The Statistical Case for Combined Finals

[reThinking the Cube]

If you're not intelligent enough to seriously contribute to the thread, you should probably just stop posting here.

LOL. Does that statement make you intelligent enough to be considered a ............cough***hypocrite***? If you're not intelligent enough to seriously consider what I have clearly explained to you, then you should probably just stop posting insults, and go back and read it again. It is very clear that you are more interested in posting negative comments in an attempt to save face, or to convolute this issue so that others have a more difficult time endorsing it, rather than seriously contributing to the discussion. You can do much better, and I for one will not stop you from making better posts in the future.:rolleyes:

 

[hawkmp4]

If you're not intelligent enough to seriously contribute to the thread, you should probably just stop posting here.

LOL. Does that statement make you intelligent enough to be considered a ............cough***hypocrite***? If you're not intelligent enough to seriously consider what I have clearly explained to you, then you should probably just stop posting insults, and go back and read it again. It is very clear that you are more interested in posting negative comments in an attempt to save face, or to convolute this issue so that others have a more difficult time endorsing it, rather than seriously contributing to the discussion. You can do much better, and I for one will not stop you from making better posts in the future.:rolleyes:

When you actually address the questions we've been asking you, qq will probably be more inclined to take you seriously. As it stands, you're still ignoring the issue of you changing your mind and also why you chose the numbers of trims that you did.

If you read qq's last post, he actually contributed to the discussion. And then, you follow up with a post with no discussion of the issue at stake- just whining about how we're (mostly qq) calling you out on you changing your mind. You didn't actually address the issue. You ignored it.

If we're so wrong, care to point out how your previous posts aren't incompatible? Because you HAVE made two different recommendations. That's clear to anyone who can proficiently read the English language, and I think we can agree that everyone involved in this discussion can.
Once you address the issues of inconsistency, can you explain how you came to that recommendation? As multiple people have said, it seems arbitrary.
If you really are intent on contributing to this discussion, it seems that at a minimum you should address those issues, instead of continuing to plug your ears and sing.

EDIT:

If you're not intelligent enough to seriously consider what I have clearly explained to you, then you should probably just stop posting insults, and go back and read it again.

Maybe you should read what qq is saying- if you did, it'd be clear that he understands your proposed methods, that's not the issue. It's that you've proposed multiple methods, changing your mind without explanation. So point the finger at yourself, first.

 

[reThinking the Cube]

When you actually address the questions we've been asking you, qq will probably be more inclined to take you seriously. As it stands, you're still ignoring the issue of you changing your mind and also why you chose the numbers of trims that you did.

You both are glossing over what I have already explained, but I can see that for me to keep repeating that, is not making progress, and so I will go over this once again, so that you, and everyone else can see how simply better this really is.

From the beginning -

Here is a format that can easily and fairly determine which competitors deserve to advance to the next round, but doesn't eliminate strong competitors early, AND be implemented without placing additional burden on organizers, uses all 15 solves to better decide the winner, generates official WCA rank times for each round, and is more spectator/competitor friendly than the current format.

All(3) rounds of 5 are done exactly the same as the current format. The 5-solve rounds are trimmed and averaged the same, to produce an official WCA time for that round for that event. Round#1 is 5 solves and averaged just like it is now.

So the question now is - Who gets to advance to Round#2?

The current format is to use the Round#1 times as the basis for elimination. This leaves open the possibility of a strong cuber getting more than 1 bad result in the first round and not advancing.

Rather than using this official time as the basis for deciding who advances, I really like the idea of temporarily double trimming out the 2 highest and 2 lowest times to give just the median time for that round. For all the tournaments that I have looked at, this median value has generated a fairer selection than using the official 5-solve round time. The main reason for this being the chance that a serious competitor could get eliminated in the first round by simply getting more than 1 bad solve. If the median value is used instead, it would take 3 bad solves out of 5 to prevent that competitor from advancing. So the competitors could easily be ranked(for cutoff placement) and eliminated based on this time. This median value is only used for determining advancement into Round#2 and is not needed for anything other than that.

Round#2 is also 5 solves and done exactly like it is now, and will produce another official WCA result for the competitors that get to do it.

So the question now is - Who gets to advance to Round#3?

The current format is to use the Round#2 times as the basis for elimination. This leaves open the possibility of a strong cuber(Sikan Li) getting more than 1 bad result in the second round and not advancing.

