Post race penalty with Chips scoring?

Doug_McKnight · 26 June 2018 18:39

Is the mechanism for taking a post-race penalty while using the chips scoring system broken?

The only way I’ve been able to get it to work is to figure the new placing using the recipe in the Racing Rules Appendix and then manually apply the appropriate number of points.

Am I being stupid here and missing something?

cheers

Doug

Sailwave · 26 June 2018 19:38

Hi Doug - there are probably some users on the forum that can better answer this than me.
But just wanted to check that you have selected the appropriate scoring codes as per the message that Sailwave displays when you select CHIPS

If you still have a problem then if you could send me a blw and explain what you feel is broken I will certainly have a look at it.

Just personally I never use CHIPS so its a while since I’ve looked at it.

Jon

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Ian_Day · 26 June 2018 20:10

Hi Doug,

At HCSC, we use CHIPS scoring. I’ve only seen one example of scoring with SCP (set up to apply a 20% penalty), and that did reduce the points for the boat concerned from 3^rd place points to 5th place points, which seems correct, as we had 11 boats in the series.

Regards,

Ian Day

···

From: sailwave@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sailwave@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: 26 June 2018 19:40
To: sailwave@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sailwave] Post race penalty with Chips scoring?

Is the mechanism for taking a post-race penalty while using the chips scoring system broken?

The only way I’ve been able to get it to work is to figure the new placing using the recipe in the Racing Rules Appendix and then manually apply the appropriate number of points.

Am I being stupid here and missing something?

cheers

Doug

Doug_McKnight · 27 June 2018 16:50

Hi Jon, I think I am selecting the correct codes. For example, if I try to use the ZFP code, set up as shown here, the number of points generated for a first place finisher correspond to last (8th) place, instead of 3rd or 4th.

Obviously, I’m not giving you enough information here! I’ll make a fresh new series and try to demonstrate the problem from a “clean sheet” rather than just send my current, large, blw file.

Cheers

Doug

Sailwave · 27 June 2018 17:22

Does anyone know if there is any documentation on how a scoring penalty should be applied when using the chips scoring system?

Thanks

Jon

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Jon Eskdale

03333 443377

07530 112233

Doug_McKnight · 28 June 2018 05:37

Hi Jon,

Regarding the question of how a scoring penalty should be applied using the Chips (or any other) scoring scheme, it seems to me that one should follow the prescription in the Rules, which only talks about placing, and then assign the appropriate points for the assigned place.

So, Rule 44.3 says:

···

The race score for a boat that takes a Scoring Penalty shall be
the score she would have received without that penalty, made
worse by the number of places stated in the sailing instructions.
When the sailing instructions do not state the number of places,
the penalty shall be 20% of the score for Did Not Finish,
rounded to the nearest whole number (0.5 rounded upward).
The scores of other boats shall not be changed; therefore, two
boats may receive the same score. However, the penalty shall
not cause the boat’s score to be worse than the score for Did
Not Finish.

In our sailing instructions we allow for a Post Race Penalty of 30%. I think that ought to be implemented by taking the placing for DNF, multiplying by 30%, rounding to get an integer number of places. This is the placing-penalty that is then added to the finishing place of the competitor that is taking the penalty. It might be easiest to first apply the Chips (or whatever) scoring to everyone. Then, the Chips (or whatever) formula should be re-applied to that new placing for our penalized competitor. Note that no other competitor’s results are changed, so two competitors could (often) have the same number of points.

I’m attaching a trivial one-race example where I tried to make the SCP code apply a 20% penalty. As I found in my larger series, the percentage penalty seems to set the result to last place.

I’m happy to chat by 'phone, but email discourse keeps the discussion open for other input.

Best regards,

Doug McKnight

Huw2 · 28 June 2018 07:28

Hi Douglas,

  I believe RRS Rule 44.3 is written around Appendix A Low Point

Scoring [LPS] where it makes sense. But, in my opinion, does not
make sense for a High Point Scoring [HPS]. Many HPS give zero
points for DNF therefore any percentage of zero is zero. Even if
DNF points in HPS are not zero, the percentage penalty effectively
becomes a small number and will not have as a big an impact as in
LPS as number of competitors increase. In LPS a percentage scoring
penalty is bigger the more boats competing, in HPS typically it is
essentially fixed or becomes smaller in value.

  Don't forget in LPS in essence, finish position equates to points

scored points; whether in class racing no handicap or in handicap
racing. HPS needs a change of mindset in points scoring

  I would be interested in reading the SI's that are being used to

see how the HPS is worded.

Look forward to your response.

Kind regards,

Huw

···

On 28/06/2018 06:37,
[sailwave] wrote:

douglasmcknight@yahoo.com

Hi Jon,

          Regarding the question of how a scoring penalty should
be applied using the Chips (or any other) scoring scheme,
it seems to me that one should follow the prescription in
the Rules, which only talks about placing, and then assign
the appropriate points for the assigned place.

So, Rule 44.3 says:

          The race score for a boat that takes a Scoring Penalty
shall be
the score she would have received without that penalty,
made
worse by the number of places stated in the sailing
instructions.
When the sailing instructions do not state the number of
places,
the penalty shall be 20% of the score for Did Not Finish,
rounded to the nearest whole number (0.5 rounded upward).
The scores of other boats shall not be changed; therefore,
two
boats may receive the same score. However, the penalty
shall
not cause the boat’s score to be worse than the score for
Did
Not Finish.

          In our sailing instructions we allow for a Post Race
Penalty of 30%. I think that ought to be implemented by
taking the placing for DNF, multiplying by 30%, rounding
to get an integer number of places. This is the
placing-penalty that is then added to the finishing place
of the competitor that is taking the penalty. It might be
easiest to first apply the Chips (or whatever) scoring to
everyone. Then, the Chips (or whatever) formula should be
re-applied to that new placing for our penalized
competitor. Note that no other competitor’s results are
changed, so two competitors could (often) have the same
number of points.

          I'm attaching a trivial one-race example where I tried
to make the SCP code apply a 20% penalty. As I found in my
larger series, the percentage penalty seems to set the
result to last place.

          I'm happy to chat by 'phone, but email discourse keeps

the discussion open for other input.

Best regards,

Doug McKnight

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Doug_McKnight · 28 June 2018 17:19

Hi Huw,

Yes, I agree that 44.3 is drafted to address the low scoring system in apprndix A. But, in what I wrote, I talked about placing, and so the prescription can be applied in the way I described. The Chips points are generated after the placing penalty is applied.

I think there are two sensible ways to consider percentage penalties in Chips (maybe more?)

Simply reduce the number of points scored by the percentage of the penalty, or,
Use a place-based algorithm like I described.

The first method is simple, easy to understand, and has more granularity. The second method might be more appealing in the following sense. We race for places, and taking a post race penalty that costs 2 or 3 places is, arguably, more intuitively appealing than a certain number of points. If second place over the line is penalized by two places, they get the same number of points as the fourth place finisher, and they can see that in the results.

The other, arguable, advantage of the second method is that it stays closer to the Rules. The only reason we use Chips is to give more credit for good placing in larger races. In all other respects, we attempt to align with the Rules.

I could probably be argued into either approach, but we’ve been manually implementing the second in the past. Our sailing instructions are silent on the implementation (until soon!!). We like Chips, for our long series races, but we wanted to take advantage of appendix T, to promote post-race discussion and education.

Best regards,

Doug