From: danjones@pyrps5.eng.pyramid.com (Dan Jones)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport
Subject: Re: If Patrese had passed Senna . . . (Pick6 scoring)
Date: 28 Jul 92 22:37:25 GMT
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corporation, Mountain View

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!
>
>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!-).

Yeah, this sounds a little familar, these were my top 6 too ;-(((.

>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.
>
>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.

I think the ideal scoring system would be to get more points the closer your
pick is to the actual position.  This system is used in the GOBs pick6 scoring
and was to be used in this year's F1 pick6 competition before I went on my
unexpected leave of absence.

Heres the scoring used by the GOBs this season.

--------------|--------------------------------------------------------|
Predictions   |   1st   2nd   3rd   4th   5th   6th  (Actual position) |
              |--------------------------------------------------------|
Finish  1st   |   24    18    14    12    10     8    |
        2nd   |   17    23    17    13    11     9    |
        3rd   |   12    16    22    16    12    10    |
        4th   |    9    11    15    21    15    11    |
        5th   |    6     8    10    14    20    14    |
        6th   |    3     5     7     9    13    19    |
--------------|---------------------------------------|

So predicting the top 5 on position would have scored 24+23+22+21+20 or
110 vs being off by one in positions 2-4 would have scored 24+16+15+14 or
69.  Not as good but its salvagable.   I think the values in this chart
could use a little massaging, but the basic idea is pretty good.

>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).

There are a couple of solutions for this.  Having your picks default to your
picks from the previous race works once you get into the system.  I don't 
really like the idea of throwing out low scores for a few reasons, but the 
25th percentile idea sounds OK.  

Another difference in scoring between the F1 and GOBs competitions is how the
championship is scored.  In the GOBs, after a race the players are ordered by
scores and points are awarded by that order.  So a race like Canada is just
as important as a easy race to predict such as Germany.

Finally, I think picking of unpopular (by pick count) drivers should get 
rewarded higher scores than picking popular drivers.  If I pick Damon Hill
for the win, that should score higher than everyone else's pick of Nigel.

>My picks for 1993 team/engine/driver combos:
>
>Ferrari/Ferrari		Senna/Quayle

Shouldn't you spell it Ferrare if Quayle is going to drive?  For those outside
of the US, our VP Quayle spells potato with an 'e' at the end.

Dan Jones