Subject: most prolific streaker

Date: Thu Apr 7 03:37:57 2011
User: Gulbis
Message:
I agree that ties should be taken into account and I did check them manually when calculating my ranking and I took the highest position for my score. But I'm curious - how do you calculate it automatically? Do you have access to Denny's database or something? How do you import all the scores into Excel? On another note, I did some streaking yesterday with the specific purpose of getting a ranking where I had none to improve my overall score. So I got ranked in 7x2, 9x0, and a couple of 5x and now my score is 194.33, woohoo! On yet another note, I'm so pissed at myself for losing my 9x5 streak. So stupid. Now it's going to take me at least a year to get back up there. Oh well.

Date: Thu Apr 7 14:02:35 2011
User: EZ-Ed3-LAnseMI
Message:
My current score according to the mightybass system is 161.529. I am down to two variants with no ranking. Surprise, surprise...they are 10x6 and 9x5. Do I really want to play these two variants enough to rank in the top 200 or 100 in both so they will not hurt my ranking? If I could toss these two variants and go with the other 68, my score is 136.838. Unranked variants do hurt! I rank in the top 100 in 34 variants, including ranking in the top 10 in 15 variants. Ranks by variant: 13x3 -- 343rd place* 13x2 -- 334* 13x1 -- 189* 13x0 -- 383 Ave. 13x's -- 312.25 12x4 -- 200* 12x3 -- 120* 12x2 -- 94* 12x1 -- 126 12x0 -- 301 Ave. 12x's -- 168.2 11x5 -- 220* 11x4 -- 212* 11x3 -- 340* 11x2 -- 114 11x1 -- 94 11x0 -- 69 Ave. 11x's -- 141.67 10x6 -- NR (1001) 10x5 -- 385* 10x4 -- 183* 10x3 -- 172* 10x2 -- 45 10x1 -- 168 10x0 -- 146 Ave. 10x's -- 300.00 9x7 -- 314* 9x6 -- 362* 9x5 -- NR (1001) 9x4 -- 172* 9x3 -- 6 9x2 -- 53 9x1 -- 39 9x0 -- 89 Ave. 9x's -- 254.5 8x8 -- 204* 8x7 -- 296* 8x6 -- 285* 8x5 -- 52 8x4 -- 62 8x3 -- 7 8x2 -- 61 8x1 -- 12 Ave. 8x's -- 122.375 7x9 -- 73* 7x8 -- 62* 7x7 -- 6 7x6 -- 1 7x5 -- 1 7x4 -- 104 7x3 -- 8 7x2 -- 351 Ave. 7x's -- 75.75 6x10 -- 148* 6x9 -- 4 6x8 -- 2 6x7 -- 3 6x6 -- 261* 6x5 -- 356 6x4 -- 314* 6x3 -- 95* 6x2 -- 57* Ave. 6x's -- 137.778 5x10 -- 3 5x9 -- 4 5x8 -- 265 5x7 -- 9 5x6 -- 325* 5x5 -- 189* 5x4 -- 32* 5x3 -- 6* Ave. 5x's -- 104.125 4x10 -- 92 4x9 -- 58 4x8 -- 251 4x7 -- 123* 4x6 -- 39* 4x5 -- 8* 4x4 -- 2* Ave. 4x's -- 81.857 70-variant Ave -- 161.529 *Streak still alive.

Date: Thu Apr 7 22:55:01 2011
User: EZ-Ed3-LAnseMI
Message:
Sorry, ranking in 11x3 is 141st, not 340th.

Date: Fri Apr 22 16:58:46 2011
User: malr
Message:
9x7 532 9x6 1001 9x5 1001 9x4 1001 9x3 1001 9x2 1001 9x1 361 9x0 69 -------- 5967/8=746 again - what have I been doing with my life? so many easy variants - so little time...

Date: Mon Apr 25 05:10:10 2011
User: malr
Message:
Okay - finally decided that Google Documents Is My Friend. The final result - 506.23 across all variants. I'm now going to chip away at the ones where I Could Do Better (as the majority of my teachers liked to remind me). :-)) h.

