Jump to content

A: Competitive Inertia


Recommended Posts

11 hours ago, Bruckner8 said:

We'll need Boston to win without first coming in 2nd or 3rd in a prior year to debunk CI.

We need Boston to win soon, and to do it without first coming in 2nd or 3rd. I'd love it if they won next year. Probably 4th is the best they can hope for...and then maybe 1st in 2019? 

Eh, after reading through a lot of this im still on the fence aout competitive inertia. Success in dci is as much about the designers as it is about the mms, if not more so. Scv seemed to lack some piece of the puzzle still after getting shaw, rennicks, and bloo brass staff over 2010-2012. Gaines comes in and the show is immediately silver and could have been gold with a weaker BD show. Its not inertia, its the team. They need another gold quality show to win the gold. 

Boston also illustrates this. Acquire new staff in 2016 from a top corps, all of a sudden BAC is top 6 after barely making finals the year before. I wouldnt be surprised if they medal next year. 

There only appears to be inertia because designers at top corps are less likely to leave, especially if they are on the cusp. If shaw and rennicks didn't leave phantom they wouldnt be in the 6-8 range. If gaines never left cavies they wouldn't have fallen so far and are just now getting back into contention. 

BD isn't successful because of inertia, its because of the stability. They, in theory, should have faded at some point, as all other corps have done. But instead, despite the efforts of every other corps who has won a title in the last decade (cadets, cavies, crown, bloo) BD has been in the top 2 every year. They last were 3rd in 06 and didn't medal in 05 (prior to that was early 90s). Unless the theory of competitive inertia accounts for BD being the default champion and only having room for 1 other contender at a time, its bunk. Next year some corps will win or BD, will it be SCV? Crown? Bloo? Boston? Cavies? I dont know, but despite these corps trending upwards over the last few years BD is not dropping. 

BK is also another one. They've seemed to max out at 6th-8th in design. They only were 6th because of cavies and phantom both losing themselves and Boston stumbling as well. Which is not to take anything from BK, i do love their shows and how the corps has improved every year. But no amount of competitive inertia is going to push them into a medal, only getting a top tier designer will. Until then, they will be below scv, bd, crown, bloo at the very least. 

This is like college athletics. Some teams are blue bloods and are always a danger to win it all despite the participant turnover, because the staff is consistently excellent. BD is bama, and even if other teams get better, bama is still going to be the favorite. And even though clemson won last year, like bluecoats, clemson probably wont be challenging for the playoff at the end of the season. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, this thread lives! I stand by my comments from years ago, competitive inertia as a whole exists, but it's not some ethereal thing where you need to check off the Top 3 box before you can win a championship; it's marketing. You place well, you'll attract better talent and probably better design staff (or at least retain a strong design staff who will continue to get stronger together). And that's exactly how you climb the ladder; a ladder which does have a golden end point.

 

From a thread I read on Reddit though, I just want to point out here how interesting it is that 2016's 12th place corps and 1st place corps finished side by side in 2017.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also as for Boston, yes, they need to place better to win. Maybe 5th, I think we can reasonably assume that a 5th place corps can pick up the momentum (Bluecoats in 2013 started that trend, even though '14 didn't win, SCV from last year to this year is another example). But thinking again about how how you place one year impacts your talent pool next year, as great as Boston's show was this year, do you really think it was great enough for enough top-level talent (let's call them ring chasers for the sake of this discussion, I used the term in another thread for a similar point) to win a championship?

 

You need three things to win:

  • Talent in the membership
  • Talent in the design staff
  • A strong show design (which the design staff does not always nail on the head no matter how strong they are)

 

Take any one of those pillars out, and there's no championship. A sixth place show following a 12th place year is not strong enough to attract the talent for that first point, but it is enough to attract the folks who are willing to help them make the climb. Give Boston one or two more years of consistent higher-than-last-year placement and the other two pillars in place, and there's a shot.

