Parity - Week 9 Highlights

Submitted by Christopher Keates on Tue, 2016-01-12 01:01

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Best Pull: Me. Oh man, it was a thing of beauty. Like 8 seconds of hang time, almost touched the ceiling at the highest point of the dome, a wonderful fade. The only problem was, it went out of bounds 10 feet from my own end zone, never came back in, and almost boomeranged back into the goal on the same side of the soccer field that I pulled from.

Best. Ever.

The Most Nina/Neena: Nina Ramic decided to mack a D to her good friend and pal and possibly name sake, Neena Sidhu. It was a Nina to Neena assist, and they weren't even on the same team!

Other Terrible Tips: Alan Godding popped a D into the air that was caught by (I believe) Chris Tran because he didn't catch his D's. It was funny because it looked like Super Mario bopping a brick block, a coin popping out, and landing in Tran's hands.

Sleeping on the Couch: Chris Sullivan decided to poach Justine's lanes a lot. I assume he's currently tossing and turning on the couch right now.

We're Going to Review That: Stacey Wowchuk made a ridiculous, wow worthy catch of a bad Owen Lumley hammer, laying out to catch the disk inches from the turf while keeping it in bounds, but Jessie called her out. However, we have film and will be review it.

Either Jessie will regret her call or I will regret calling her out. Either way, everyone wins! Except Wowchuk. It's not showing up on her score sheet as a goal (despite it totally being a goal).

Best Stat Keeper: Graham Brown, who didn't even READ the chirps from last week, but still signed up for stat keeping (and did a really good job in a turnover/injury filled game that demanded a lot of the stats keepers).

Sorely Missed: Who missed Amy? I missed Amy. Did you miss Amy?

Amy?

Amos Lee

Tue, 2016-01-12 10:04

I think Amy has been taken captive by The Bachelor. We'll see her after the final rose ceremony. I mean... I don't know what that is or if it exists because I've never watched that show in my life. Ever. Crap.

Will Leckie

Tue, 2016-01-12 11:35

Very impressive 9 assists for Amos in week 9.  Coincidence?  Not at all.  He'll get 10 assists next week.

Mehmet Karman

Tue, 2016-01-12 11:42

In the 9:30 game my opponents enjoyed a number of tipped d's for points, but since Allan Godding and Chris Tran (sparing) were playing on the same team I'm thinking you might be recalling a tip that Edwin graciously collected.

In other news since Chris shaved the sideline believes he looks 10 years younger, I think he looks more like Mark Donahue now but then again I can't tell clean shaven caucasian guys apart.... ;)

For my best throwaway of the evening (love that the statskeepers only noticed 3 of them) I gave Laura Knowles a d I'm not certain she needed, as she wandered through the throwing lane following Justine, not even seeing my throw (targeting Allan 20 yards behind her) as it bounced off her.

We all miss Amy.

Lissa Greenspoon

Tue, 2016-01-12 14:38

My tipped D to Wynne for the game-winning point was the best argument of the night for catching one's Ds....

Christopher Keates

Tue, 2016-01-12 14:58

The best argument for catching one's D's will forever be Hope Celani killing Callahan Streak 1.0.

Lissa Greenspoon

Tue, 2016-01-12 14:41

And Keates, demonstrating the whitest of whiteness, now rivals Nick K. for inability to tell Asians apart.

Christopher Keates

Tue, 2016-01-12 14:57

Did I just get called racist?

They are the same height, build, wear glasses and pants when playing, and generally do awesome things normally reserved for Asian frisbee players. They should both be flattered I confuse them for one another.

Alessandro Cola...

Tue, 2016-01-12 15:06

Does this mean Mehmet and Chris Sullivan are now interchangeable? When one finds himself in a hole, the first instinct should not be to dig deeper.

Mehmet Karman

Wed, 2016-01-13 11:42

I believe that might be the first time that comparison has been, which flatters me immensely.  Most might assume I covet Mr. Sullivan's disc skills which I would indeed graciously accept in some manner of exchange possibly brokered by devilish characters.  

Perhaps even more notable (and possibly a feature that could distinguish us for those easily confused) is his magnificent (currently mini) afro.  It defies both gravity and conventional wisdom.  Some have theorized that on Dominican beaches it reaches a point of peak frizz such that emanating brainwaves are caught in the curls to the point the hair itself becomes a separate sentient being with a remarkable proclivity to influence throw choices in a certain direction.  