Rather than using this official time as the basis for deciding who advances, I really,really like the idea of temporarily trimming out the 3 highest and 3 lowest times for all 10 solves done so far, and then averaging the median 4 times that are left. For all the tournaments that I have looked at, this median average value has generated a much fairer selection than using just the official 5-solve round#2 time. The main reason for this being the chance that a serious competitor could get eliminated in the second round by simply getting more than 1 bad solve in that round. If this median average value is used instead, it would take 4 or more very bad solves out of 10 to prevent that competitor from advancing to the final round. So the competitors could easily be ranked(for cutoff placement) accordingly, and eliminated based on this time. This median value is only used for determining advancement into Round#3 and is not needed after that.

Round#3 is also 5 solves and done exactly like it is now, and will produce another official WCA result for the competitors that get to do it.

So the question now is - Who should win?

The current format is to use the Round#3 times as the sole basis for determining the winner. This leaves open the very real possibility of the strongest cubers getting more than 1 bad solve out of these last 5, and ruining their tournament placement because of it. Instead, I really,really,really like the idea of trimming out the 3 highest and 3 lowest times from all 15 solves, and then averaging the 9 median times that are left to produce a tournament time for that event. For all the tournaments that I have looked at, this value has produced by far, the fairest placement rankings. Trimming more or less than 3/3 times from the 15 is also possible, but doing it this way, keeps it consistent with the current 40% trim.

That was the original post describing the format. Because there are additional rounds, the trimming after Round#1 and Round#2 is specifically being used to determine who gets into the next round. The trimming that is done after the final Round#3 is specifically being used to fairly determine who should win the event.

Now, some misconceptions concerning whether or not this would work for varying number of rounds led to this post -

So, if this were to be implemented, this would force all competitions to have 3 rounds of 3x3 would it not? - Sometimes, due to lack of competitors, or time restrictions, this isn't possible. Out of 4 competitions I have been to, only one of them has had 3 rounds of 3x3. What about for other events? Would the winner of 4x4 be determined by the median time?

Any number of rounds is easy, and done the same way. The median times are only used to determine who advances to the next round. As it turns out, the winner of the event is also the only competitor to advance into the hypothetical final+1 round. The only difference for the last round is that the total number of trims allowed will always be 2 for each 5 round solve completed to get there.

Example, for a 2 round event, it is easy to use the median gotten from round 1 to get the final group of competitors. Then after the second round was completed, the winner would be determined from using all 10 solves trimmed by removing 2 highest and 2 lowest, average the other 6. All Official WCA 5-solve round times are always still preserved. This will produce a better Round2 selection, and also a fairer determination of the winner of the event, since 10 solves are used, and the trims can be applied uniformly to the whole set.

A 4 round event would be done the same way by extension, it makes no difference how many rounds there are. If it was 1 round, then the normal 5-solve trimmed average would decide the winner. That also answers the 4x4x4 question. These are not problems at all.

Note that the 6 trims on 10 solves that were applied at the end of Round#2 in the 1st example is for getting a value that will determine who will go into Round#3. The 2nd example I gave was specifically for a 2 round event, since that was the question (how would this work for events with more or less rounds?). For a 2 round event, 10 solves completes it, and for the final round the final trimming is solely for the purpose of fairly determining the winner. In this case 4 trims applied using all 10 solves, averaging the rest. These cases are not the same, and are trimmed accordingly.

I also posted a more detailed explanation in the following post to further clarify this.

Then after the second round was completed, the winner would be determined from using all 10 solves trimmed by removing 2 highest and 2 lowest, average the other 6. [...]

If it was 1 round, then the normal 5-solve trimmed average would decide the winner.

So you're changing your mind, then? You don't want to trim 2 on each side off a 5-solve average, and 3 on each side off a 10-solve average?

No change, it is very simple. All 5-solve rounds will always get 2 trims just like normal. Now, when there is another round to advance into, then you are given 2 extra trims (you could consider them to be borrowed in advance, from the upcoming 5-solve round) to be applied to ANY of the solves that have already been done in ANY previous round. The solve times that are left after trimming are then averaged, and this is the value that is used to determine who advances into that next round and that is all. This works perfectly no matter how many rounds there are. The final round cannot borrow, so that it trims at 2 per 5 solves, which gives the same trimming ratio as the current method.

be moar nice

Now that you have coerced me into breaking my previous record for longest and most redundant post, I hope that you feel totally convinced that I have not been ignoring anything, and that qq is in need of a good trim:rolleyes:

 

[qqwref]

I think I see what you are trying to say. You're intensely bad at communication, though; generally if someone is misunderstanding your point, it is useful to add LESS text (distill it down to the essentials, and summarize) and not to add MORE. But I can't and don't expect you to understand your own point well enough to summarize it.