Date: Sun May 1 22:46:40 2011
User: Catailong2
Message:
It's rather overdue, but better late than never. Here are the top 25 players (using mightybass's scoring system). Surely I'm missing a couple players so speak up if you feel that you've been overlooked. And sorry EZ-Ed, it would be nearly impossible for me to consolidate multiple nicks so you might be on your own there. Nice work though. Worth noting are the impressive gains made by both firenze and Gulbis. I think I've met my nemesis ;) # . Nick . . . . . . Average . . . . . Ranked Variants 1. Zonny . . . . 91.62 . . . . . 69 2. firenze . . . . 129.4 . . . . . 68 3. canman1944 . . . . 146.74 . . . . . 68 4. CubicSprock . . . . 155.09 . . . . . 69 5. Catailong2 . . . . 181.73 . . . . . 67 6. Gulbis . . . . 181.84 . . . . . 63 7. Top-100-of-all-variants . . . . 184.51 . . . . . 66 8. kenwa . . . . 214.61 . . . . . 65 9. Repperzed . . . . 222.6 . . . . . 62 10. greggory . . . . 229.79 . . . . . 65 11. raederle . . . . 239.51 . . . . . 63 12. ElGuapo . . . . 245.11 . . . . . 65 13. Boojum . . . . 249.53 . . . . . 70 14. TitanicTony . . . . 252.44 . . . . . 54 15. arthur_fl . . . . 260.21 . . . . . 60 16. edv . . . . 271.83 . . . . . 61 17. dirkie . . . . 276.21 . . . . . 62 18. Laffman . . . . 302.8 . . . . . 52 19. etelka . . . . 313.96 . . . . . 58 20. mickyiw . . . . 322.49 . . . . . 58 21. SilvioManuel . . . . 332.86 . . . . . 56 22. SDBaroon . . . . 352.03 . . . . . 52 23. jedirod . . . . 373.97 . . . . . 52 24. Kaos . . . . 378.76 . . . . . 46 25. loskazanes . . . . 393.87 . . . . . 46

Date: Tue May 3 07:18:27 2011
User: Gulbis
Message:
Thanks for the list. Looks like firenze is trying to take the lead; good luck!

Date: Tue May 3 10:51:31 2011
User: firenze
Message:
Catailong2, I have been keeping my own which is easy once it is set-up. But, to keep all the ones you have seems like a lot of work. Do you have a program that helps you with it? By the way, you hit right on the money with what I have for myself. Gulbis, I feel kind of stupid not being able to get a streak going in either 8x4 or 9x5, both 1001s for me. It is snailing right now, especially in the most popular streaks where I now have to win over a hundred games to gain seven positions which results in a .1 gain in my average number.

Date: Wed May 4 06:58:54 2011
User: Gulbis
Message:
I have 1001 in 8x4, 6x4 and 6x3 (and 621 in 6x2). I'm slowly working on the 8x4 streak but those others... I just don't like them LOL. But I'll have to get around to them eventually. 9x5 is a tricky one, you think it's so easy and then bam, one game stops you. It just happened to me and it's painful. I'm trying to be more careful now.

Date: Sat May 14 08:09:01 2011
User: EZ-Ed3-LAnseMI
Message:
OK...with Denny's all-winnable variants (that used to have games you could not win) while keeping the old set of variants in use, how do we handle this with what we are doing? I vote for not using any of the all-winnable versions as your best streak in a variant. You can only use variants with the original format. Catailong2, no problem. Appreciate your work. I posted much earlier that I didn't expect for someone else to keep track of all my various user names. One player you might have missed would be mercury. Like me, he plays with lots of nics. I know many of them. As I go into variants I had never played before, I find him sitting in most top 100, or at least top 200, lists. And he is in lots of top 10 lists. But he might not have enough of his better streaks played as mercury to qualify.