 

Side note: I'm 100% willing to eat my words if Boston wins next year or just bucks this trend entirely somehow. Or any corps for that matter. But historically, the aforementioned is what needs to happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Bruckner8 said:

The inner games were so strong and obvious this year, it's almost comical. Did you see some of the shows this summer where every single sub-caption lined up exactly with the placement? I claim it's STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. I mean, every single corps miraculously achieved at exactly the same rate as the rep! And they weren't even better or worse than any other competitor in those subs! amazing! /sarc

Trust me, I want CI debunked.

1

This is one of the more substantive threads on DCP - a significant amount of actual information being exchanged . . .

With regard to the above, has anyone crunched the numbers from 2016, when (at least in theory) judges couldn't see numbers from "other" judges/events?  IMO this would be a very interesting opportunity to examine the lack of peer review in assigning scores.  If the theory holds, 2016 should have been at least a bit more numerically volatile (at least in captions/sub-captions) during the season.  Without the empirical data to back it up, I'm convinced there's a certain amount of peer influence at play - just as there is in professional analysis from other highly-subjective fields.  In truth, we're "making it up as we go."  This is not anything nefarious or "crooked," it's human perception at work.  Perception trumps reality, and pros in our activity know that.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Cleveland1 said:

Eh, after reading through a lot of this im still on the fence aout competitive inertia. Success in dci is as much about the designers as it is about the mms, if not more so. Scv seemed to lack some piece of the puzzle still after getting shaw, rennicks, and bloo brass staff over 2010-2012. Gaines comes in and the show is immediately silver and could have been gold with a weaker BD show. Its not inertia, its the team. They need another gold quality show to win the gold. 

Boston also illustrates this. Acquire new staff in 2016 from a top corps, all of a sudden BAC is top 6 after barely making finals the year before. I wouldnt be surprised if they medal next year. 

There only appears to be inertia because designers at top corps are less likely to leave, especially if they are on the cusp. If shaw and rennicks didn't leave phantom they wouldnt be in the 6-8 range. If gaines never left cavies they wouldn't have fallen so far and are just now getting back into contention. 

BD isn't successful because of inertia, its because of the stability. They, in theory, should have faded at some point, as all other corps have done. But instead, despite the efforts of every other corps who has won a title in the last decade (cadets, cavies, crown, bloo) BD has been in the top 2 every year. They last were 3rd in 06 and didn't medal in 05 (prior to that was early 90s). Unless the theory of competitive inertia accounts for BD being the default champion and only having room for 1 other contender at a time, its bunk. Next year some corps will win or BD, will it be SCV? Crown? Bloo? Boston? Cavies? I dont know, but despite these corps trending upwards over the last few years BD is not dropping. 

BK is also another one. They've seemed to max out at 6th-8th in design. They only were 6th because of cavies and phantom both losing themselves and Boston stumbling as well. Which is not to take anything from BK, i do love their shows and how the corps has improved every year. But no amount of competitive inertia is going to push them into a medal, only getting a top tier designer will. Until then, they will be below scv, bd, crown, bloo at the very least. 

This is like college athletics. Some teams are blue bloods and are always a danger to win it all despite the participant turnover, because the staff is consistently excellent. BD is bama, and even if other teams get better, bama is still going to be the favorite. And even though clemson won last year, like bluecoats, clemson probably wont be challenging for the playoff at the end of the season. 

Not only did you not "read a lot of this," you didn't even read all of the original post, cuz I covered all of this. Stability is key. Success breeds success, duh. CI only tried to explain two things:

1) When it's close, the nod will always go to the corps that has already done it. (I also said this was human nature, and I don't blame the judges one bit)

2) The data says "One won't win unless one fist comes in 2nd or 3rd in a prior year, and chances are better when it's recent"

BD as more inertia than ANYONE, PERIOD, AND THEY'VE EARNED IT. THEY ARE ALWAYS DARN GOOD. Let's say an entirely new corps from a different country came over here, and was "as good as" BD. Do you think that corps would ever get a tenth when it's that close? HELL NO. It's human nature to stick with the known, especially when the known has made calls, talked to you in critique for 20 years, etc IT'S HUMAN NATURE (I'm trying to be clear that I don't think it's unfair, per se) That new corps will have to be 2 points better in order to win by a tenth. "Better luck next year, buddy!" 