Here is what I think reThinking was trying to say (and watch as I explain it in such a way that everyone will understand):
- After N five-solve rounds, there are two possible ways we could take an average, which will be used for different situations.
- To determine the winner (if this is the finals), we take averages by taking all 5N solves and trimming off N from each side.
- However, to determine who makes the next round (if this is not the finals), we take averages by taking all 5N solves and trimming off N+1 from each side.

Now, I don't really like the idea of trimming an extra solve on each side. It seems like it will just change the averages a bit, in an essentially random way, compared to the standard 20% trim. If one of the two gives better results (i.e. better distinguishes between a faster cuber and a slower one) then it should be used both to decide winners AND to decide advancements. Personally I don't see anything wrong with trimming exactly 20% and I think that, if we want to adopt a winning condition where the average of all solves matters, we should do just that. We're already used to a 20% trim from our average of 5 metric and so doing that for multiple rounds would not break tradition so much as extend it. (I'm still in favor of the best average winning, though.)

 

[reThinking the Cube]

I think I see what you are trying to say. You're intensely bad at communication, though; generally if someone is misunderstanding your point, it is useful to add LESS text (distill it down to the essentials, and summarize) and not to add MORE.

Well then, I guess it would be fair for me to say - "You're intensely bad at comprehending". You said you wanted MORE, so that you could understand it better. You got what you wanted, so you should be thankful. Instead, you are distilling down to whatever essential spitefulness you can come up with.

But I can't and don't expect you to understand your own point well enough to summarize it.

Is this YOUR example of "intensely *bad* communication"?
How can that be interpreted as anything other than a childish insult? I really want to respect your contributions here qqwref, but it has to go both ways. Do you think it is reasonable for you, to keep on sowing thistles, and then expect to be rewarded with roses?

Here is what I think reThinking was trying to say (and watch as I explain it in such a way that everyone will understand):
- After N five-solve rounds, there are two possible ways we could take an average, which will be used for different situations.
- To determine the winner (if this is the finals), we take averages by taking all 5N solves and trimming off N from each side.
- However, to determine who makes the next round (if this is not the finals), we take averages by taking all 5N solves and trimming off N+1 from each side.

This is a rather concise explanation of the procedure, and I appreciate you presenting it like that, but you must also realize that you did not have the additional burdens of explaining the rationales behind doing it this way. I don't think your condescending remark has any merit, and if there has been any trouble with people understanding what I had posted earlier, then it is primarily due to your deliberate and incessant attempts to muck up the discussion. You are whining about the smoke that got into your eyes - from a fire that you started yourself.

... Personally I don't see anything wrong with trimming exactly 20%....

You are (maybe deliberately) overlooking some important advantages that are derived from adding the extra trims to help decide more fairly who advances into the next round. This has already been explained very well, in some earlier posts, and so I won't repost it again here.

The bottom line, this new format is clearly a nice improvement over the current format, or any other format that you have proposed as an alternative, and that is that.
No need to get so personal about it.

 

[hawkmp4]

... Personally I don't see anything wrong with trimming exactly 20%....

You are (maybe deliberately) overlooking some important advantages that are derived from adding the extra trims to help decide more fairly who advances into the next round. This has already been explained very well, in some earlier posts, and so I won't repost it again here.

If you want consistency, again, I will ask, why not take the median of all solves? If you want to trim more, why not go all the way and trim all but one solve (or two, if there is an even number of solves)?

 

[reThinking the Cube]

If you want consistency, again, I will ask, why not take the median of all solves? If you want to trim more, why not go all the way and trim all but one solve (or two, if there is an even number of solves)?

This valid point -

What about for other events? Would the winner of 4x4 be determined by the median time?

Good point. I don't think a trimmed global average is a good way to do all events. For 4x4 or Square-1, for instance, if parity always gives you a slower time, you will then have to be lucky to get 3 non-parity solves rather than 2 (in which case your median will be a parity solve and thus slow). I'm just talking about the first round, but of course few comps will have a second.

