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 amount 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:
| 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 10 |
|---|
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:
| 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 |
|---|
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, and 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?
Note: For a more detailed explanation of how scoring works in the GBA see How GBA Scoring is Done.
How different criteria scores are ranked
The scoring system uses a system of ranked criteria to determine which team will win the tie. 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 may sometimes take those into consideration when resolving ties.
The full comparison matrix is shown below:
| Sequence | Criteria | Include Dropped Scores? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taste | No | |
| 2 | Overall Impression | No | |
| 3 | Tenderness | No | |
| 4 | Appearance | No | |
| 5 | Taste | Yes | |
| 6 | Overall Impression | Yes | |
| 7 | Tenderness | Yes | |
| 8 | Appearance | Yes | |
| 9 | The “Coin Flip” | N/A |
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 a 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 comparison 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 comparison 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 comparison engine brings those dropped scores back and continues the comparison. 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 comparison engine would move on to compare Overall Impression, then Tenderness, and finally Taste.
If there is no winner after working through the entire scoring comparison matrix, the system turns matters over to the final arbiter in the system – the computerized “coin flip”.
The Computerized Coin Flip
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 a coin flip. Computers can’t flip coins, but they are really good at creating random numbers so the scoring system uses a combination of a system generated 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.
Additionally, 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 but it will change for the same team entry at different contests.
If the scoring system cannot break the tie by comparing scores, the computer “coin flip” takes over. The scoring system determines the winner by comparing the random number values assigned to the Team Category, and it does so based on the stored routing timestamp. The system 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 system awards the win to the highest random number among the tied teams. If the routing timestamp is an even number, the 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 comparison principles to the remaining 3 teams – dropped score totals would be compared, followed by all score totals, with the computerized coin flip being used only if needed.
It’s not quite the same as arm wrestling, but it’s about as random as a computer can be!