Make no mistake: GAINES IS FULL OF INERTIA. Not only is he THAT GOOD, but everyone gives him an extra tenth just because of the history! And I have no problem with it...it's human nature...the entire point of the CI theory is to acknowledge it, understand it, embrace it, work with it! Build your own CI! Now, a brand new judge, has to listen to all the dos and don'ts. You're kidding yourself if you think they're given a clean slate. No way. They are "taught" how to manage numbers (code for "slotting properly"). 

Boston: All of those acquisitions have mad respect in the judging community (CI), and they're very good at what they do. Boston's placement is not a surprise.

Cadets are losing CI faster than we can observe. They should probably be even lower (last year and this year). I covered this phenom in the original post too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, BRASSO said:

 I was an initial skeptic, but later became a convert to the validity possibilities to the Theory of CI, as the theory has been tested to a thorough enough historical timeframe now to demonstrate if its stands up to scrutiny... and so far, it does.

 On your question here,.. No ... I have not seen any shows this summer" where every single sub-caption  lined up exactly with the placement ". I have not seen " every single Corps achieve at exactly the same rate as the rep. ". It entirely possible however that I could have missed this during the summer when I looked at the recaps in quite a few shows. But I AM interested in learning what shows you found this statistical implausibility in. Could you list the shows so I can match up what you saying here with this ? I find it very intriguing. Thanks Bruckner8 .

Sorry, BRASSO, I knew someone would ask for that, but I really don't have the time to find the exact show. It was somewhere where the top 4 at the time were 1,2,3,4 in lockstep, so BD, SCV, Crown, and Bloo must have all been there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Bruckner8 said:

Not only did you not "read a lot of this," you didn't even read all of the original post, cuz I covered all of this. Stability is key. Success breeds success, duh. CI only tried to explain two things:

1) When it's close, the nod will always go to the corps that has already done it. (I also said this was human nature, and I don't blame the judges one bit)

2) The data says "One won't win unless one fist comes in 2nd or 3rd in a prior year, and chances are better when it's recent"

BD as more inertia than ANYONE, PERIOD, AND THEY'VE EARNED IT. THEY ARE ALWAYS DARN GOOD. Let's say an entirely new corps from a different country came over here, and was "as good as" BD. Do you think that corps would ever get a tenth when it's that close? HELL NO. It's human nature to stick with the known, especially when the known has made calls, talked to you in critique for 20 years, etc IT'S HUMAN NATURE (I'm trying to be clear that I don't think it's unfair, per se) That new corps will have to be 2 points better in order to win by a tenth. "Better luck next year, buddy!" 

Make no mistake: GAINES IS FULL OF INERTIA. Not only is he THAT GOOD, but everyone gives him an extra tenth just because of the history! And I have no problem with it...it's human nature...the entire point of the CI theory is to acknowledge it, understand it, embrace it, work with it! Build your own CI! Now, a brand new judge, has to listen to all the dos and don'ts. You're kidding yourself if you think they're given a clean slate. No way. They are "taught" how to manage numbers (code for "slotting properly"). 

Boston: All of those acquisitions have mad respect in the judging community (CI), and they're very good at what they do. Boston's placement is not a surprise.

Cadets are losing CI faster than we can observe. They should probably be even lower (last year and this year). I covered this phenom in the original post too.

No, i read it. I get it. But other corps have had success and a stable staff and have still fallen behind bd despite the inertia keeping them up. 

I just dont think that a judge sees an scv show, or cavies show in the past, and thinks "gaines designed this, ill give them a bump". Hes a master at what he does because he knows what the judges want (like BD) 

Im aware, im just disagreeing with the idea of the "inertia". Some staff knows how to do it, others are good but not great. At the end of the day the shows that resonate with the sheets, as per the interpretation of the judges, wins. I do think that if you gave a no name corps from Norway the same show as BD and they performed it as well as BD, they too would have won. 

