y-value of “0” at the x-value of whatever the lowest placement of a tournament is. Then with that slope you can do a simple calculation that gives you the y-value of any placement in the tournament.

Q: Is that all there is to the Normalized Tournament Score?
A: No, there is also a calculation of “eccentricity” which allows us to “bend” that line so that we can give anglers who place in the top of the field a slight benefit when compared to those who score in the bottom of the field. That calculation is a bit more esoteric and involves quadratic equations. The important thing is to know that it is a very slight bend, but just enough to make it worth an anglers effort to get in the top third of the pack.

Q: What is this “Tournament Weight” portion of the calculation?
A: It is currently only used for championship tournaments. It is a way to give a particular tournament a higher score than “regular” tournaments. This is to encourage anglers to participate in the tournament, or to reward them for “making the cut” to get into it in the first place. At this time the FLW and PWT championships are both given a 20% boost when compared to other tournaments.

Q: Finally, what do you mean by “Tournament Age?”
A: The Walleye Central Ranking system gives a higher value to the most recent tournaments, and then reduces the value of each tournament as they get older. The formula is currently very simple, the most recent five tournaments are all given 100% value, then each successively older tournament is reduced by 1%. There is a minimum value possible for a tournament, currently set to 30%, but the ranking period currently is set so that no tournament is actually affected by the minimum Age value.

Q: Aha! What do you mean by “Ranking Period”?
A: The Ranking Period is that period of time the Walleye Central Ranking system uses to calculate the current angler’s score. Currently that is set to 24 months. When we calculate a final ranking after each tournament, any tournament older than 24 months is ignored.

Q: Are you leaving anything out?
A: Well, yes. We have some other factors that are involved. There is a certain minimum number of tournaments that an Angler must fish in that Ranking Period before they are even added to the Ranking system. That is currently set to five tournaments. Any angler who has not fished in five tournaments won’t even show up. Also there is a 100 point bonus given to any angler who has met a minimum criteria that is currently set to nine tournaments in the Ranking Period. This 100 points separates those who fish regularly from those who do not. In effect this 100 point bonus creates a two-tiered ranking system, where those who qualify for it will always rank higher than those who do not. However, when an angler satisfies that minimum number of tournaments, they will be placed in the ranking wherever their overall total places them.

Q: I still don’t know how the final ranking score is calculated. How is that done?
A: The final ranking score is basically just an average of all the scores using the factors above, then adding the qualifying bonus if the angler has fished nine or more tournaments. The Ranking system does support a maximum number of tournaments to average, but that is currently not being used, so as it is today, every tournament an angler fishes in the ranking period is used to calculate their final ranking score. Here is the formula:

Individual Tournament Score = (Normalized Score)*(Strength of Field)*(Tournament Weight)*(Tournament Age)

Avg = (All scores added)/(number of tournaments fished)

Avg + Qualifying Bonus (if applicable) = final score.

Q: Hey, I was ranked #9 yesterday, and now I’m ranked #113! What gives?
A: This will happen if an angler had just nine currently valid tournaments in the ranking period, and then missed a tournament on the tour. That would cause them to fall below the qualifying bonus category, and their score will drop 100 points overnight. Since there are usually around a hundred qualifying anglers, this will move an angler up or down about a hundred slots.

Q: That “Qualifying Bonus” thing just freaks me out! Why did you do that?
A: We put that visibly in the ranking system so that rookie anglers, or anglers who do not fish as often as others for other reasons can see where they stand compared to the qualifying anglers. That way if an angler has a very high average score, but does not qualify because they are one or two tournaments short of qualifying, they can see where they stand compared to the qualifying anglers. We believe this will encourage anglers to fish more tournaments when they see that they would be competitive if they just fished one or two more tournaments a year, and did as well as they do normally.

Q: I have more questions, how do I get them added to this FAQ?
A: Please submit all questions to rankerguru@walleyecentral.com and we’ll try to get them answered and added.