Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Sweet Lobs podcast. My name is Kevin Huff. I'm here with Skye Huff of course, the lovely Skye Huff. My SweetLove as you guys have heard in the last story. Story. The last podcast. I'll correct myself on that one.
CUE Intro Music...
Fade intro ... this week titled.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: You want me to say it?
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Oh, sure.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Okay.
My duper is in the pooper.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Yeah, my duper's in the pooper. Listen, say what you want about Duper. We're going to.
You might as well. Also, it's really my fault. It's a lot. Your fault. And another friend of mine, I can't really blame you guys, but I want to. I want to talk about ratings real quick. So there's a lot of comments on Facebook, and that's where I tend to see a bunch of, you know, I hear more on Facebook than anywhere else. Right. About what do I think about this rating system or that rating system? And quite candidly, the USAP, which is the governing body for pickleball, has completely dropped the ball. They have a crappy rating system, and I don't think many people are going to argue with me on this one. And so somebody else had to come along, and along comes duper. A couple years ago now, I think, man, it came out of the gate strong. It looked really good. It seemed fairly accurate. And then they just jacked with the algorithm a whole lot. Well, then last year, it sucked. And here's what happened. And this is why my duper, my Kevin Huff duper went into the pooper.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Well, I thought we were going to talk about pickleball spouses, which led into why your duper is in the pooper.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: I don't. It's not. It's not just that. I think pickleball spouses is a whole other episode, to be honest with you.
But you're definitely giving away what I'm about to say.
My duper's in the pooper because of you.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: It is. You wanted me to play with you.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: No. You actually said, I'll play in a league with you if you want, honey.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Which you've asked me to forget in.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: The past, and I did. Quit asking.
I just want to be on the record of saying I'm not terrible.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: I'm just not good.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: No, no. But your duper is, what, 2.8 or something, right?
[00:02:20] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: It came up because of you.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: You're welcome.
Mind free fall. Mine was on a free fall and yours was climbing.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: I was playing well, though.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Yep, you brought on.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: You brought out the best of me.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Aw.
So here on the Sweet Lobs podcast, we're honest about everything. And so I want to tell you what happened.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: I'm hovering around 38385, and I've been there for quite a while. And I'm really like, you know, I've got a whole Facebook group called road to the finally 4.0. And I really want to be a 4.0 player. And I play 40. I play 40 in tournaments. I've done well. I've done poorly. I've done well. But I play 40, and that's where I tend to see myself fitting.
I'd love to be four. Five. I'd love to be 50. I'm not there, but that's my next effort. Right?
But to see your duper go from 3.85 to under 3.0.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: What?
[00:03:17] Speaker A: I went down to a 2.7 at one point in time.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: That's not all my fault.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: I will explain. We play in a duper league. That means every game gets put into duper. And it's a ten week league. We played as doubles partners, right? Wasn't a round robin group, it was a doubles doubles league. So you and I stayed together for six games a night for ten straight weeks. So we played 60 games.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Right?
[00:03:42] Speaker A: That all went into duper.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: I also played in another league.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: I think we won three. Sky.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: We won what?
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Three?
[00:03:51] Speaker B: We won more than three matches.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Okay, four.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: We went more than three in one. One night.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: No.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: No. Babe, I'm sorry. We did not.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Pretty certain. At least one night.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: I mean, I can pull up the statistics while we're on.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Okay, go ahead.
On Monday nights.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Monday nights was with me. No, Thursday nights was by yourself.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: And. And that helped my duper.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: We're already starting to figure out who knows what's actually going on here.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: Well, I don't really care what my duper is, because I don't.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: And your duper put my duper in the pooper.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: And that's what I'm saying here.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: I just want to play for fun. And you are your mister competition.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: No, listen, I love to compete, but I knew that when I played with you, it was going to be tough, of course, but at the exact same, I do love you. Actually, you're right. We didn't plan Mondays. We played on Wednesdays. We worked late on Mondays.