I feel the phenomenon of winning after medaling exists because of retention and improved new MMs the following year. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, ouooga said:

Also as for Boston, yes, they need to place better to win. Maybe 5th, I think we can reasonably assume that a 5th place corps can pick up the momentum (Bluecoats in 2013 started that trend, even though '14 didn't win, SCV from last year to this year is another example). But thinking again about how how you place one year impacts your talent pool next year, as great as Boston's show was this year, do you really think it was great enough for enough top-level talent (let's call them ring chasers for the sake of this discussion, I used the term in another thread for a similar point) to win a championship?

 

You need three things to win:

  • Talent in the membership
  • Talent in the design staff
  • A strong show design (which the design staff does not always nail on the head no matter how strong they are)

 

Take any one of those pillars out, and there's no championship. A sixth place show following a 12th place year is not strong enough to attract the talent for that first point, but it is enough to attract the folks who are willing to help them make the climb. Give Boston one or two more years of consistent higher-than-last-year placement and the other two pillars in place, and there's a shot.

 

Side note: I'm 100% willing to eat my words if Boston wins next year or just bucks this trend entirely somehow. Or any corps for that matter. But historically, the aforementioned is what needs to happen.

You forgot to mention a few extra things needed to win:

  • Stars have to align
  • Fairy dust and happy thoughts
  • Sacrifice three virgins to the drum corps gods (got that done this year!)
  • Oh, and BD has to bring out a substandard product so they'll get 2nd.
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Cleveland1 said:

Eh, after reading through a lot of this im still on the fence aout competitive inertia. Success in dci is as much about the designers as it is about the mms, if not more so. Scv seemed to lack some piece of the puzzle still after getting shaw, rennicks, and bloo brass staff over 2010-2012. Gaines comes in and the show is immediately silver and could have been gold with a weaker BD show. Its not inertia, its the team. They need another gold quality show to win the gold. 

Boston also illustrates this. Acquire new staff in 2016 from a top corps, all of a sudden BAC is top 6 after barely making finals the year before. I wouldnt be surprised if they medal next year. 

There only appears to be inertia because designers at top corps are less likely to leave, especially if they are on the cusp. If shaw and rennicks didn't leave phantom they wouldnt be in the 6-8 range. If gaines never left cavies they wouldn't have fallen so far and are just now getting back into contention. 

BD isn't successful because of inertia, its because of the stability. They, in theory, should have faded at some point, as all other corps have done. But instead, despite the efforts of every other corps who has won a title in the last decade (cadets, cavies, crown, bloo) BD has been in the top 2 every year. They last were 3rd in 06 and didn't medal in 05 (prior to that was early 90s). Unless the theory of competitive inertia accounts for BD being the default champion and only having room for 1 other contender at a time, its bunk. Next year some corps will win or BD, will it be SCV? Crown? Bloo? Boston? Cavies? I dont know, but despite these corps trending upwards over the last few years BD is not dropping. 

BK is also another one. They've seemed to max out at 6th-8th in design. They only were 6th because of cavies and phantom both losing themselves and Boston stumbling as well. Which is not to take anything from BK, i do love their shows and how the corps has improved every year. But no amount of competitive inertia is going to push them into a medal, only getting a top tier designer will. Until then, they will be below scv, bd, crown, bloo at the very least. 

This is like college athletics. Some teams are blue bloods and are always a danger to win it all despite the participant turnover, because the staff is consistently excellent. BD is bama, and even if other teams get better, bama is still going to be the favorite. And even though clemson won last year, like bluecoats, clemson probably wont be challenging for the playoff at the end of the season. 

 Bruckner8  ( The theorist ) however does not attempt to explain in dogmatic terms WHY DCI Competitive Inertia works ( he speculates on the why, but thats it ),.. only that it does work. To that extent then, his theory seems iron clad and unassailable as the placement results, over a sufficient historical timeframe, do stand up exceedingly well to scientific scrutiny, imo.... so far anyway.

Edited by BRASSO
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...