And, using an average eliminates the discreet variances between the solves that are not considered to be outliers.

 

[qqwref]

I think I see what you are trying to say. You're intensely bad at communication, though; generally if someone is misunderstanding your point, it is useful to add LESS text (distill it down to the essentials, and summarize) and not to add MORE.

Well then, I guess it would be fair for me to say - "You're intensely bad at comprehending". You said you wanted MORE, so that you could understand it better.

When did I say I wanted more text? I'm pretty sure I just wanted you to be more clear. Anyway, when communicating ideas, the onus is generally on the *sender* to make sure they are understood. If your ideas are not understood, it is your fault for communicating them badly.

How can that be interpreted as anything other than a childish insult? I really want to respect your contributions here qqwref, but it has to go both ways. Do you think it is reasonable for you, to keep on sowing thistles, and then expect to be rewarded with roses?

From your first appearance in this thread, you have been antagonistic: responding to even mild criticisms with insults; ignoring any problems with your ideas, yet insisting that anyone who does not agree with them is wrong; being insulting rather than cooperative when asked to explain things. I'm not interested in being "rewarded with roses" from you because I know you are not capable of this. Your last sentence applies more to you than to me, anyway: your posts and attitude in general portray an extremely arrogant person who expects respect from everyone but does not know how to respect others (and I don't mean saying "I respect you"). I assume this is why you refuse to follow even the most basic etiquette and standards of the community. If people thought you were capable of adult discussion, they would almost certainly be nicer to you.

This is a rather concise explanation of the procedure, and I appreciate you presenting it like that, but you must also realize that you did not have the additional burdens of explaining the rationales behind doing it this way.

Procedure and rationale are two different sides of a coin and should not be presented together in a giant wall of text. Again this is about you being bad at communicating. The reason people talk about organization and conciseness when communicating is because it makes it easier to understand; again, if you communicate badly, it is your fault, not the fault of others. If you were able to respect others, you would realize that it is indeed possible (easy, even) to communicate badly enough that an intelligent but finitely patient reader could misinterpret what you write.

... Personally I don't see anything wrong with trimming exactly 20%....

You are (maybe deliberately) overlooking some important advantages that are derived from adding the extra trims to help decide more fairly who advances into the next round. [...]
The bottom line, this new format is clearly a nice improvement over the current format, or any other format that you have proposed as an alternative, and that is that.

I don't agree with this. If trimming two extra times provides such an advantage in fairness, why not keep trimming until only one or two times remain? Your idea has some arbitrary numbers which you have not provided any explanation for. I proposed 20% because it is NOT arbitrary - we already trim by this amount, so if we always trim any multiple of 5 solves by 20% on each side we have a logical progression. But adding one extra trim is arbitrary because you have not established that it is (a) better than adding no extra trims, but also (b) better than adding two or more extra trims. Keep in mind that I do not consider a measure which gives a lower standard deviation (assuming everyone is a normal distribution, which isn't true) to, in every case, be fairer.

Look at Square-1 or 4x4x4: the more numbers you trim, the more there is a difference between getting some number of counting parity solves and getting one more counting parity solve. On Square-1, for instance, if a parity solve is always worse than a non-parity solve, trimming 4 solves out of 5 will mean that everyone has a 50/50 chance of having their only counting solve be one with parity. The more solves you count, the less this matters, but there's a significant luck component when you trim too much. If you only trimmed 2 solves on one round of Square-1, like we do now, there is a 1/8 chance of 0 parities, 3/8 chance of 1, 3/8 chance of 2, and 1/8 chance of 3. So the extremes of having every counting solve be parity or every counting solve be non-parity are 1/4 as likely.

I suppose at this point it's worth it to bring up the question: what exactly is our goal here? It seems like you are trying to estimate every cuber's median, but I don't consider this fair because it puts too much emphasis on exactly how many good (as in, below a certain margin) solves someone has. Instead of many solves counting, wanting a sub-X median is just a question of whether you got (N+1)/2 solves under X or not. If you're trying to estimate a mean, it's important to note that you can't reliably estimate the mean on a non-normal distribution if you trim off everything that looks like it might be on one of the tails. My goal, on the other hand, is to find the person who gave the best performance, and I think the averages in each round are the data points of that, which is why I'd prefer to rank by either the best average or, if necessary, the mean of the averages.

