From: winalski@adserv.enet.dec.com (Paul S. Winalski)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport
Subject: F1 Pick6: scoring
Date: 28 Jul 92 21:19:36 GMT
Reply-To: winalski@adserv.enet.dec.com (Paul S. Winalski)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Nashua NH


In article <831e03aW46U800@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>,
nxn@uts.amdahl.com (David J. Nixon) writes:
|>
|>If Patrese had made the pass . . .
|>
|>Now that the silly season is well under way I'd like to raise
|>the issue of the pick 6 scoring system.
|>First of all, I think John, Paul and Spyros have been doing a wonderful
|>job running this monster. Amidst the usual anarchy of the net, the pick6
|>has been running very smoothly indeed - way to go guys!

Thanks.  We try.

|>That said, I think the scoring system is rather capricious, favoring
|>those that happen to get the minor placings right, and penalizing those
|>that get the order right, but are off by one place. As an example,
|>I'll use my brother Rob's pick for the German G.P. in which he chose
|>Mansell, Patrese, Senna, Schumacher, Brundle, Berger. Had Patrese made the
|>pass in the final laps he would have got the top 5 and 45 points. As it
|>is he scored a meager 20 (less than me - heh, heh!-).
|>The present system is too much of a lottery. If you find lotteries
|>exciting, then that's fine, but I prefer a larger skill factor.
|>Next season, we need to award more points for close guesses.

I agree.  The present scoring system was the best that we could come up with
in the week or so that we had to put together the Pick6 competition when we
took it over at the last minute.

The system that I favor is one that John came up with.  This system awards 10
points for an exact prediction, 6 points for being 1 place off, 4 for two
places off, 3 for 3 places off, 2 for 4 places off, and 1 for 5 places off.
Your example pick above would score 10+0+6+6+6+0=28 points (out of a
possible 60) under this system.  Had Patrese made the pass, the score would
have been 10+10+10+10+10+0=50 out of 60.

The advantage of this system over the present one is that is rewards picks based
on closeness.  I also think it's better because it isn't biased in favor of the
top positions (a point on which I see we disagree).

|>One simple system that I think is fairer is to pick 6 drivers in order
|>as we do now, but to award the lesser of the points the driver actually
|>scores, or the points for the position you selected that driver in. This
|>would bias the points more to the top positions - which I think is good.
|>Taking Rob's pick for Germany again, he would score:
|>
|>(actual finishing order was Mansell, Senna, Schumacher, Brundle, Alesi, Comas)
|>
|>10 for Mansell	(pick 1st, finish 1st, score 1st)
|>0 for Patrese	(pick 2nd, finish 8th, score nothing)
|>4 for Senna	(pick 3rd, finish 2nd, score 3rd)
|>3 for Schumacher(pick 4th, finish 3rd, score 4th)
|>2 for Brundle	(pick 5th, finish 4th, score 5th)
|>0 for Berger	(pick 6th, did not finish, score nothing)
|>
|>or 19 out of a possible 26.
|>
|>Had Patrese made that pass, he would have scored 25 out of 26 for the top 5
|>in correct order.

Not a bad system.  John and I have set up our scoring programs to accomodate
various scoring system alternatives we're investigating.  We'll have to add
in this one.

|>Another issue is scoring based on all 16 races. If you miss a race
|>(as we did the first before the present triple mailing system) it's very
|>hard to catch up (although Bruce Fisher is doing well). It's not like the
|>real championship where a driver can catch up quickly with two or three
|>wins, because there are a large number of people competing, and you have
|>to score well each race just to keep up with the front runners.
|>I don't like scoring based on average points per race because that encourages
|>those with a high average to drop out. Perhaps those who miss races might
|>score the median score for that race, or maybe the 25th percentile, just so
|>there's a definite penalty for missing a race. Another way would be to drop
|>your worst one or two scores, although this isn't going to help those who
|>miss a high-scoring race if there are any low-scoring races (like Canada).

We allow ample opportunity for people to get their picks in on time, so aside
from this year's first race, I don't think there's much excuse for not getting
picks in.  I think the rules should encourage and reward participation.  If
we do decide it's desireable to accomodate missing a race, I think the only
equitable way to do that is to allow all participants to drop their worst
(or, say, worst 2) scores.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

--PSW
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport