# Classification or regression problem?

I have a table with this features:

   'tourney_id', 'tourney_name', 'surface', 'draw_size', 'tourney_level',
'tourney_date', 'match_num', 'winner_id', 'winner_seed', 'winner_entry',
'winner_name', 'winner_hand', 'winner_ht', 'winner_ioc', 'winner_age',
'winner_rank', 'winner_rank_points', 'loser_id', 'loser_seed',
'loser_entry', 'loser_name', 'loser_hand', 'loser_ht', 'loser_ioc',
'loser_age', 'loser_rank', 'loser_rank_points', 'score', 'best_of',
'round', 'minutes', 'w_ace', 'w_df', 'w_svpt', 'w_1stIn', 'w_1stWon',
'w_2ndWon', 'w_SvGms', 'w_bpSaved', 'w_bpFaced', 'l_ace', 'l_df',
'l_svpt', 'l_1stIn', 'l_1stWon', 'l_2ndWon', 'l_SvGms', 'l_bpSaved',
'l_bpFaced'


You can see that they are duplicate features with the difference that one half is for winners e.i winner_age and the other half for losers e.i loser_age. I not sure which approach to take as is not a classification problem in the sense that I don't have clear binary labels (of course I could categorize some of them) or regression because I don't have a clear target (each feature is both winner and loser). I'm trying to do some EDA first but in order to do it I have to have a clear understanding on which approach to take to start with in the first place.

• 1. what are you planning to do with this data? 2. when winner columns are populated then loser columns are null or they are also populated for that row? – Sandeep Bhutani Jul 17 '20 at 19:00
• Im trying to choose what type of algorithm apply whether is regression or classification. Both are populated. e.i winner_height = 1.80 and loser_height = 1.74 – TOMAS Jul 17 '20 at 21:34
• In addition to Brian answer, if you want to predict the height of person then it is a regression problem. However, I wonder if there is a correlation between height and winnder or loser! – Sandeep Bhutani Jul 18 '20 at 8:25
• Im not trying to predict height, Im trying to predict winners and losers based on the on the features from winners and losers. Because I have numeric features I think its gonna be regression. But I don't know which approach to take. Im new on ML. Do I have to subdivide the dataset with the winner features and loser features ? Maybe use seleKbest to select the best features. Also I want to make Exploratory Data Analysis first. – TOMAS Jul 18 '20 at 14:04

If you are trying to predict the target of winner or loser, then it is a binary classification problem.
• So looking online I found that I could use the .melt() function in Pandas. Each column would be a feature and the columns would be winners and losers. Is this right ? – TOMAS Jul 18 '20 at 21:00