scoringties

How the GBA Breaks Scoring Ties

As GBA cook teams get better it’s inevitable that scores will go up, and as scores go up it’s only natural that the number of tied scores will increase. While we could settle ties with rock-paper-scissors  or an arm wrestling match at awards (which would be a lot more fun than boring computer logic), we instead decided to allow the GBA scoring system to resolve these ties!

A little information about scoring

The GBA scoring system is set to drop the lowest criteria score for each entry in a category. A “criteria” (or “attribute”) score is the score given by a judge for Appearance, Tenderness, Taste, and Overall Impression.

Let’s consider an example of a Loin entry submitted by the Best Butts Cooking Team. The judges awarded that entry the following scores in  Taste:

For those scores, the scoring system would drop one of those 9’s, and Best Butts would end up with a Taste score of 49 in Loin before weighting.

Those same judges awarded the Best Butts entry the following Tenderness scores:

The scoring system would drop the 9, and Best Butts would end up with a Tenderness score of 50 in Loin before weighting.

Now suppose all scoring is complete, scores have been dropped, the weighting factors have been included in the calculation, and Best Butts is found to be tied with 2 other teams in Loin. How does the scoring system determine which team wins that tie?

For a more detailed explanation of how scoring works in the GBA see How GBA Scoring is Done.

The first level of resolving scoring ties – comparing the scores

The scoring system breaks scoring ties by comparing the scores between the tied teams. It’s all about the Taste in the GBA, so the first criteria considered is Taste, followed by Overall Impression, then Tenderness, and finally Appearance. Also, since the GBA drops the lowest score for each team entry, the scoring system must take those into consideration when resolving ties.

The full comparison matrix is shown below:

The scoring system traverses this matrix starting with all Taste scores which were used to generate the team’s actual score, which EXCLUDES any dropped scores.  Using the example above, Best Butts Taste comparison score would be 49 – the system dropped one of their 9 scores in Taste, so their total Taste score was 10+10+10+10+9=49. If that score is higher than the other two tied teams, then Best Butts would be declared the winner.

If all 3 teams are still tied after comparing the Taste scores (excluding dropped scores), then the engine would move to the Overall Impression scores and perform the same comparison. In the case of Best Butts, that would be a 50, since the single 9 score was dropped.

If all 3 teams are still tied, the tie-breaking engine would move to the Tenderness scores (excluding dropped scores), and then the Appearance score (again excluding dropped scores).

If no winner is found after comparing the criteria scores while excluding dropped scores, the tie-breaking engine brings those dropped scores back and continues the comparison, again starting with the Taste criteria. Using the example above, Best Butts Taste score would be 58 (10+10+10+10+9+9=58). If that score is high enough to beat the taste score of the other 2 teams Best Butts would be declared the winner of the Loin category. If not, the engine would move on to compare Overall Impression, then Tenderness, and finally Taste.

If there is no winner after working through the entire comparison matrix, the system moves on to the second level of breaking ties – the computer coin flip.

The second level of resolving scoring ties – computerized coin flip system

It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally there is simply no way to break a tie using only the scores given to the teams and we have to resort to other methods of resolving the tie. In the past the GBA would literally flip a coin, but computers can’t flip coins. However, they’re really good at creating random numbers, so the scoring system uses a combination of a system-generated routing timestamp and a randomly generated number assigned to each team’s entry in a category to break the tie.

Each time a contest is routed the system stores a unique timestamp value – the “routing timestamp” – which is essentially the exact date and time the routing occurred, down to the millisecond. In most cases, a contest is routed only one time, but on the rare occasions where the scorer must reroute – for example, a team is added or removed prior to judging – the system will generate and store a new routing timestamp.

Each time the contest is routed both teams and their distinct category entries are randomized. This randomization process stamps each Team Category entry with a unique random number between 0 and 2,147,483,647. If a Team enters all 3 categories, each of those entries would be assigned a different and distinct random value. The random value for that Team Entry will not change for that contest – unless the contest is rerouted – but it will change for the same team entry at different contests.

If the first-level tie-breaking engine cannot break the tie by comparing scores, the random number comparison system takes over. This system determines the winner by comparing the random number values assigned to the Team Category with the stored routing timestamp. It first checks the routing timestamp to determine if that value is an odd or even number. If the routing timestamp is an odd number, the coin flip system awards the win to the highest random number among the tied teams. If the routing timestamp is an even number, the coin flip system awards the win to the lowest random number among the tied teams.

If necessary, the scoring system will apply this same logic to multiple ties for a position. For example, if 4 teams are tied for 5th place, and the system determines that 1 team beat the other 3 with their Taste score, then that team would win the 5th place position. However, the other teams could still be tied for the remaining positions (6th, 7th, and 8th positions). If so the scoring system will continue to apply the same tie-breaking principles to the remaining 3 teams – dropped score totals would be compared, followed by all score totals, with the random number comparison being used only if needed.

It’s not quite the same as arm wrestling or rock-paper-scissors but it’s about as random as a computer can be!