 

[reThinking the Cube]

I think I see what you are trying to say. You're intensely bad at communication, though; generally if someone is misunderstanding your point, it is useful to add LESS text (distill it down to the essentials, and summarize) and not to add MORE.

Well then, I guess it would be fair for me to say - "You're intensely bad at comprehending". You said you wanted MORE, so that you could understand it better.

When did I say I wanted more text? I'm pretty sure I just wanted you to be more clear. Anyway, when communicating ideas, the onus is generally on the *sender* to make sure they are understood. If your ideas are not understood, it is your fault for communicating them badly.

I don't understand. Sorry, but you are a very bad communicator.

....a very large pile of self-serving insults and abelian scented jibberish.

Did anyone ever tell you qqwref, that you can't be right ALL the time?

But adding one extra trim is arbitrary because you have not established that it is (a) better than adding no extra trims, ...

Yes I have, but you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it. With the current format, if a serious competitor gets more than 1 bad solve in a round, then they may be eliminated because of it. With my format, a serious competitor can get at least 2 and sometimes more bad solves in a round and still advance. When there is a good reason for something, then it is not *arbitrary*.

Look at Square-1 or 4x4x4: the more numbers you trim, the more there is a difference between getting some number of counting parity solves and getting one more counting parity solve. On Square-1, for instance, if a parity solve is always worse than a non-parity solve, trimming 4 solves out of 5 will mean that everyone has a 50/50 chance of having their only counting solve be one with parity. The more solves you count, the less this matters, but there's a significant luck component when you trim too much. If you only trimmed 2 solves on one round of Square-1, like we do now, there is a 1/8 chance of 0 parities, 3/8 chance of 1, 3/8 chance of 2, and 1/8 chance of 3. So the extremes of having every counting solve be parity or every counting solve be non-parity are 1/4 as likely.

Yes, but the format I proposed doesn't trim it that way if there is only 1 round for the event. There is no difference between the formats for these typical one rounders.

2010 Nationals had a 2 round Square-1 event. (Do you have a good way to post those here so that they display correctly?) Using a median value for qualification would have put Ian Jones (26.15) into the final, since his 1st round times appeared to have had 2 bad parity cases that would have been trimmed out. I think that would have been fairer. All the other competitors that advanced would have done so anyway, with either format. So in this case (and in every case that I have looked at so far) using the median value would have been the better method. Another advantage to using the median, is that it can easily be determined by everyone, without the use of a calculator.

Now if all 10 solves (-4) were used to determine the tournament places, there would have also been a couple of improvements. David Woner(5th) and Takao Hashimoto(4th) both appeared to have gotten at least 2 bad parity cases in the final round, and were hurt somewhat by that. By trimming it my way they each would have moved up 1 place. I think that also would have been fairer. Forte Shinko looked to be coasting a little in the 1st round (another problem of the current format), and that would have affected his placement negatively, but he probably would have gotten better times if he had known that it would matter. All the other results would have been pretty much the same. I couldn't find any negatives at all for doing it my way.
The parity concerns that you have, are actually MORE of a problem with the current format, since it only takes 2 bad parity-solves to start hurting a round. My way of trimming can usually mitigate that.

 

[ExoCorsair]

tl;dr keep it civil or else bad things will happen.

 

[Daniel Wu]

With my format, a serious competitor can get at least 2 and sometimes more bad solves in a round and still advance.

:confused: Why should one advance if they mess up a bunch of solves.

This entire discussion hasn't made any sense in a while.

 

[qqwref]

When did I say I wanted more text? I'm pretty sure I just wanted you to be more clear. Anyway, when communicating ideas, the onus is generally on the *sender* to make sure they are understood. If your ideas are not understood, it is your fault for communicating them badly.

I don't understand. Sorry, but you are a very bad communicator.

Really? What part do you have trouble with? (Or are you dishonest enough to be lying? Unlike you, I would help someone understand what I have written, if they need it.)

....a very large pile of self-serving insults and abelian scented jibberish.

Did anyone ever tell you qqwref, that you can't be right ALL the time?

You don't even have a rebuttal? What a joke. Do you think I'm the only person who thinks you're incapable of serious discussion?

But adding one extra trim is arbitrary because you have not established that it is (a) better than adding no extra trims, ...

