Gaming the Season Points?

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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby Loren » Sun Aug 27, 2017 7:04 am

There has been some discussion and confusion as to whether it is possible to "game the system". Specifically, is it possible that one could benefit at the end of the season by having NOT attended an event?

The confusion stems from the possibility of thinking of our method of "dropping the three lowest scores" as "scoring the best 9 of 12" events (assuming we have 12 points events). The results should be the same. But, it can be difficult to switch your way of thinking from one way (dropping events) to the other (scoring the best events). The best way to clear this up is with examples. I'm going to provide two examples. One with simple numbers, and one with actual data from the 2017 season (mine).

EXAMPLE 1 SCORES:
66666666311

Those are your 11 scores going into the 12th event. The "game" here is, can you improve your points standing by NOT attending the last event?

----------
If you're thinking "Drop 3 events", it looks like this before the 12th event:
Total Score = 53
Estimated Drops = 5 (3+1+1)
Final Score = 48

You highest drop is 3, so your goal is to finish with 3 or more points to improve your standing. If you do that, your drops remain the same (3+1+1) and you gain points on the total. Cool.

But, if you choose to NOT attend the event, you score a zero, which changes your drops from 5 to 2, and you GAIN 3 points by having not competed. Final Score = 51
----------
If you're thinking "Score the best 9 events", it's actually simpler:
66666666311

Total Score (best 9) = 51

Your lowest of the nine events is 3, so you have to finish better than that for it to "count".

If you choose NOT to attend the event, "it doesn't matter", you've still got 51 points.
---------

It's just a matter of how you choose to view the "drops". The results are the same. But, if you're head is stuck on viewing it as "Best of Nine", you just see things differently.

More to come...
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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby Loren » Sun Aug 27, 2017 7:15 am

So, my personal example from 2017:
939644344333

Going into the final event, I saw:
93964434433

Total = 52
Est Drops = 9
Final = 43

OR Best 9 = 46

By NOT attending the final event, I'd change a dropped 3 into a dropped 0, thus "gaining" those 3 points and making my final score a 46. If you view it as "best of 9", I already had those 3 points. It's just a matter of perspective.

If you're thinking Best of 9, I needed to score more than my lowest "scored event" for that event to not become a drop. Equal or less and I gain no final points.

There's still another thing to think about, though... (at least one more)
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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby Loren » Sun Aug 27, 2017 7:26 am

So, really, none of this is "gaming the system", it's just understanding how the system works.

But, what if...

Your scores were:
999999999666

A string of 9 wins, and three 2nds.

If you're thinking "total score minus drops":
Your total is 99, and you're losing 18 points. Net 81.

And you might think, "hey, if one of those 6's was a zero, I'd GAIN 6 points!" "By NOT attending an event, I'd have scored a higher final total of 87." And that's actually wrong. Because your total would be 6 less, AND your drops would be 6 less, and it would be a wash. You'd still have 81 points.

The person who's thinking "best of 9" avoids this confusion because all they see is 81 points.

It's all a matter of perspective and how/where/when you choose to perceive the drops. But, in the end, the math never lies.
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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby ImpostorDan » Sun Aug 27, 2017 10:21 am

The numbers don't lie, but if you do choose to skip, anyone chasing you in class is pretty much guaranteed to have +1 placement in points for showing up - now that's something to be thankful for! (Although the new points system does cap that from being a big payday now).

I can see the confusion when people think of those 3 extra possible events as chance to add to your score; however, it's to replace the score e.g. if I've got a 1, I could get a 3 and boost my final total by +2.
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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby Loren » Sun Aug 27, 2017 11:53 am

What it's actually FOR is those who have to miss some events due to work or family or just life getting in the way. They get to miss three events without penalty.
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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby lddavis91 » Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:48 pm

This really isn't all that confusing and I "think" somewhere in those posts you admitted I was right, however it is a bit ambiguous as I'm sure you would be reluctant to admit such a ridiculous notion. ;-)

The only possible source of confusion here is the statement at the top of the championship scoring page which states: "Lowest three scores will be dropped at the end of the season", this statement is incorrect. It is possible to have 3 drops, but only if you attend all 12 events (counting 0 point drops is literally meaningless)

i.e. if you attend
1. 12 events you will have 3 drops
2. 11 events, 2 drops
3. 10 events, 1 drop
4. 9 or fewer events, 0 drops