But with Thursday night was your solo night. Monday night I played with another guy, my buddy Eric, who also had a below 3.0 duper.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Great guy.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Oh, he is. And I don't think he belongs under three. Oh, either. That's. That's immaterial at this point. But because he was under 3.0, he and I also struggled on Monday night because it's a three five four league.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: And the Wednesday night went to three five league 3035, let's say.
But we struggled. I mean, overall, I played 120 games with two people whose dupers were under 30.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Well, yeah. So it's not just my fault.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: No. And mine just plummeted.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: I'm sorry.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: My duper was in the pooper.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: What are you gonna do about it? Not play with me.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: I quit playing with you. Very easy decision. I don't play with Eric anymore, and I don't play with you anymore. And I say that very tongue in cheek because I wouldn't heartbeat play with either of you if you asked me again, of course. But then the next league, I played with another guy who had a low duper. Because I like to help people get better. I think I'm good at that. And that's my thing in pickleball. I have helped a lot of people pass me. That's what I've done. I've helped a lot of people who are lower than me pass me on the way. You're not one of them yet.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Well, I don't. I don't play.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: But I said, yet. I said, yeah, I think there's hope for you.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: I'm pretty athletic.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Eric's not one of them yet either, but very athletic. I've helped quite a few people get better than me at pickleball. And I love the strategy of the game. I love focusing on that.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: So you're a good coach.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Thank you. But when I say strategy that I like to think logically about things. So I go back to Duper, and I go, look, duper, I can't be a 385 for. For a year.
And then you look at me and go, wow, this guy all of a sudden sucks at pickleball. He must be a 2.7.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Wait, wait, wait. Don't say that, because that makes you sound like I suck when you say that.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: No, I'm talking about just my duper. Think logically about this. If duper sees that I've been between, let's even say, 3.5 and 3.85 for two years straight.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Yes, I'm following.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Then there should be something said about this guy. Can't be a 2.7 at this point in time. Like, there needs to be some kind of floor and ceiling, I think, built into a duper that says, over time, we don't expect you to grow any more or less than this. Grow or drop.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: So I think my floor should have probably been three five.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: And if it sees that I'm playing with a 2.7 player, I mean, people get online, they go, well, you should. You seem to cover more court. You need to hit more balls. I'm not going to be a jerk. I'm not going to be the guy that jumps in front of you and hits all the balls and doesn't let you play. Like, I'm there to play with you. I want you to hit the balls coming to you, and I want to hit the balls coming to me. And I'm not going to be the guy that's like, we have to win at all costs. Well, then you pay the price. I did.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah, you did.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: My duper went in the pooper.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: But you are, like I said, a very good coach and a good partner, and you bring out the best in people.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Thank you. I'm back up to like a three four or three five at this point. Had to work.
I have to win to get there. And unfortunately, or, well, really fortunately, I play with a lot of good players because I'm blessed to have a key to a place that lets us play and that allows me to attract a higher quality of player. And pretty much everybody I play with is over 4.0 rated in duper. And that's, that's good for me and tough for me because it doesn't mean that the winds come easily. Right. The winds come with effort. But, yeah, I'm back up to a 3.4315.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: I subbed one of those nights. It was tough.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: That was, that was, yeah, that was tough. We were. Oh, and six for sure that night.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yes, but we were not pickled at all.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: No, we weren't pickled. Okay, I'm a three. I'm a 3448. I just looked. Now, I will say I'm going to give duper some credit because they redid their algorithm again and they've just come out with a bunch of announcements about who they're partnering with and who they're friendly with and who they're not friendly with. And they've now got access to pickleball brackets, which is a huge deal.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: That is huge.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: And they're starting to input a lot of data and I think that that is offsetting things, which, which should give us a much more stable look at where people are really at. I'm not going to complain about three, four, eight, that's basically saying I'm a three five. I can freaking live with that. But the problem is this sky.
There's a lot of places and tournaments or events for which your duper rating matters.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: It does.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: For instance, we have a Friday morning group and you have to have above a 3.5 duper to play in it, right? Well, guess who doesn't have above a 3.5 duper?
