Concept2 Forum

With the Summer Handicap series almost 5/6 complete I've been rethinking the scoring system a bit. What I tried to do with the series is come up with a handicap system that allows drivers of different ages and experience to compete with each other on a relatively equal basis.<br /><br />I am afraid that what I have done is penalize the experienced racer too much. Some of the best rowers had SB times that were already some of the top times in the world. It is very difficult for these top rowers to significantly improve their SB times.<br /><br />Conversely some of the less experienced rowers have plenty of room to improve their times before coming near a world leading time. They have many opportunities to max out their score. I was trying to encourage these new rowers but I don't want to discourage the experienced competitor.<br /><br />My thought is to use the new SB as compared to the rower's age group percentile ranking. If you look at the C2 rankings there are percentile times at the top of the page 90th, 75th, 50th and 25th. If a rower's SB is faster than the 90th percentile he would get 100% of his score. Above the 75th he would get 90%, above the 50th he would get 75%, above 25th he would get 50%, and below that he would get 25%. Here it is in chart form:<br /><br /><!--c1--><table width='95%' cellspacing='1' cellpadding='3' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><b><div class='genmed'>CODE</div></b></td></tr><tr><td class='code'><div><!--ec1--><br /><br />Percentile   Percent of score<br />over 90th     100%<br />90th - 75th    90%<br />75th - 50th    75%<br />50th - 25th    50%<br />below 25th     25%<br /><br /><!--c2--></div></td></tr></table><br /><br />Remember this is only for possible future handicap races. I'd like to hear the thoughts of you racers as to how you would feel about this kind of change to the scoring system. Think of it as an incentive to row as close to the top of the world rankings as you can.<br /><br />Frank<br /><br /><br />

At first glance I like it. The only issue I see right off is complexity, but if you can do the calculations.... I definitely agree with your point that the experienced players are penalized (and I'm not one of them) and they should not be; I feel for the Flacks and the von Tonders of the world! <br /><br />The other little issue is that we need to build a data base of SBs, or redefine the SB as the best race within the last 12 months, or some such thing. Just another thought. <br /><br />Bert

Personally I don't mind any change you want to do. My Objective was to get better and realize a new PR and row my best. competing against top rower and be able to challenge them gave my the fuel to row much harder then expected.<br /><br /> So in my book, mission accomplish when you want to get the best of individual rowers with different level in the same race. The point system is just superficial.<br /><br />Alain

No need to feel sorry for Andreas and me. We have our fun at BIRC and CRASH-B. <br /><br />I am usually last or near last in every handicap race I enter. But that is OK. It means that everyone else is scared to death that I am going to catch them, and that pushes them to new heights in performance.<br /><br />I am a bit surprised though that people were still improving after the first set of races. Usually the first handicap races gets everyone to do their best which they didn't know that they were capable of doing. I suspected many would just miss their goals on the second set of races. But, everyone but me, seems to continue to improve. Good for them! Someday, they will also have reached their best. But until that day, enjoy the moment.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Paul Flack

Frank,<br /><br />I like your idear.<br /><br />But first of all I must say that I entered to improve and I may say that I did well!<br /><br />So I wish to thank you all for the site, the scoring, putting together the teams, and naturally the other rowers for the competition <br /><br />Hennie<br /><br />

Frank:<br /><br />As a new and slower participant, I agree with Alain. For me, it was/is all about having an "event" to point toward with training that is a "test" of what progress I've made. The points are not the motivator for me ... dropping my times is ... especially in my first three month of indoor rowing as I try to see what my limits are, how well my training plan is working, and how hard I'll need to work to get better. Modifying the scoring to make it achieve more parity might make for better competition and closer races all around.<br /><br />We'd also have more competition with more participants. If we could recruit more people, and perhaps build larger teams, we might smooth things out quite a bit. As a newbie, my sense is that there are quite a few "lurkers" who might have trepidation about participating in any online event because they are not world class. We have quite a few strong rowers that race on the Internet (which I'll classify as sub-7), but not as many with slower times like me. All I can tell them is, "Come on in, the water's calm!"<br /><br />-- Mark

The racing series has been fun and has gotten me to row in the middle of the summer. But I don't think the "problem" is with the scoring relative to the most experienced or fastest rowers. Looking at the list, many people who seem pretty fast are doing pretty well, and Andreas for example, arguably the 2nd fastest 40s heavy in the world, looks to be capable of putting up big numbers still. Any scoring system can be manipulated, and will give different advantages, etc. For example, by using SB times and not PB times gives an "advantage" to more experienced rowers, since they are more likely to have SB time slower than a PB, and have the capacity to beat those times.<br /><br />I think the focus should be on ensuring close finishes, so the scoring system should be set up encourage people to take the hardest possible handicap. The current system favors sandbagging by giving bonus points to beating your SB. The result has been huge variation in result, and few close finishes.<br /><br />Just to throw another idea out there, how about giving bonus points for beating your SB, but only if you knock them off your handicap before the race by declaring the time you are going to beat. This would encourage people to row with the smallest possible handicaps. For example, in the 1st 5k race, my SB was around 19:30, but instead of rowing with that as my handicap, or even using my PB of 19:00, I said I wanted to row with a handicap of 18:50. I didn't want to be out front all by myself, and I wanted to be leaving the line with people around my speed. I gave up 40 points for the slackers in that race, and when added to the 20 points I gave up for the 6k, that decision currently places us in 2nd place overall and not 1st. But it made for a better 5k race for me.

double post somehow.

