DCI World Championships Semifinals - 8/1215

[Raider90]

Agreed, Crown guard is fantastic this year.

[WIS]

That ain't Prosperie. He judged last night. That's Jeff Ausdemore

There was at least one other corps where his presence was very annoying. Usually you can visually tune out the judges on the field but it seemed like he was trying to be very noticeable. There is no way he should have been in the position to disrupt that portion of Crown's show.

[HockeyDad]

Agreed. More demand for American Ninja, maybe, but not marching and playing at the same time.

These types of posts are so funny. Someone makes a comment in June that they're "dirty" and it lives on the rest of the summer. I'm guessing you haven't seen them live this week. They are performing at a level beyond what anyone else is putting on the field this year. They're popping a 97+ yet their demand is suspect and their feet are dirty. No. Just no.

[BRASSO]

This is possibly looking like last year's result. Where friday's winner is out-sprinted at the finish line on Sat. If you look at the score chart at ascendperformingarts.org/scores/ and continue the lines up from thurs and fri, the order of finish is Crown, Blue Devils then Bluecoats. Crown is sprinting faster than BD, who is sprinting faster than Bluecoats.

George Bonfiglio told me once that finals is always an execution show. So, if you take the averages of visual and music for friday, the finals order of finish would be: 1st: BD, 2nd: Crown, 3rd: Bluecoats. Using the averages for thurs and friday the order is: 1st Bluecoats, 2nd: BD, 3rd Crown. So, if you use just Friday, BD wins. If you use thurs and friday, Bluecoats win.

So, if you use 3 different methods, you get 3 different winners.

The method I used last year, gave me the point spread between BD and Crown to within one tenth of a point of the actual result. I looked at the point spread history for BD and Crown for the past shows where they were judged by the finals judges. I then used those point spreads to estimate what would happen in finals. That worked out well. Unfortunately, since this year they are not releasing the detailed recaps, that method is not possible.

But, one possible hint might be to look at GE, since that is where Bluecoats have had their biggest point spread. 2 of the finals GE judges are from So. Cal. Lee Carlson is old color guard guy, who probably knows Scott Chandler pretty well. So, could there be a unconscious or conscious advantage to BD. Not saying there is a proven bias there, but could be possible.

Caleb Rothe runs the So. Cal winter drumline circuit. Quite a few WGI champions came from that circuit. A number of guys from that circuit march this year with Bluecoats and BD (also Blue Stars, Vanguard, Blue Knights and the drum guy from Academy). Also, BD now sponsors RCC, who have provided a lot of the BD drumline members for years. RCC is in that So. Cal drumline circuit and has won a lot of WGI championships. Rothe is a drum guy, but for some reason is judging GE at finals. The finals winner could result from the GE spread he gives to BD or Bluecoats. Since Bluecoats have a big GE show, and one of the Bluecoats drum guys teaches at a high school that is also in the So. Cal drumline circuit, the bigger spread might be to them, so Bluecoats win finals; If he gives a bigger GE spread to BD over Crown, BD could win. Could this happen? Maybe, maybe not. Again, there is no proven bias there, just a potential conflict of interest.

Corps that win both Quarters & Semi's ( where there are no penalties involved ) have an excellent track record of winning Finals Night in DCI. So Bluecoats are in the driver's seat, imo. That said, their tiny margin of win in the Quarters and Semi's, ( with smaller margins in the Semi's ) does give both BD & Crown a legitimate chance that ordinarily would be considered a bit of longer odds for the 2 of them.

Edited August 13, 2016 by BRASSO

[RedJazz1900]

A Cavalier color guard age out got engaged as well. Best of luck to him and his future husband!

Very cool

[barigirl78]

Between Thursday and Friday, I have noticed a few corps electronics needing re-booting or other work to get them performance ready. In each of the cases, the pause was noticeable. Is there a reason DCI did not assess any timing penalties?

Yes. There is a new rule that if delays are due to electronics, the corps has up to 5 minutes to resolve it. A penalty is only assessed if it takes more than 5 minutes.

Heard this from a DCI tabulator.

[Jeff Ream]

This is possibly looking like last year's result. Where friday's winner is out-sprinted at the finish line on Sat. If you look at the score chart at ascendperformingarts.org/scores/ and continue the lines up from thurs and fri, the order of finish is Crown, Blue Devils then Bluecoats. Crown is sprinting faster than BD, who is sprinting faster than Bluecoats.