Yes I have, but you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it. With the current format, if a serious competitor gets more than 1 bad solve in a round, then they may be eliminated because of it. With my format, a serious competitor can get at least 2 and sometimes more bad solves in a round and still advance. When there is a good reason for something, then it is not *arbitrary*.

And I don't think that trimming four solves out of five will provide a more fair measure. You haven't provided any justification about this other than complaining that I don't immediately agree to your flawed reasoning.

2010 Nationals had a 2 round Square-1 event. [...] Using a median value for qualification would have put Ian Jones (26.15) into the final, since his 1st round times appeared to have had 2 bad parity cases that would have been trimmed out. I think that would have been fairer.

I strongly disagree. You have clearly never tried to solve the Square-1. Parity is a matter of luck and cannot be affected by a solver in 15 seconds of inspection. Why do you think Ian deserves to be in the final, when if he had had three parity solves instead of two (and this is 100% luck based here) he would have a median of 33 or so? I had four parity solves in that round. **** happens. But how is putting even MORE reliance on luck more fair? If getting 3 or more parity solves has a 50% chance, and you just take the median, why not just do a best of one? You'll have parity half the time there too. I'm not being stubborn here, I'm showing you a legitimate problem with your approach. Somehow I doubt you will provide a reasonable answer.

Now if all 10 solves (-4) were used to determine the tournament places, there would have also been a couple of improvements. David Woner(5th) and Takao Hashimoto(4th) both appeared to have gotten at least 2 bad parity cases in the final round, and were hurt somewhat by that. By trimming it my way they each would have moved up 1 place.

And you don't think Forte deserves his 3rd place spot at all, and should be in 5th? He got the same 5 scrambles as Woner and Takao, and did better on them. How do you know he didn't get bad scrambles in the first round and do badly as a result? (You don't solve Square-1, so I'll tell you: each scramble has a specific "cubeshape", which is the same for all methods, and some are much easier than others. So all scrambles have a small objective difficulty component.) I don't see a fairer ranking, just a DIFFERENT ranking.

 

[reThinking the Cube]

When did I say I wanted more text? I'm pretty sure I just wanted you to be more clear. Anyway, when communicating ideas, the onus is generally on the *sender* to make sure they are understood. If your ideas are not understood, it is your fault for communicating them badly.

I don't understand. Sorry, but you are a very bad communicator.

Really? What part do you have trouble with? (Or are you dishonest enough to be lying? Unlike you, ...<trimmed>

Not really?! Unlike you, I have a marvelous sense of humor, and can also comprehend the meaning of that *sarcasm* symbol in the context above. Now having distilled this down to its essentials, I think it would be best if you could just focus on the topic under discussion.

....a very large pile of self-serving insults and abelian scented jibberish.

Did anyone ever tell you qqwref, that you can't be right ALL the time?

You don't even have a rebuttal? What a joke. Do you think I'm the only person who thinks you're incapable of serious discussion?

That joke WAS the rebuttal. Do you think I'm the only person who thinks YOU'RE INCAPABLE OF AGREEING WITH ME ON ANYTHING? If you want a serious discussion, then you have to at least be capable of agreement.
I suppose at this point it's worth it to bring up the question: What exactly is our goal here?

But adding one extra trim is arbitrary because you have not established that it is (a) better than adding no extra trims, ...

Yes I have, but you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it. With the current format, if a serious competitor gets more than 1 bad solve in a round, then they may be eliminated because of it. With my format, a serious competitor can get at least 2 and sometimes more bad solves in a round and still advance. When there is a good reason for something, then it is not *arbitrary*.

And I don't think that trimming four solves out of five will provide a more fair measure. You haven't provided any justification about this other than complaining that I don't immediately agree to your flawed reasoning.

First, you were attacking this format with the false charge that - "the one extra trim was *arbitrary*". That was flawed reasoning on your part, not mine, as clearly explained in the post above. There is also the justifiable advantage that the median can easily be determined without the use of a calculator.

BOTTOM LINE: If you don't think that trimming to the median would provide a better way for determining who gets to advance, then I would suggest that you justify your opinion with some specific tournament examples (starting with 2 round 3x3x3), rather than continue to complain about me not agreeing with your flawed reasoning.