Date: Thu Jun 9 18:59:42 2011
User: mightybass
Message:
wow. haven't been on in a long time. didn't expect to see this thread still with recent activity. awesome to see it still going. at work right now so only thing i'm going to throw out there is the winnable streaks should have no merit on this scoring system. i think it is an interesting addition to the website, but part of the earlier discussions was on how luck is a factor in your "prolificness" incorporating the winnables into this eliminates this important aspect. hope to return to playing again in the near future. currently trying to sell my house so wife, daughter and i can move. we're both in process of taking jobs in a new state and have a 2nd child on the way. all good things, but they leave little time for freecell. good luck to all!

Date: Fri Jun 24 00:13:17 2011
User: EZ-Ed3-LAnseMI
Message:
Current update for my overall score is 139.6 average for all 70 variants. There are two variants I have not played (10x6 and 9x5). I have nicks in the top 100 in 41 variants, 15 of which are in the top 10. Still suffering from too many variants I had never played when this all started. My top column group would be the 7x's where my score is 39.6. That's because I had played them quite a bit when this all started.

Date: Thu Jul 19 12:14:43 2012
User: pig_of_my_heart
Message:
Back to top for Gulbis.

Date: Fri Jul 20 11:25:03 2012
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Wow, how did I miss this thread??? It is looong and I have not read it all! I always thought it would be nice to have some kind of ranking across multiple variants!!! By the way, I count 72 variants -- where did the number "70" come from? I think it would be great if Denny could automatically compute and list an aggregate score (by whatever method he likes best) in the "scores" section. Also the current WWC standings. It might be more easily done if it only included ranks in the top 1000. Or only for current players. I would prefer "current" to mean "last 2 months" rather than "last 2 weeks". My sincere appreciation to mightybass, catailong2 and all the others who have done such great work on this "prolific streaker" topic!!!!!!! TT

Date: Fri Jul 20 17:58:16 2012
User: LadeniusM
Message:
70 instead of 72, because 8x0 and 7x1 only have a few players on the scoreboard.

Date: Sat Jul 21 11:48:21 2012
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Further to my previous post (2 above), I have now read a lot more of the posts (still not quite ALL of them). I am particularly interested in how I rate as a "prolific winner". Giving myself a rank of 1000 in 8x4 (undeserved), I have an average % won rank of 97.85 for 55 variants played. If I only count my 20 best results, my average % won rank is 11.25! There are 11 variants that I haven't played in over a year, and about 30 others that I have only played a few times (just to get my "games played" to end in a zero). I think that I am currently active in 31 regular variants + 3 of the "winnable" variants. I spent over an hour yesterday trying to start a list of the most "prolific players". I only got as far as determining that Huffy had played 893,175 games, and gave up (too much copy typing - too easy to make mistakes). I was surprised to see that Coffee1 practically only plays 10x6. Even so, his total of 386k+ games played dwarfs my total of (only) 163,213. I think that Denny could easily add the "total games won" and "total games played" statistics to the end of each players personal statistics. My overall goal has always been to not lose more than 2 or 3 games a month. Now I am agonizing over whether or not I want to sacrifice that goal in order to become a more prolific streaker???? What to do? I think that I will wait to see what (if anything) gets automated, and then decide. Then there is the problem of whether or not to try to improve my miserable 8x4 result. Maybe someone (mightybass?) could start a new (far more concise) thread on this topic and all concerned individuals could cut-n-paste there most relevant posts into the new thread. MANY THANKS TO ALL!!! Happy Streaking! TT

Date: Tue Dec 11 16:59:11 2012
User: CubicSprock
Message:
I know we have talked a lot about ways to rank streakers recently, and wanted to bring this back to the front, since it was the original way that gained a lot of attention. I'm actually in the process of writing some excel scripts to do just that, it'll be somewhat tedious to setup initially as there are 700 queries that I need to setup 10 pages x 70 variants. But once that is done the only thing I'll need to do manually is sort the lists. After this initial round, updates should only take about 30 minutes, since all I'll have to do is refresh the queries and update the results...assuming denny doesn't change how results are displayed on his site :P. Once I get these scripts working, if people are interested in obtaining then send me a message over at the hotel with your e-mail and I'll get you a copy.

