2010 - The most BORING DCI championships ever!

[MikeN]

And maybe that's the way it should have been in that particular caption. It would be a shame had they mixed it up just to appear a certain way to certain fans. How many other's had it the same way? Oh? Never mind.

Clearly you and I don't agree. Obviously you think it's perfectly normal for an X place corps to have X place captions more or less across the board. I don't. I'll leave it at that, without the snark you threw at me.

Mike

[BOBSMYTH]

You want more excitement in the numbers? More of the possibility of changes from night to night and from place to place?

Your answer: fewer judges working an event.

It is just math. The more judges you have, the less each judge's score counts toward the overall total. With 10 judges and each judge giving 2 scores, there is a whole lotta averaging goin' on.

Of course, the scores are going to coallesce around an arthmetic mean average for each corps. For example: if there are 20 scores being given and each judge is around 9.0 out of 10.0 +/- a few tenths in every subcaption, then your corps' total is going to be somewhere around a 90.0. The 9.3 score in a given subcaption will be offset by the 8.7 in a different subcaption.

Notice for the big shows that they actually add two extra GE judges. This causes the averaging to allow fewer changes.

If you want the possibility of changes only use 4 judges, for example. Each one is now responsible for 25% of the overall score. If they really do call them as they see them for what happened on any given night, you will have more changes from night to night than you can handle.

Then we can start a thread complaining about inconsistecy in judging.

[nineiron]

The Blue Stars deserved to be in 7th place both Friday night and Saturday night. They were above and beyond better than the Santa Clara Vanguard those last two nights. A tenth of a point is little consolation on a placement that was earned and deserved. I wouldn't call it slotting so much as the judges being afraid to upset the status quo. Very unfortunate.

Overall, this was quite a boring year, period.

Right on the money with this one. But we don't want to upset the G7 apple cart do we.

[Michael Boo]

Clearly you and I don't agree. Obviously you think it's perfectly normal for an X place corps to have X place captions more or less across the board. I don't. I'll leave it at that, without the snark you threw at me.

Mike

No, we don't agree. And no snark was intended.

[Jeff Ream]

brass caption...i think MikeN pointed this out...where you went on is where you placed.

really??

[Michael Boo]

Well, I am not arguing with Mr. Boo, it is entirely possible that each judge called it as they saw it, and the overall performance of each corps put them in the exact same order 3 nights in a row. It was bound to happen sometime (after all, if you put enough monkeys at enough typewriters long enough, you eventually end up with the complete works of William Shakespere). It just seems a little odd that in only 30-someodd years of DCI this would happen so soon.

And I am not knocking the corps or their performances. I will leave the critiques to those who actually saw them this year, all I had exposure to are the discussion threads and the scores.

Just trying to spark interesting discussions

Please, Mr. Boo was my dad. I'm just Mike.

As for 30 years being "soon," we may have a different interpretation of what "soon" is, but that's cool. I guess I might ask what took it so long.

As for trying to spark an interesting discussion, I'll admit you succeeded and I applaud that. It's kind of a fascinating observation to look at and follow up and it gives us something to ponder in the off-season. What you hit upon is the exact purpose of DCP, IMHO. I'd encourage you to keep them coming because you really do give us something to think about, and that's a really good thing. Whether I or anyone else agrees or disagrees is irrelevant. The important this is we've got stuff to discuss, and stuff the think about.

And the day everyone shares my opinion is the day I'll have to look for another activity. What fun would that be?

[jordsterr]

I just looked at every single caption from Finals week. There were less than a dozen total instances where a corps's ordinal for a caption deviated from their placement by 3 or more. Half of them were due to Phantom's percussion being ranked 1, BD's drums being ranked 4 and Colts drums getting dropped. So for percussion judges!

Quite honestly, I am coming around to the idea that we just need to drop scores and move to ordinals. Let's let the judges not have to worry about leaving spreads between corps and instead focus on which group is better.

Mike

Here's an even crazier idea. Why bother competing to begin with? Just let evryone be great. I did not choose where I marched because of placement. I just liked what I liked.

[Michael Boo]

brass caption...i think MikeN pointed this out...where you went on is where you placed.

really??

But of interest to me is how the sub-captions just happened to add up that way.

Recap of World Class Finals

Although Bluecoats were 3rd in Brass and that's how the corps placed overall, the brass line was 5th in Musicianship and 2nd in Technique. That sure isn't slotting. And although Carolina Crown was 4th in Brass and 4th overall, the line was 2nd in Musicianship and 5th in Technique. Ditto.

The Cadets were 4th in both sub-captions, but the numbers added up that they were 5th in Brass and 5th overall. Blue Stars, Boston Crusaders, Madison Scouts and Blue Knights all had different placements between their two Brass sub-captions.

Although it might look suspicious to some, a peek at the sub-captions shows there was clearly some serious considerations going on in the mind of the Brass judge, Steve Calhoun.

[Michael Boo]

Double post

Edited August 19, 2010 by Michael Boo

[Jeff Ream]

But of interest to me is how the sub-captions just happened to add up that way.

Recap of World Class Finals

Although Bluecoats were 3rd in Brass and that's how the corps placed overall, the brass line was 5th in Musicianship and 2nd in Technique. That sure isn't slotting. And although Carolina Crown was 4th in Brass and 4th overall, the line was 2nd in Musicianship and 5th in Technique. Ditto.

The Cadets were 4th in both sub-captions, but the numbers added up that they were 5th in Brass and 5th overall. Blue Stars, Boston Crusaders, Madison Scouts and Blue Knights all had different placements between their two Brass sub-captions.

Although it might look suspicious to some, a peek at the sub-captions shows there was clearly some serious considerations going on in the mind of the Brass judge, Steve Calhoun.

judging a large show is tricky.

and i'm not accusing him of this, but sometimes you see a recap like that and you wonder if the subs ended up that way to keep from having a bottom-line tie. Not saying he did it that way, but I've seen it done, and it sucks.