 

 

Andrew W Cameron

Wed, 2016-01-13 12:56

Many flock to ultimate for its uniqueness, the comeraderie of sport with similar-minded people, its unique spirit, its beautiful athleticism.

Myself, it reminds me to come to the forum to read Mehmet's comments.  Mehmet, you just keep raising the bar higher and higher.  You may have even cleared Sully's 'fro!

Amos Lee

Wed, 2016-01-13 13:44

Mehmet's posts inspire me to use obscure words when I yell at people from the sideline on Monday nights.

"YOUR THROW CHOICE IS REPREHENSIBLE AT BEST. PRITHEE DEMONTRATE A PREDILECTION FOR HAMMERS."

Parity - Week 10: The Thesaurus Strikes Back

Chris Sullivan

Wed, 2016-01-13 16:11

I too am flattered by Keates' observation of Mehmet's and my eerie ectomorphic pants-wearing symmetry.  So much so that I quickly wrote a pilot for a sitcom based on it and sent it off to Netflix.  It's called Turkish Delight and is mostly claymation of 12 coloured beads moving semi-randomly on a green background.  We are hoping Jackie Chan can play the lead and be both main characters because unlike some people we choose to see only the similiarities on the inside.

Justine Price

Thu, 2016-01-14 10:54

I'd watch that. Though I always thought Woody Allen was going to play Chris in the movie, "Sultimate", and Jim Parsons is a no-brainer for Mehmet, along with the supporting cast of twelve coloured claymation beads. Now we're talking Netflix hit: Daredevil move over.

Christopher Keates

Thu, 2016-01-14 11:09

I like how everyone else works subtle racism in to their post, but you go for the "I bet Jim Parsons would look good in a sailor suit," angle. Everything you do is next level!

Christopher Keates

Tue, 2016-01-12 11:48

Kathyrn Jarret-Ekholm had her biggest salary night of the year, and even threw a hammer for a point.

Olessia scored a whole bunch of points.

Bisang got back to dropping the frisbee like a pro (led the week) but also had an otherwise good game with 2/1/2/1 G/A/2A/D.

Steve Close could have had a triple triple if he'd play defense.

Stacey Wowchuk (5G) almost scored as much as Ashlin (6G) this week (!!!).

Trevor Stocki got his first D!

Rob Tyson and Steve Close still don't have a drop.

Amos Lee

Tue, 2016-01-12 12:20

Following up on Mehmet's comment, it's true.... it looks like Keates lost 10 pounds off his face. Does he go faster now?

Steve Bisang

Wed, 2016-01-13 16:13

I only had like 1 terrible drop

Please don't tell me you counted my layout attempt on Hope's throw!

Heather Wallace

Wed, 2016-01-13 16:55

It was a double bummer because I didn't get credit for hand blocking that throw. Which I did. With a broken finger.

Stacey Wowchuk

Tue, 2016-01-12 13:41

A double shout-out from Keates ... fine.  I'm in.

I was too busy self-celebrating my awesome lay-out catch that I paid zero attention to where I landed. This should surprise no one. Jessie took full advantage of my narcissim and called me out.  Back to thrower and we ultimately scored. Which means I was in.

5Gs? It's trades week suckas! I'm aiming to be someone's solid #3 possibly #2 ladies pick.

#goals

 

Will Leckie

Tue, 2016-01-12 15:51

Imagine how many goals you would have scored if you were wearing it during the game?

Amos Lee

Tue, 2016-01-12 16:31

This is the key point. Also, I'm pretty sure if you wear a beaver hat, you will win absolutely every on-field (and potentially off-field) dispute. #in #up #point

Steve Bisang

Wed, 2016-01-13 16:17

I love my new team's name... and getting the chance to play with Justine and Owen!  Whom I've never played with before, but are OCUA legends.

#Bisangbettergetsomegloves

#pewpewpew

 

Adam MacDonald

Wed, 2016-01-13 18:06

You can have my old ones still a ton of drops in them idk i think they have maxed out on throw aways though

Will Leckie

Thu, 2016-01-14 12:36

"Still a ton of drops in them"

A literal LOL, one of the funnier things I've read in this thread, which is already amazing with the Netflix pitch.