Date: Tue Dec 11 17:27:41 2012
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Hi CubicSprock, Thanks for bringing this back to the top. I had forgotten about the list posted by Catailong2 on 1 May 2011 (wow, that's about 18 months ago). I am *very* DEFINITELY looking forward to your new list. And, are you also going to do a "Prolific Winner" Index? I hope you have direct access to the data (surely you are not going to copy & paste 700 pages)!

Date: Tue Dec 11 18:37:32 2012
User: CubicSprock
Message:
I don't have any special access to the data, but I don't need to copy and paste everything as excel can do that. All I need is to setup a web query for every page. Once those are setup, then all the data can be loaded by clicking 1 button.

Date: Tue Dec 11 18:43:51 2012
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Nice! I wonder if QuatroPro has a similar feature. I have Excel (it came with my PC), but I (almost) never use it. Maybe I should learn.

Date: Tue Dec 11 23:00:30 2012
User: TNmountainman
Message:
CS, pardon my ignorance, but what is an Excel "script"? I don't use Excel much nowadays, but used to be decent at it, and I don't think I've heard that term used with Excel. I'm guessing it's some sort of formula to calculate the value of cells? And so if one wanted to "obtain" a script, exactly what does that mean? Thanks in advance....

Date: Tue Dec 11 23:22:38 2012
User: CubicSprock
Message:
script probably isn't the right word, it is a series of formulas to automatically account for ties and award points properly...and then sort things neatly for me. I call it a script, because there are worksheets in the background doing all this work, that I don't have to mess with once I have the initial setup done.

Date: Wed Dec 12 00:06:31 2012
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Ok, thanks. So are you going to post these lists at the hotel, where they can easily(??) be updated, or you're just saying that anyone interested can email you there to get the results, or just get the scripts, which is how it sounds the way you worded your post?

Date: Wed Dec 12 01:43:07 2012
User: ElGuapo
Message:
You can use the Hall of Records forum at the hotel for formatting and easier updating.

Date: Wed Dec 12 09:12:03 2012
User: CubicSprock
Message:
I meant they can email me to get the scripts if they would like to do it themselves. As formatting is a pain here I will probably post top 'n' on here, with a more extensive list over there.

Date: Wed Dec 12 14:01:32 2012
User: CubicSprock
Message:
alright, finally got this done. I expected to be in 4th, so I was pleasantly surprised that I edged out Gulbis for 3rd. And clearly firenze hasn't taken a break from trying to imrpove this ranking with a very impressive jump and even more impressive overall score. Since only a handful of people have put real effort into this, and as the punishment for not playing all the variants is harsh, I've included only 25 names, as this more than covers those who are trying for high scores across all variants. The rules for how scores are determined are the same as catail's last update 18 months ago, so this is merely an update and not a new list. Listed is the overall ranking, the average ranking, frequency of Top 1000 scores (of a possible 70), and lastly the name Rnk__AvgRnk__freq___Name 1____61.74___70_____firenze 2____88.77___69_____Zonny 3____129.99__70_____CubicSprock 4____139.23__65_____Gulbis 5____166.16__67_____Catailong2 6____166.87__68_____canman1944 7____183.23__66_____Top-100-of-all-variants 8____194.49__59_____TitanicTony 9____204.77__68_____BrownsRedSox 10___210.83__65_____kenwa 11___214.24__66_____rws33315 12___221.16__67_____ElGuapo 13___226.51__62_____Repperzed 14___233.69__69_____Tagkag 15___236.00__70_____Boojum 16___241.69__65_____greggory 17___250.50__63_____raederle 18___257.87__59_____edv 19___277.10__60_____arthur_fl 20___283.83__59_____EZ-Ed3-LAnseMI 21___303.34__59_____SilvioManuel 22___307.84__59_____dirkie 23___311.41__52_____Laffman 24___332.23__62_____rottenron 25___334.77__57_____mickyiw People who have multiple nicks, you are free to calculate your own scores and submit them here, unfortunately for me to be able to take those into account would be virtually impossible. Enjoy.

Date: Wed Dec 12 14:11:38 2012
User: CubicSprock
Message:
firenze's mom should be very proud of him, he's finally #1 at something.