 

[macky]

Good points about having 2 or 4 rounds for 3x3x3, as well as how things would be decided for bigger cubes. So far it seems that the consensus is that the current method, though also arbitrarily picked by the first organizers of competitions, is at least not worse than any of the other proposed methods when all factors are taken into account. If this is the case I would strongly favor not changing the rules unless a clearly superior method is discovered, as the effects of the change-over would be quite far reaching.

Chris

All of this is so convoluted that it would seem that the current system is better just because of the simplicity.

This.

Agreed with Chris.
There's too much variation in number of rounds/solves to be able to achieve a consistent method.
And, as some others said, the best cuber is determined by the world ranking, not the result of a single competition. Who wins the competition is who performed better that day/round.

Recently, I've been to a comp (ABC Open 2010[/url) and, not that I'm bragging about it, but I was clearly the best cuber there. Turns out my cube popped once (I was using a OH cube) and I twisted a piece in the final round, getting an average of 17.xx, which was almost not enough for 3rd place.

Does that mean I wasn't the best cuber there? I don't think so. It means I performed bad in the last round, due to many factors.

I think competitions measure a different thing than the world rankings.
Within a competition, some people in some place are cubing together, and the best performer wins that comp.
But everyone's times go to the world ranking, which includes each competion that happened, no matter where. The best cuber, to me, is Feliks at the moment, because he has done the best performance ever.

I agree.

Now can I at least hear some opinions on [URL="http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23261"]my suggestion for a "global" ranking? Would such a ranking be useful? Worth being displayed on the WCA database? Is it just interesting, or is it as important as the best average of 5? Is it important enough to warrant giving some title based on it? Would it be hard to agree on a consistent ranking method? Are there other practicality considerations?

 

[qqwref]

I'm sorry, reThinking, but I facepalmed too hard at your post to bother responding to what you said. I've been trying to stay on topic but it's pretty clear you don't actually care about that, since you haven't addressed any of the points I brought up, and are instead either copying whatever criticisms I make (legitimate or not - I don't think you actually ever considered any of them) or stating that your position is obvious (and that, I guess, I must be being deliberately stubborn if I don't agree?). If you ever honestly want to discuss competition ranking formats, you know how to contact me.

 

[Pedro]

That square-1 argument is not that valid, in my opinion.

As Michael said, square-1 is a different puzzle, which involves more luck (cube shapes and parity). Do you have any evidence to say that "it looks like they had some bad cases/parity/whatever"?

At my last square-1 comp, I did pretty bad, mostly because I was out of shape. But I had a stupidly easy cube shape, which was a 30+ solve because I messed up even more stupidly. Should we trim that? What about everyone who actually did well with that scramble? Should they be penalized?

Also, as I said before, I had a terrible final round in ABC Open. One pop and one corner twist (DNF and 22.xx, respectively). Suppose this happened in the 2nd round and people did really well, kicking me out of the final. With your system, I'd have a median of 13.91, which is much better than my 17.xx average, and would have surely advanced. How is that fair? Yes, I did have 2 bad solves. Why not trim those?

Because they were my fault. For using a OH cube for regular 3x3, for not being enough careful with that cube, for not being well focused.

We already trim best and worst solve to account for a pop or distraction or whatever. I don't think we should trim more than that, even if it's just to determine who advances. If you mess up twice in a round, well, too bad. Better luck next time. If you get bad cases or are disturbed by people clapping (which is kinda not your fault), should you get a "discount"? I don't think so...how do you know if people just messed up or were harmed by external factors? I don't see a good way. So you would be 'helping' people by allowing them to mess up even more and still qualify.

Suppose this scenario:
Competitor A gets (13.10), 13.30 ,14.51, 14.58, (14.90) = 14.13 avg
Competitor B gets (13.20), 14.30, 14.50, 18.56, (19.70) = 15.79 avg

Is it fair for B to advance because of the median (14.50 x 14.51)?

 

[PhillipEspinoza]

I think most people would agree that they care more about their WCA ranking in an event than how they placed at a specific competition.

Unless that competition is Worlds...

 

[reThinking the Cube]

@qq: apology accepted, and we surely can, "concordia res parvae crescent" - work together to accomplish more.

Do you have any evidence to say that "it looks like they had some bad cases/parity/whatever"?

I looked at the *evidence*, which was the tournament results. The times for those solves were rather poor in comparison to other solves that were done by those same competitors. To me it looked like bad cases, but it could have been bad gas. Only they would know for sure.