It's been fun, that's for sure. A couple of things come to mind. I'm not sure how much we want to put on the team vs individual. We have a couple of teams that have had just one or no rowers race at all. Others came in once and then not again. Then you have the Pirate who never quite figured out how the scoring worked. Maybe it should be just individual. Just a thought.<br /><br />I think we should use PBs or the fastest time in the last year. By going from just the current SB, we had some pretty slow times to start from. Also, I'd like to eliminate the negative points.<br /><br />If you go based on the % ranking you are in, won't this affect the slower people too much? A person just starting to row probably won't be in the top 10%.<br /><br />I think I need some more details.<br /><br />Jeff

Agreed that the way we picked the SBs needs some change. My thought is that we could use the best time from the current season and the previous season. We could call it the 2SB (2 season best). There would still be an issue with a new rower since they may not have a previous season to use.<br /><br />As for impacting the new rowers too much by using a percentage, I don't think it will but the best way to see the impact would be to take the current race series and run the scores with that change made.<br /><br />If I get the time later this week I'll try that and post the results here.<br /><br />Frank

Here is a chart with a couple of the above suggestions as it would impact the current scores for the series. The column %tile has my suggestion of applying the percentile from the C2 world rankings. The 'No Minus' column is Jeff's suggestion of no minus scores. I eliminated the base scores for this column but still awarded appearance points for those that did not score in the positive range.<br /><br />I'm not sure that the extra effort for %tile would be worth it. 'No Minus' just reduces scores overall. Let me know what you think.<br /><br /><!--c1--><table width='95%' cellspacing='1' cellpadding='3' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><b><div class='genmed'>CODE</div></b></td></tr><tr><td class='code'><div><!--ec1--><br />                           Current    %tile    No Minus<br />1 Light Weights            926.8     889.5     374.8<br />2 The Slackers             871.6     760.7     419.6<br />3 Winers and Diners        870.1     869.2     338.1<br />4 Pirates of the Caribbean 859.0     859.3     360.3<br />5 The Transatlantics       755.7     746.8     332.1<br />6 Team 5                   283.8     327.9     134.0<br />7 Galley Slaves            267.7     263.9     107.7<br /><!--c2--></div></td></tr></table><br /><br />Frank

I like the "minus" method of accounting for no other reason than because the "Slackers" would be on top! <br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Paul Flack, a slacker

Either way I still like it! because me and Will still kicking some XXX.

<!--QuoteBegin-Canoeist+Jul 20 2005, 06:57 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Canoeist @ Jul 20 2005, 06:57 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I like the "minus" method of accounting for no other reason than because the "Slackers" would be on top!  <br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Paul Flack, a slacker <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />You can see how this clearly affects rowers that are at the high end of their abilities. Paul's score has a big improvment while everyone else stays roughly the same. I think this puts everyone on a much more level playing field.<br /><br />Even the % works a little better. I think it closes the gaps more and doesn't reward you for slacking off early. The POC team and the Winers and Diners team are clearly racing at the top level even though they are down somewhat in the rankings.<br /><br />Jeff

I think any scoring system can be manipulated to your advantage, so while I am fine with changing or different scoring systems, it doesn't matter that much to me how we score the results. I think close and contested finishes should be the focus. Some people are putting up huge PBs, myself included, so the spread at the finish is 30 secs or more. The races would be more interesting if they were contested down to the wire.<br /><br />So I think we should put a price on sand. You only get bonus points for beating your SB/PB/handicap by taking that time off your handicap in advance of the race. So if you SB handicap was a 5k in 20:00, but you think you could go 19:30, you could choose to row at that as your handicap instead, gambling for those extra 30 points (or you could risk 10 points at 19:50, etc). You wouldn't get any other extra bonus points for beating your handicap time.<br /><br />The risk is that by taking the time off your handicap time in advance of the race, you are putting yourself that much closer to the sharks, and making it that much harder for you to win the race. So each us would have to balance the risk of reducing our handicap to win bonus points vs our chance of winning the race overall. Under this system, winning the race would also have to worth a lot of points, since people at or near their PBs would be mainly racing for those points.