Date: Wed Dec 12 16:25:22 2012
User: Gulbis
Message:
Thanks a lot for this updated list. My average ranking a year and a half ago was 225 so 139 is a big improvement. It's mind-boggling how firenze got it down to 62, very impressive. I think I could shave off 10-15 places from my ranking if I got ranked in 6x3 and 6x2 and 5x4 and 5x3. 8x4 would be good too but I don't know if it will ever come to pass. I've tried to build a streak there but haven't succeeded yet.

Date: Wed Dec 12 16:44:27 2012
User: CubicSprock
Message:
Gulbis, then you'd be way ahead of me, so probably not a good idea. fyi...if you win 1 5x3, 5x4, and 6x2, and 2 consecutive 6x3, your avg rank would fall 26 spots. (in other words, that's the only reason I'm ahead of you). The 6x2 and 6x3 alone would earn you 21 spots. 5x3 and 5x4 don't hurt you as badly as there are only ~120 players in 5x3 and ~250 players in 5x4 for you to be ranked behind.

Date: Wed Dec 12 17:38:34 2012
User: Gulbis
Message:
Not a good idea? Haha. However, I have a dilemma. The prolific rankings measure the top 1000 and give equal weight to all places. The proficient rankings, however, measure only the top 100 and give more weight to places at the very top. So what should I concentrate on? Playing variants where I'm ranked outside of the top 100 will only help the prolific index while playing the others will help the proficient ranking more (and will take more time to move up). The obvious solution is to play both. Hmm. I wish I had more time to play.

Date: Thu Dec 13 11:12:01 2012
User: CubicSprock
Message:
If you play variants outside the top 100 enough, they'll eventually be inside the top 100 and help both. But I get your point, ultimately I think the answer is to focus on what you enjoy most.

Date: Thu Dec 13 11:18:09 2012
User: EZ-Ed7-LAnseMI
Message:
My average rank using all my nicks in the formula originally developed by mightybass is 121.77. I have top 1000 rankings in all 70 variants, however, some of them (like 10x6 and 9x5) just barely. I have top 100 rankings in 42 variants, top 25 rankings in 19 variants, and top 10 rankings in 15 variants. I still do freecell, but for the last year or so not nearly as much as I used to play.

Date: Thu Dec 13 11:30:15 2012
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Well done, Ed! I guess that puts you in 3rd place in the above list (just ahead of CS; and moves me down to 9th). It is REALLY good to have other interests!!! Merry Christmas, Tony

Date: Wed Mar 6 16:20:23 2013
User: CubicSprock
Message:
Updated stats using mightybass's original formula. As promised, I'll try and stick to updating these roughly every 3 months...more frequently doesn't seem necessary as even after 3 months there aren't dramatic changes. (I'm finally approaching the 100 mark, and am only about 7 hours of play time away from joining firenze and Zonny in the sub 100 club). Ed's nicks are combined (but lag by 1 iteration), as provided by him back in december. 01____58.5__70__firenze 02____90.7__69__Zonny 03___104.0__70__CubicSprock 04___120..__70__Ez_Ed Nics 05___138.7__65__Gulbis 06___167.9__68__canman1944 07___168.7__67__Catailong2 08___186.0__66__Top-100-of-all-variants 09___190.3__68__BrownsRedSox 10___195.8__58__TitanicTony 11___200.4__67__ElGuapo 12___202.4__66__rws33315 13___213.3__69__Tagkag 14___213.4__65__kenwa 15___226.5__61__Repperzed 16___239.6__70__Boojum 17___244.7__65__greggory 18___253.2__63__raederle 19___260.7__59__edv 20___281.2__59__arthur_fl 21___303.1__59__SilvioManuel 22___310.8__62__rottenron 23___311.1__58__dirkie 24___314.1__52__Laffman 25___322.4__60__etelka

Date: Wed Mar 6 18:58:40 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Hi CS, Golly, gosh, thanks again! I am surprised that my score has gotten slightly worse. In January, I played 5x6 twice and won one. That alone should have moved me up a bunch of points. Is there a minimum number of games required in order to be counted? THANKS, TT

Date: Wed Mar 6 19:04:20 2013
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Alternatively, are you adjusting for ties? In 5x6, Denny has me down at 693, where as I am actually in a 345-way tie for 348th (approximately). ????