This is specific to FAST's 12 event championship series, but the same principle applies always. This *IS* how the FAST season championship points *ARE* calculated as with every other group I've ever run with. Obviously, it is within Loren/Steve's power to score it otherwise and always drop three i.e. if you attend only 9 of the 12 events you still get 3 drops and only 6 events count, but that would be fcuked up, unfair, and would actually defeat the whole purpose of a dropped event allowance in the first place. However, this *IS NOT how season championship points are scored here or anywhere that I'm aware of, just look at my results and you will see quite readily, for example, that I attended only 9 championship events this year and thus I had zero points dropped. It's really not a matter of perspective and it's really quite simple math and the *correct* way to look at it is what Loren describes as "score the best 9 events" "perspective". Another source of confusion lies in the "estimated drops" column that exists in the table early in the season, this thing is mostly meaningless to look at before the 10th championship event of the season, it really only serves to confuse.

For example, Ron was confused by it (the source of our argument Saturday) to the point he was thinking he could have *gained* season championship points by skipping out on one of his single point events. This is because he was looking at it from the confusing "estimated drops" column. In reality the math is really quite simple:

Ron's 2017 points:
9-6-6-6-4-3-3-3-3-2-1-1 He attended all 12 event and therefore got 3 drops for a total of 47 points minus the 4 dropped points equals 43.

Let say instead he skipped out on the May 6 event, it would have made zero difference in the ultimate result:
9-6-6-6-4-3-3-3-3-2-1 attending 11 events would result in 2 drops, his total points he would have been 46 instead of 47 and minus 3 dropped points instead of 4 equalling the exact same 43 points.

The only confusion is in the way that it is worded, the way things are scored is as expected and quite simple. The wording should more clearly state that you have a possible 3 drops, but only 3 drops if you attend all possible events. In a 12 event season it is more clear just to state its the "best of 9" because that is what it is. Focusing on the "estimated drops" column is just confusing and IMO there shouldn't be anything in that column before a competitor has 10 (12 event season) events logged as there are no event points dropped before that point.

There is literally no situation in which skipping an event will positively contribute to your end of year season championship points. none.
Last edited by lddavis91 on Mon Aug 28, 2017 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby Loren » Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:59 pm

lddavis91 wrote:This really isn't all that confusing and I "think" somewhere in those posts you admitted I was right, but it is a bit ambiguous as I'm sure you would be reluctant to admit such a ridiculous notion. ;-)
No, Les, I'll readily admit that you are right in this instance. I'll also admit that viewing things the other way (as "counting all of the events, and subtracting the drops") is also valid. But, I'll go a step further and say that your way IS simpler. The only reason we did it the other way on the points sheet is because "that's the way it was always done". I don't remember who set it up that way (it was 10 years ago, and someone volunteered), but we just followed suit.

The notion of "gaming they system" and gaining points by not attending an event was merely an illusion, as I think I stated above.

Moving forward, I'm changing the way we present the points data to be "the best x of x" events because it is simpler. Next season's points sheet won't show a "drop" column.

Same number of events being counted (best 9 of 12... assuming we have 12 events... or best 8 of 11... number of events minus 3), just different presentation.
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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby twistedwankel » Mon Aug 28, 2017 2:51 pm

Looking ahead to the new season it did occur to me if I run in a class alone I will only get 2pts for winning (no help). If I finish 6th in a class of 6 I will get 6pts. It obviously will pay to be in a bigger class than only a few people and stay in striking distance of a 3rd place trophy all season by running all the Open events and practicing at the Classics. Seat time is the king of autocross.

There are no "slow" people in "M" that I've seen. There aren't any slow people in S4 either...yikes.

It was just as much fun (and way cheaper) when I ran all season on crappy tires and never got one sticker let alone a tee shirt :cool:

(Obviously Ron is too honest to bribe himself for better times... :lol: )
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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby RedBRZ80 » Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:16 am

The only "game" you can ever play with season points in autoX is win enough events that mathematically second place can't get you and then start skipping.

However in the new scoring system, if you skip a well attended event you would lose more ground vs a light attended one.

So I guess in theory you could have people skipping an event that nobody is registered in your class vs this years system of no matter what a win was 9. I hope people don't think that way, just attend the events you can attend and go as fast as you can, the points will be what they are.


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Gaming the Season Points?

Postby Native » Tue Aug 29, 2017 7:47 am

RedBRZ80 wrote: I hope people don't think that way, just attend the events you can attend and go as fast as you can, the points will be what they are.
This. 8-)
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