George Bonfiglio told me once that finals is always an execution show. So, if you take the averages of visual and music for friday, the finals order of finish would be: 1st: BD, 2nd: Crown, 3rd: Bluecoats. Using the averages for thurs and friday the order is: 1st Bluecoats, 2nd: BD, 3rd Crown. So, if you use just Friday, BD wins. If you use thurs and friday, Bluecoats win.

So, if you use 3 different methods, you get 3 different winners.

The method I used last year, gave me the point spread between BD and Crown to within one tenth of a point of the actual result. I looked at the point spread history for BD and Crown for the past shows where they were judged by the finals judges. I then used those point spreads to estimate what would happen in finals. That worked out well. Unfortunately, since this year they are not releasing the detailed recaps, that method is not possible.

But, one possible hint might be to look at GE, since that is where Bluecoats have had their biggest point spread. 2 of the finals GE judges are from So. Cal. Lee Carlson is old color guard guy, who probably knows Scott Chandler pretty well. So, could there be a unconscious or conscious advantage to BD. Not saying there is a proven bias there, but could be possible.

Caleb Rothe runs the So. Cal winter drumline circuit. Quite a few WGI champions came from that circuit. A number of guys from that circuit march this year with Bluecoats and BD (also Blue Stars, Vanguard, Blue Knights and the drum guy from Academy). Also, BD now sponsors RCC, who have provided a lot of the BD drumline members for years. RCC is in that So. Cal drumline circuit and has won a lot of WGI championships. Rothe is a drum guy, but for some reason is judging GE at finals. The finals winner could result from the GE spread he gives to BD or Bluecoats. Since Bluecoats have a big GE show, and one of the Bluecoats drum guys teaches at a high school that is also in the So. Cal drumline circuit, the bigger spread might be to them, so Bluecoats win finals; If he gives a bigger GE spread to BD over Crown, BD could win. Could this happen? Maybe, maybe not. Again, there is no proven bias there, just a potential conflict of interest.

Drum guys make some of the best GE judges. Caleb is also high up in the wgi percussion hierarchy, and lord knows Bloo borrows heavily from there...and Rarick judges wgi. So really the who you know/where you're from arguments are hollow as drum guys are notoriously independent.

[Jeff Ream]

Between Thursday and Friday, I have noticed a few corps electronics needing re-booting or other work to get them performance ready. In each of the cases, the pause was noticeable. Is there a reason DCI did not assess any timing penalties?

No but as explained to me last week after Crossnens issues, the corps can ask for a mulligan that basically stood the watches. It's I'm sure more detailed in the rulebook

[cfirwin3]

These types of posts are so funny. Someone makes a comment in June that they're "dirty" and it lives on the rest of the summer. I'm guessing you haven't seen them live this week. They are performing at a level beyond what anyone else is putting on the field this year. They're popping a 97+ yet their demand is suspect and their feet are dirty. No. Just no.

Absolutely...

Dirty is such an easy accusation to make on a forum and yet indefensible.

These groups are VERY clean right now... and the "but they are soooo dirty" whines are... well... stupid... in the most accurate and applicable sense of the word.

[MikeRapp]

Corps that win both Quarters & Semi's ( where there are no penalties involved ) have an excellent track record of winning Finals Night in DCI. So Bluecoats are in the driver's seat, imo. That said, their tiny margin of win in the Quarters and Semi's, ( with smaller margins in the Semi's ) does give both BD & Crown a legitimate chance that ordinarily would be considered a bit of longer odds for the 2 of them.

Don't know why this keeps getting brought up. It's simple math on a 100 point maximum chart. The closer you get to 100, the slower you will gain points. The corps the farthest back will almost always have the biggest upward mobility because there is more room to grow.

At this rate, using this analysis, if we kept doing shows, Crown would be at 108 points in two weeks.

While I don't really get the whole "box" scoring system, it seems the intended result is that the actual score is less important than the relative score. A 98 this year has no correlation to a 98 last year, or even last month. If true, and the experts here say it is, once you have a slot established, something extraordinary had to happen to change it, other than the "scores."

The judges have now seen and dissected every aspect of every show, so something out of the ordinary is really the only thing that will change their relative rankings. To me, the only wild card now is the electronics issues with Bluecoats. If they get that fixed, they will almost certainly win the gold. It's not like Spartacus, where they came from behind with the emotional favorite.

Edited August 13, 2016 by MikeRapp