[00:09:13] Speaker B: You.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: But I'm above a 3.5. But I'm not because my duper says I'm a 3.448, right? So then I gotta beg, borrow and steal to get into this 3.5 plus group that I have played in for two straight years.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Right?
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Thankfully they love me and they're letting me in. But they could also say no. Cause I don't have a height of duper. Here's the other problem, and this is the other side of the story. We play in some tournaments that are duper tournaments. Meaning like MLP style tournaments. But the duper rating matters. So if we plan what's called a duper 14 tournament, that means the. The four of us on the team, this MLP style team, or Milp. Hate the word milp, though. It doesn't sound right. But Milp minor league pickleball team. Of the four of us, our total duper can't exceed 14.
Well, 14 is. Is four 3.5 exactly rated players. But if I have a lower than I should have duper, it's like sandbagging. I'm not choosing to sandbag because my duper score is going to be what's going to be. So if I'm a 3448 and duper, it's going to automatically calculate his 3448 over in my team. Well, that means if I'm really. Let's just say I'm really a three eight. Let's just do easy math. Say about 375. I'm 0.3 higher in reality than I show on paper. Well, now we can use that .3 to get somebody else.
Now I can get a 3.8 player instead of a 3.5 because my rating offsets that player's rating. You know what I'm saying? It's just so. I would love for it to be accurate.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: And speaking from somebody that has a lower duper, there are times when I want to play with you guys. But if you don't want your duper to be hurt.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Then that limits how many partners.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Correct. We're gonna tell you no.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: And I understand you are a 2.49. Hey, but in honesty. You say hey, as if you're happy about that. You're much better than that. You're probably a two, eight to 30 player.
You certainly hang with all the 30 people that you played with last night. No problem. In fact, I think you probably won a majority of your games.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: I did.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: So you're also more lowly rated than you should be. But you also went down with me after a while because we, again, weren't winning our games.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: True.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: If I look at your activity, I.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Haven'T put much in duper lately.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: I mean, that's not on you. That's on the league that we were in.
You were a 2.72 during league, and then you went back down after that.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: But I like how you said that if you put it in a basement, that enables people.
That enables people to play with their spouse. Cause a lot of times when you first start pickleball, one spouse is going to be ahead of the other. And so without having a floor to duper or whatever the scoring system is or rating system is, then you are starting to basically segregate players, which is going to be tough on some communities.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. I'm looking at our league scores.
We did better than I thought we did. I'll give you credit for that.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Oh, thanks.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: We were a big.
We were between two and four and three and three every week. Kind of went back and forth.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: I thought so.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: But we were in the lower group, right. We didn't really make it to the higher group.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: True.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: But that was okay with me because they played later at night and I didn't want to stay up that late because. Yeah, I had to work.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, anyway, folks, my duper was in the pooper.
It is not anymore in the pooper. They climbing out, change their algorithm, singles. That says, I'm a 3.118 or something like that. That is way overrated.
That duper is high.
I love singles.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: That's because you used to be a.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Tennis player to say that I played it, but I don't love singles when it comes to all the running.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: I don't. It's not fun for me. I don't enjoy it.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: It's a different game to me.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: It is a different game. There's sort of a tennis aspect to it where you're back at the baseline, there's lots of drives, and you're working on passing shots and cross court shots. But then there's also that cat and mouse aspect of it where you do want to get to the kitchen first and. And then if you both get there, it's some really crazy cat and mouse dinking. That's where I get burned because I just am not quick enough to get to some of those balls on the side. And a lot of players I play with are good enough to keep it away from me. So I was one and three, one in four at the latest app.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Gotcha.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Played three o men's and one in four. I'll take it. I'll take any win in singles, trust me.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: I probably pulled a hamstring, tore a calf and broke his ankle, but it worked for me.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Not really. I'm just kidding.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: That's terrible.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: I'm just kidding.
He did pull his hamstring.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: That's still terrible.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: It is. It is. No.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Gotta stretch, people. Gotta stretch.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: I'm glad to hear that your duper is climbing out of the pooper.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Yes, it's crawling out of the pooper.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: So for pickleball partners.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Or pickleball spouses, you know what, what would you advise?