Steve I'd be happy to sell you my gloves for a reasonable price.  They are 100% on catching the last two weeks.  Maybe I've used up all the drops in them?

(Throwing is a different matter, but these gloves can't be considered the limiting factor in my throwing).

Christopher Keates

Thu, 2016-01-14 13:12

Maybe someone should just agree to sell Steve a pair of functional hands. He can Frankenstein's monster his way to tolerable frisbee playing.

EDIT: Apparently the following people have more drops than Bisang - Alex Bush (185 catches/11 drops), Dave O'Connor (93/12), Kirsten Querbach (106/11) and is tied with Ashlin Kelly (149/10) and Graham Brown (91/10). So it's not like he has the worst hands....

Amos Lee

Thu, 2016-01-14 13:15

I think we're all just worried where he's going to get those hands. Rob Tyson and Steven Close should be very very worried.

Owen Lumley

Thu, 2016-01-14 13:54

Steve, if you can get yourself a beaver hat, we can work some magic together.  And maybe there'd be a spot for you in the movie.

Steve Bisang

Thu, 2016-01-14 14:17

for a Colantonio-level joke...but all I keep coming up with in my head  is a Bush-level joke.

Here goes:

I don't know about a hat, but I have been known to work some magic with a beaver on my face.

 

 

 

Will Leckie

Thu, 2016-01-14 14:36

NSFP

David O'Connor

Thu, 2016-01-14 15:11

I have a crap load of drops on paper but I was under the impression that if you laid out for a catch and missed that it wasn't supposed to count

Christopher Keates

Thu, 2016-01-14 15:26

You're not supposed to care that it's a drop! You made a great play, got hands on a disk to make a tough catch, but didn't. But if you're the kind of player who is going to avoid bidding because you might get credited with a drop,why are you playing frisbee you quitter? Note: narrative you, not you specifically.

Statkeepers exercise judgment as to whether or not it qualifies as a drop. There are throws where it couldn't be kept in bounds, or was maybe just too difficult a bid that went off fingertips. Probably won't be a drop. There are other bids where you get full hands on it, and just screw it up. Probably a drop.

Parity Stats are guaranteed to be 95% accurate, 5% heckle and bullshit.

David O'Connor

Thu, 2016-01-14 16:38

By no means am I claiming that the stats keepers aren't doing a great job. I wanted to clarify if there was a rule regarding borderline drops. As far as I'm concerned, if you touch it, you should catch it.

Mehmet Karman

Thu, 2016-01-14 19:03

 

1.  People who don't catch well, or are prone to lapses in concentration.

2.  People who are so athletic and high effort they manage to get at least a hand in the vicinity of even the worst throws, but sometimes can't complete the miracle save.

I won't try and place people in separate categories, but "leading" the league in drops could mean more than one thing.

Statskeepers have long dreamed of the "?!" button, as per chess notation, to record the truly ignominous drops/throwaways - i.e. when a handler is about to catch an easy pass and in their mind have already turned and hucked it to the break side, only to stare at their empty hand in great confusion when they pivot to throw - as a random example that's never happened to me.

Alessandro Cola...

Thu, 2016-01-14 19:41

I'm debating changing the name of my team to "Ignominous" as a tribute to this thread.

(Renaming the team "Chris Sullivan's Netflix and Chilly Offence" seemed like a Bisang-level mouthful.)

Justine Price

Sat, 2016-01-16 12:13

Our teenager just explained, "Netflix and Chill". Now we get it.

 

Will Leckie

Thu, 2016-01-14 21:14

Remember last year when Proulx and I won the award for leading the league in drops?

"I'd like to thank the Academy, my family, and Al Colantonio..."

Andrew W Cameron

Thu, 2016-01-14 22:01

As much as Mehmet loved it when I pointed it out last year, there was a pretty good correlation last year between drops and goals.  Kindha was an odd outlier on that one.  We all know the rule: correlation = causation THEREFORE to score more one must drop more.

I see it like fouls in basketball where if you play the whole game without one, you're not playing hard enough.  That is a bad mantra in ultimate, but one could follow with: if you never get any drops, you're not running hard enough.

You could even follow with assists and throwaways, right Keates?