At my last square-1 comp, I did pretty bad, mostly because I was out of shape. But I had a stupidly easy cube shape, which was a 30+ solve because I messed up even more stupidly. Should we trim that? What about everyone who actually did well with that scramble? Should they be penalized?

How does trimming your bad solve, from your times, penalize anybody else? This is how it is done now.

Also, as I said before, I had a terrible final round in ABC Open. One pop and one corner twist (DNF and 22.xx, respectively). Suppose this happened in the 2nd round and people did really well, kicking me out of the final. With your system, I'd have a median of 13.91, which is much better than my 17.xx average, and would have surely advanced. How is that fair? Yes, I did have 2 bad solves. Why not trim those?

If you had done really well in the 1st round, and both of the 2 worst times came in the 2nd round, then YES it would be fair to trim them. That is NOT how it is done now, but the main idea behind the extra trimming is to give the Cubers with the best overall performance at that point in the tournament, the fairest chance of advancing into the final round. It should be noted that even though you may have advanced into the final with 2 poor times in the 2nd round, those poor results could eventually impact on your overall performance, since you only get a finite# of trims (applied to all 15 solves) for calculating your tournament average (my way).

We already trim best and worst solve to account for a pop or distraction or whatever. I don't think we should trim more than that, even if it's just to determine who advances. If you mess up twice in a round, well, too bad. Better luck next time. If you get bad cases or are disturbed by people clapping (which is kinda not your fault), should you get a "discount"? I don't think so...how do you know if people just messed up or were harmed by external factors? I don't see a good way. So you would be 'helping' people by allowing them to mess up even more and still qualify.

The standard trimming that is done right now isn't considered to be a *discount*. Besides, all competitors' rounds would be trimmed the same, no matter which format. Trimming to median value will just weed out more of the bad/good luck solves that would have been used (IMO unfairly) to decide who gets to advance. I respect your opinion - "If you mess up twice in a round, well, too bad.", but it doesn't HAVE to be that way. Look at Sikan Li in round 2 of the Bayview Hills Open 2010. Trimming it my way, he advances to the finals, which I think would have been fairer, based on his OVERALL performance. And in the same tournament, an even clearer example would be Phillip Espinoza's final round disaster.

Suppose this scenario:
Competitor A gets (13.10), 13.30 ,14.51, 14.58, (14.90) = 14.13 avg
Competitor B gets (13.20), 14.30, 14.50, 18.56, (19.70) = 15.79 avg

Is it fair for B to advance because of the median (14.50 x 14.51)?

Thank you for presenting this question. I am assuming these times are for 3x3x3 round 1. With my way there is indeed a .01 difference going to B. This will only actually make a difference, if and only if, the last spot for advancement into round 2 is taken by B. Now that scenario is not very likely, but in either case then, both A and B are the SLOWEST competitors coming from round 1, that can advance. Also note that those 2 poorer times of B will not go away, and may impact latter on (my way). It may also be the case that B is really faster than A, and just got a terrible round.

My main concern is to prevent the strongest competitors from being eliminated early simply due to bad luck.

Suppose this scenario: [1st Round 3x3x3]
Competitor A gets (13.10), 13.30 ,14.51, 14.58, (14.90) = 14.13 avg (same as above)
Competitor B gets (9.20), 9.30, 14.50, 19.70, (DNF) = 14.50 avg (strong cuber+bad,bad luck)

Is it fair for B to advance because of the median (14.50 x 14.51)?

For this question, both competitors would also have the 2 slowest medians (14.50, 14.51), and since B clearly shows the potential to outperform A, I would favor B advancing. Yes, this IS fair. Using the median value here, would clearly be superior to using the 5-solve average to decide which competitor gets to advance.

 

[hawkmp4]

I find it silly to be talking about what's 'fair' or not.

Everyone is subject to the same rules, regulations, and procedures. It's not unfair for a good cuber not to advance if they don't perform well. It SUCKS, I understand that, but it's not unfair to them.

 

[Tim Major]

I haven't really read much of this thread, and this has prolly already been proposed... why not just have, the best averages of the comp go through to the finals.
If competitor A gets a 10 average first round, but in the second average they DNF, or have a 20 average, then they make it through. So the best averages of the previous rounds make it through to the next one. However, in the final, the person who gets the best average in the final wins.

(I personally think it should stay as it is. Sure a bit of luck is involved, but that's the same with most competition of any hobby/sport/whatever.)