Date: Wed Mar 6 19:39:32 2013
User: CubicSprock
Message:
I am adjusting for ties. I'm guessing the problem has to do with the unforeseen manual adjustments I have to make. Basically, if the number of players changed from last time, things get messed up, and I have to fix them manually (it's a pain). So this can occur in any variant with < 1000 players. I could have failed to properly correct the 5x6. It's a little hard to explain the problem, let's just say a change in the size of the input data screws things up. So, people need to hurry up and fill the full 1000 spots in every variant :P.

Date: Wed Mar 6 20:08:47 2013
User: firenze
Message:
Right. Only 820 more people need to win a 4x4. Thanks for your efforts, CS.

Date: Wed Mar 6 20:28:10 2013
User: CubicSprock
Message:
hehe, you have enough nicks to make that happen? And of course if something like that were to happen, it would exacerbate the problem of ties where some of the people are ranked outside the top 1000 not appearing on the list at all. But a slight adjustment could correct that...if ranks 850-1000 for instance are tied, count everyone not in top 1000 as 851...basically give people credit for being tied with the 1000th place person.

Date: Wed Mar 6 20:54:11 2013
User: firenze
Message:
I'm eblasting the crew now. Mother said she won't help unless you split a 6-pack with her. Be careful, CS, she is tired of squares and may want to try cubic.

Date: Thu Mar 7 09:22:37 2013
User: CubicSprock
Message:
Tony, I missed the 2nd correction on the 5x6, so you do indeed have a better score. It affected about 6 players, but you were the only one in the top 100. Your ranking remains the same, but your score improves to 190.8

Date: Wed Oct 23 12:52:20 2013
User: CubicSprock
Message:
Updated prolific streaker scores: 01____56.5__70__firenze 02____89.7__69__Zonny 03____95.9__70__CubicSprock 04___120..__70__Ez_Ed Nics (slightly out of date) 05___134.3__65__Gulbis 06___160.5__69__canman1944 07___169.9__60__TitanicTony 08___171.3__67__Catailong2 09___180.7__68__BrownsRedSox 10___181.3__66__rws33315 11___187.6__69__Tagkag 12___188.9__66__Top-100-of-all-variants 13___202.7__67__ElGuapo 14___216.2__65__kenwa 15___227.9__62__Repperzed 16___244.2__70__Boojum

Date: Wed Aug 9 22:13:11 2017
User: CubicSprock
Message:
firenze, you still tracking your score for this? Mine is down to 72.2, I imagine I've still got a long way to get in the same ballpark as you. I've still got 15 variants outside the top 100, with a 10x6 rank over 500 really hurting my overall average.

Date: Thu Aug 10 22:33:10 2017
User: firenze
Message:
49.1 If I ever could get a decent streak in 8x4. . . . . . . .

Date: Thu Aug 10 23:14:56 2017
User: BuzzClik
Message:
Huh. I was told you were dead. (I won't tell you who told me that, but think Spanish moss, leeches, and cattails). Good to see you again.

Date: Fri Aug 11 14:37:38 2017
User: firenzes_mother
Message:
She wouldn't be the first woman he's disappointed.

Date: Fri Aug 11 20:14:43 2017
User: hotnurse
Message:
Mom, please tell Fir that I said hi and hope that he's still among the living. ;) call me. BR-549

Date: Sat Aug 12 08:44:20 2017
User: FilthyMcNasty
Message:
This seems to be the thread for hold home week. I have fond memories of a certain night on the town with Mother -- a police whistle, fishnet stockings, and a bustier. I don't recall exactly what Mother was wearing; something with lace, strings, and bare skin. I fear we scarred some fragile minds at the children's museum, but they loved us at the Blue Jay Bar.

Date: Wed Aug 23 17:43:59 2017
User: mightybass
Message:
i can't believe this post still gets comments. i've taken a long sad absence from the game (many new interests and things to consume my time over the years), but found myself thinking of it today and thought i'd hop back in. glad to see some familiar voices.