Christopher Keates

Thu, 2016-01-14 22:38

Assists and throwaways track very closely, and it's sort of an interesting thing to note. We're going to use two examples from last year and this year (by no means am I making a direct comparison here, you'll see why I make this disclaimer in a sec)

Justine, 2015 Parity: 117 Assists, 96 Throwaways, 29 Throw Drops, 467 Completions (20 games)

Keates, 2016 Parity: 47 Assists, 40 Throwaways, 7 Throw Drops, 180 Completions (9 games)

I am approximately Justine of last year. The big differences are:

1. Justine's throwaways are drops at a rate higher than me. She's hitting her target better.

2. Justine touched the disk a lot more per game. (3+ more completions per game).

Alex Bush has done some crunching on this and the correlation between having the disk, assists, and throwaways is fairly steady. The difference is typically the relative rate of throw aways (small rate differences matter, and are suggestive of "skill").

Intuitively, we accept that having the disk more means more assists. Taking shots is (apparently) part of that. The numbers suggest that we throw our receiver open quite often, and maybe sometimes it doesn't work out.

More fun facts!

http://www.ultianalytics.com/app/#/5751646390845440/players

http://www.ultianalytics.com/app/#/5751646390845440/team

I'll note that even at the AUDL level, where margins are tighter and the skill gap is much smaller, the same holds true. Compare D. Alexander with Kielen. Similar throw away numbers to assist numbers.

Alex Bush

Fri, 2016-01-15 10:56

There's a much stronger correlation between turns and attempts than assists and attempts across the league.

 

If we say:

T = kA where T = total turns (throwaways and throws dropped) and A = attempts, then k is a constant that relates each players Attempts with turns (similar to throwing percentage, but you get weird numbers).

 

Here are some k values

Keates: k = 0.1466

me: k = 0.2843

Kells: k = 0.2270 (also his graph correlates really strongly: more attempts = more turns!)

Geofford: k = -0.0582 (this is cool: as Geofford takes more attempts, his turns go down, suggesting that early turns lead to him touching the disc less. When he has no early turns, he's more confident and takes control of the game. That or he just #yolo's it week to week)

Al: k = 0.0033 - Turnovers just happen regardless of the number of attempts Al takes

Will Leckie

Fri, 2016-01-15 14:44

Math is cool, I like math.  

Can we please get some error bars on those k values?

Owen Lumley

Fri, 2016-01-15 15:02

I suspect the error bars are bigger than the full range of k values - but stop trying to ruin the fun Will - this is math, not statistics!

Amos Lee

Fri, 2016-01-15 15:31

I think what Will's trying to ask for is a bar where we can see these math discussion happen live... and heckle, obviously. At least that's what I want to believe.

Christopher Keates

Fri, 2016-01-15 16:08

Sure, we have a pitch for a Netflix show, but what about a business plan?

A bar. We'll call it "The Error Bar" or maybe "The Normal Bar"

Drink prices will be defined by rates of purchase, normalized. There will be a standard drink price, and as its order rate changes, its price changes by the distance from the mean it is, in standard dev. So if the standard drink price is $5, and a drink is ordered 1.2σ more often than other drinks, it's price will be:

p = 5*1.2

It's basically a stock exchange bar, but we can visualize it on a big glowing price menu that is literally just a normal curve, with a little dot telling you where a drink is on the distribution as well as its current price. If we go with "error bar" price will have a certain amount of variance defined by whatever error value on the standard deviation calculation we have.

Decore and design will be 80's cyberpunk/noir because reasons. We'll probably have to open this up across from MIT for it to be successful. We'll be making a pitch to Dragon's Den shortly.

Owen Lumley

Fri, 2016-01-15 16:36

"The Dork Hole"

Christopher Keates

Fri, 2016-01-15 17:38

H8r.

Wanna grab a beer with me at the dork hole, though?

Alex Bush

Fri, 2016-01-15 19:59

See Subject

Alessandro Cola...

Fri, 2016-01-15 20:29

First steps though. You'd need to introduce the concept of a stock exchange bar. You can't jump straight to the Error Bar/Normal Curve Bar/Other Math Things I Don't Understand Bar; it will never fly or jump over tall buildings in Ottawa without a primer.

 

You should all come to my Richard Feynman/Bill Nye/Carl Sagan/Neil deGrasse Tyson themed bar beforehand. "The Three Musketeers" is a much more accessible joint to start your nerdlinging.