FargoRate Player

Review by eFreeware

FargoRate Player is the mobile side of the FargoRate rating system for pool, and its most distinctive trait is that it treats a player's rating as something worth checking regularly rather than a number you look up once. The app puts your current rating, your robustness and a player card in front of you, then lets you search the wider player base. It is built for people inside competitive pool: league players, tournament followers and anyone who wants to see how a match result moves the numbers.

The app is free to install and carries ads, with in-app purchases available. A good part of what it does sits behind either membership in an affiliated league or a yearly subscription, so the free download is best understood as the entry point to a system rather than the whole product. If your pool life revolves around league nights and rated matches, the structure will feel familiar; if you only shoot casually, the free layer may be all you ever touch.

I should be clear about the numbers up front. The app has more than 100,000 installs and a 3.6 average from 348 ratings, which suggests a committed core of users alongside a fair amount of mixed feeling. It first appeared in April 2019 and was still being updated in September 2025, so this is not a project that has been left to sit.

What the free version puts in your hands

At the free level, the app is a personal dashboard. You can see your rating and your robustness, which is the measure of how much match data stands behind that rating, and you get a player card that presents you as part of the system. Searching by name lets you look up other players, and a limited set of favorites lets you keep a few of them close. Upcoming events and streams round out the free offering, which makes the app double as a noticeboard for competitive pool.

That combination is more useful than it first sounds. A rating only means something in context, and being able to pull up a name and see where that person sits gives your own number a reference point. The events and streams section is the part I would expect casual fans to open most, since it points toward things to watch rather than things to track.

The limits here are structural rather than hidden. Favorites are capped unless you move up a tier, and the deeper history views are not part of the free set. What you get without paying is a snapshot of the rating world; what you do not get is the archive behind it.

Match history and the paid tier

The paid side of the app is where the record-keeping lives. A subscription or an affiliated league membership opens your full personal match history, so you can look back over your results rather than just your current standing. It also opens opponent match history, which means you can examine how a specific player has performed over time, not merely where they rank today.

Favorites become unlimited at this level, which matters if you follow a circle of players rather than one or two. Advanced searching and sorting arrive as well, letting you work through the player base with more control than a simple name lookup allows. For anyone who plays rated pool regularly, the history views are the reason to consider paying; a rating tells you where you stand, and a match history tells you how you got there.

A 12-month subscription costs $12.99 and renews on its own unless you stop it more than a day ahead of the term's end. Payment goes through your Google Play account, and cancelation is handled in the store's subscription settings. League players with an affiliated league get these features through that membership instead, which is worth checking before you spend anything.

Searching the player base

Search is the feature that gives the app its reach. Beyond looking players up by name, you can filter by location, by rating range and by whether a player's rating is established, or combine those conditions. That turns the app into something closer to a directory of rated players than a personal scoreboard, and it is the part that makes the rating system feel like a community rather than a private number.

A September 2025 update refined these filters, and for subscribers it is now easier to narrow players down by country, state or region, rating and robustness. If you are trying to find the strongest players in your area, or checking the field before an event, those filters do the heavy lifting. The advanced sorting behind them is part of the paid set, while basic name search remains available to everyone.

I would expect this to be the most-used feature for tournament players and the least-used for everyone else. It rewards knowing what you are looking for; a vague curiosity about the player base is served well enough by a name search, and the finer filtering is for people with a reason to dig.

League tools and what the app expects of you

For league players, the app integrates with FargoRate LMS, showing upcoming league matches and rosters. That is a scheduling and lineup tool as much as a stats one, and it is the clearest sign that the app is designed around organized play. If your league runs through the FargoRate system, this section is likely to become part of your routine before match night.

The trade-offs are worth stating plainly. The app is free but ad-supported, and the most substantial features require either an affiliated league membership or a yearly subscription. That means the value of the download depends heavily on whether you are already inside the FargoRate ecosystem; the free tier is genuinely useful, but it is a preview of the fuller picture rather than the picture itself.

The 3.6 average from 348 ratings also suggests the app does not please everyone, which is unsurprising for a tool tied to a specific rating system. A rating of 3.6 is not a disaster, but it is not a ringing endorsement either, and I would read it as a sign that expectations and delivery do not always line up for every user. The app was released in 2019 and updated in 2025.

Who the app is built for

This is an app for people whose pool playing is measured. If you are in an affiliated league, or you play rated tournaments, the app gives you your number, the record behind it and the tools to look up everyone else's. The league integration and match history are aimed at that life, and the subscription exists mainly for players who want those features without a league membership.

Fans of competitive pool are the second audience. Events, streams and player search let you follow the scene without playing in it, and the free tier covers that reasonably well. What the app is not built for is the casual player who shoots for fun and has never been rated; there is little here that would change how you spend an evening at the table.

I would judge the subscription on how often you actually consult match history and advanced search. If those are things you would open weekly, $12.99 a year is modest; if you would mostly check your rating and glance at upcoming events, the free version carries you.

A rating companion for league pool players

FargoRate Player does one job with focus: it keeps players inside the FargoRate system informed. Your rating, robustness and player card are free, searching by name is free, and events and streams are free. Match history, opponent history, unlimited favorites, advanced search and league integration sit behind a league membership or a $12.99 yearly subscription, with ads on the free tier.

If you play rated pool or follow it closely, the app is a sensible install; the free layer alone answers the question most players ask, and the paid layer answers the ones that follow. If pool is a casual pastime for you, the free version is as far as you need to go, and the rating system itself will matter more than the app around it.

The 3.6 average tells you this is a utility people use because they need it rather than one they love. For its intended audience, that is usually enough.

What's new in version 2.8.7

Updated player search filters! For subscribed users, it is now easier than ever to filter players by country, state/region, rating, robustness, etc.