Since Saber Talk began, one of its core aims has been to document competitive LED Saber as thoroughly as possible.

That has meant covering tournaments, interviewing fighters, analysing techniques, tracking historical records and, increasingly, exploring the statistics behind the sport. Today, I’m pleased to introduce the latest addition to that collection:

The Saber Talk Glicko Rankings.

You can explore them now at https://glicko.sabertalk.com.

Before anything else, however, I want to make one point absolutely clear.

This is not an official ranking.

The official Saber Tour rankings remain exactly that – the official rankings. They determine seedings, qualification and the competitive order of the circuit in much the same way that the ATP Rankings do in professional tennis.

The Glicko Rankings are something entirely different.

Rather than rewarding tournament progression through a season, they attempt to answer a different question:

How strong is each fighter right now, based on the opponents they have beaten and lost to?

Those are two very different questions, and they deserve two different systems.

Why Glicko?

Anyone who has followed Saber Talk for a while will know that I have a slight obsession with statistics.

Whenever tournament results are published, I find myself asking questions that a normal ranking table can’t always answer.

How impressive was that victory?

Has a fighter been unlucky with their draw?

Who’s quietly improving despite not making deep elimination runs?

Are two competitors separated by dozens of ranking places actually much closer in ability than the official standings suggest?

A Glicko rating is designed to explore those sorts of questions.

Unlike a traditional points system, it considers not only whether you won, but who you beat. Defeating an established top competitor carries far more weight than defeating somebody making their tournament debut, while close clusters of interconnected results allow the ratings to settle into a picture of the competitive landscape.

Of course, it certainly isn’t perfect, but it provides an interesting lens through which to view the circuit.

An analytical tool, not a replacement

This project is not intended to compete with, replace or undermine the official rankings in any way.

Official rankings exist because sport needs a transparent, season-long method of deciding qualification, seeding and championship standings.

Analytical rankings exist because they’re interesting.

Football has expected goals. Chess has Elo. Numerous sports have independent power rankings produced by journalists and statisticians alongside the official tables.

This is simply Saber Talk’s contribution.

Sometimes the Glicko rankings will broadly agree with the official standings.

Sometimes they won’t.

Those differences are often the most interesting part.

More than just a leaderboard

Perhaps my favourite feature of the project isn’t the current rankings at all.

Every tournament in the database generates a complete historical snapshot of the rankings, allowing you to step back through time and see exactly how the competitive landscape evolved after each event. Rather than asking “What do the rankings look like today?”, you can ask “What did they look like after the 2023 French Open?” or “When did this fighter first break into the top ten?”

I hope that proves to be a valuable historical resource in its own right. As the sport continues to grow, being able to trace its history tournament by tournament will become increasingly fascinating.

The data also tells some interesting stories.

Perhaps the most striking is just how competitive the modern Saber Tour has become. A remarkable number of the current top twenty are at the highest rating they have ever achieved, suggesting the overall standard at the top of the sport continues to rise.

Yet many of those same competitors are not at their highest-ever ranking.

At first glance, that sounds contradictory. In reality, it highlights just how compressed the leading pack has become. A rating that might have been enough for third place a few years ago may only be worth eighth or ninth today, simply because so many elite fighters are simultaneously performing at an exceptional level.

In other words, the strongest era in Saber Tour history isn’t necessarily defined by one dominant champion. It’s defined by depth.

That’s exactly the sort of story I hope these rankings help uncover.

Still a work in progress

Like almost everything published under the Saber Talk banner, this project will continue to evolve.

More tournaments will be incorporated, historical data will continue to expand, and I already have plenty of ideas for additional statistics and visualisations to accompany the ratings.

If you spot something that looks wrong, have suggestions for improvements or simply want to discuss the methodology, I’d be delighted to hear from you.

After all, one of the best parts of running Saber Talk has always been the conversations that follow the articles.

I hope you enjoy exploring the rankings – and perhaps discovering a few surprises along the way.