[00:14:33] Speaker A: I mean, like, oh, play together. Good grief. I am definitely not gonna say that, that my duper rating is more important than playing on a court with you. Not even close. Right. Did you just blink your eyes at me?
[00:14:46] Speaker B: I did.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: We're out.
Sweet lobs is done for the day.
Yeah. I think back to what we said in the last podcast. I believe in the fun of this game. Like, that's, that's way more important to me. Right. The community, the ability for this sport to unite people. I think the same thing about, like, our marriage. It's, we've always talked about what can we do together? We've ballroom danced together. Loved it. We've played volleyball together. Loved it.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Fell in love on the volleyball court.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Fell in love on the volleyball court for sure. And then, and now playing pickleball together, I love it. So I think from that aspect, I would, my duper can stay in the pooper, honestly, if it meant I get to play with you more. No question about it. But I do think there's some flaws in the system. It's not not flaws in my decision making process. Playing with you is the right choice. Flaws in the system in that. I do think duper and other, other rating systems should at least have some sort of floor. I think UTR sports has come up with a rating system. They're the ones that do the tennis ratings. And yep, in some ways there's a floor because you self rate. And if you're a tournament slash league player, I think you start at 50 now it's not the same thing as a pickleball 50. Right? It's like how we think of a 50. It's a UTR 5.0, but you'll never go low, go below 50, because you play in leagues and tournaments, but then you got to get up to, like, a 90. I think it's kind of like the five to nine rate, but at least you won't drop below that number. So there's somewhat of a four built in there. I'm not sure that's really what I'm describing or expecting.
Algorithms are not easy things. They're super complex, and it's tough. I mean, you got millions of people playing. I'm sure there's. I'm sure there's probably at least a million people in duper. I don't know. Maybe that's high. Maybe it's. Maybe it's 200,000 people in duper. Even so, 200,000 people, even with just one game a week, is a ton of data. And so, yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see what they do with it, but.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Well, I have one more thing to add. If I were to talk to spouses who also want to be partners, I think you also have to recognize that you need to be supportive of your partner. So if you have one partner that's more competitive, that wants to go further into tournaments and competitive play, then you have to be understanding, and you have to be on the same page. So if that means that your partner needs to get another partner that's higher ranking, then you need to be supportive of that. And I always have been for you because I knew that this was a passion of yours, much more so than for me, as we've explained in previous episodes. But I'm never upset when you have. You play with a different partner in a tournament. And some of these tournaments, I can't travel to, either. So you have to be a supportive partner no matter what.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Well, I think this is not to turn this into a counseling session, but let's be honest. I should always want the best for you.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: I shouldn't be happy when things don't go well for you.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Right?
[00:17:46] Speaker A: It doesn't make sense to me, but I've seen plenty of people like, well, I can't believe that this is a. You know, that worked for you. You get to do this. It's like you can't believe your spouse gets to do something that's good and healthy for them. Like, what is wrong with you? Like, that makes no sense to me. I want you to do the things that are good and healthy and fun for you, and I want you to have those experiences. Oh, you get to go to, you know, Europe and I don't. I hope you have a blast. How cool for you. My spouse and I think, you know, you can say the same thing about pickleball. I. I want you to have all the cool experiences you want to have. You should want me to have all the cool experiences I get to have. And thankfully, we get to have a lot of them together as well.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: All right, sweet lobs. Podcast. Like, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and thank you for listening. Throw us some comments, folks. We're eager to know what we can do to help you or to.
Well, I will even take any ideas you have for topics in the future. Sky, what are we gonna do next? Are we gonna do, like, are we gonna do, like, good things? Coming up, we do one on tournaments next. What do you wanna do it on?
[00:18:47] Speaker B: We can. We can talk about how to run a tournament. We can talk about disagreements between pickleball friends.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: We could.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: I mean, your favorite paddles or gadgets. I mean, like, there's so much we can talk about.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: All right, well, we'll surprise you. Have a good day.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Logically, I'm impossibly wanted. Then they'll remember my name.
