Tournment scoring

[nikgaukroger]

The the ranking will be different, and in this example, the difference is really important.

In what world view?

One where you need to get out more?

[timmy1]

As I don't care especially about scoring systems (I will come last no matter what system we use) should I plan not to attend BHGS events (If I do attend I promise to be anally retentive - just not about scoring systems)?

[Martin0112]

For sure we are not getting prices of thousends of Euros (too bad )
But why making an easy calculating system (incl. decimals) worse by reducing it to full numbers.

Un fact you are fully right that this will not have much impact viewed over a period of several tournaments, but from most of the player I've played with (which may not the majority for sure), they want to know a result on THIS ONE TOURNAMENT.
To say I would have won the tournament xyz, but lost it due to not using a decimal system, but instead it was 3 times 8th instead of ninth in the following tournaments for the same reason will raise my frustation.

Finally, no matter what system is used, it's for the fun we are all playing and I will not forget this. And I would agree that it makes no sense to use a unbelievable complex system instead of what we have for marginal changes, but as mathematician (at least I studied it a while), I want to give my input in here as well.

[rbodleyscott]

But why making an easy calculating system (incl. decimals) worse by reducing it to full numbers?

Well please bear in mind that not everyone wants to use a computer program to score their tournaments, so the system has to be reasonably easy to use for manual calculation as well as by computer. A system with decimal points will never be as easy for manual calculation as a system without.

Even when a computer is used, the players want to be able to easily manually calculate their scores because they (quite rightly) do not trust organisers never to make a data entry mistake. Organisers are only human.

And if we want to use the power of computers to the full we can make the computer use both integer and floating point and only use the floating point for tie-breaks. (Which means there is in fact no issue of 5 people in 5th place, since the computer can just as easily resolve tie-breaks for the lower places as the top three). Programming calculations is particularly easy, and the poor computer will not break or go on strike if it has to make calculations in multiple different ways.

And leaving all this aside, I have to say that given the inevitable influence of dice luck in deciding game results, insisting on the accuracy of decimal point scoring is rather illogical. Having studied mathematics, surely you can see that.

[Ghaznavid]

But why making an easy calculating system (incl. decimals) worse by reducing it to full numbers?

Well please bear in mind that not everyone wants to use a computer program to score their tournaments, so the system has to be reasonably easy to use for manual calculation as well as by computer. A system with decimal points will never be as easy for manual calculation as a system without.

Even when a computer is used, the players want to be able to easily manually calculate their scores because they (quite rightly) do not trust organisers never to make a data entry mistake. Organisers are only human.

And if we want to use the power of computers to the full we can make the computer use both integer and floating point and only use the floating point for tie-breaks. (Which means there is in fact no issue of 5 people in 5th place, since the computer can just as easily resolve tie-breaks for the lower places as the top three). Programming calculations is particularly easy, and the poor computer will not break or go on strike if it has to make calculations in multiple different ways.

While it is (usually) comparably easy to write a program that calculates with floating points and displays only results rounded to the nearest full number have you ever tried to get Excel to do that? (I can do it, but I bet 90% of the Excel users out there can not.) Given that Excelsheets are (sadly enough) still the most common form of computer aided scoring systems your argument about using floating point internally only is flawed.
The question is also when do you round? After each round? At the end of the tournament? If you keep the floating points throughout you might end with someone being 1st place with 78 points and someone else being 2nd with 79 points. Can you imagine the outcry?
If you keep the floating points only for the current round you can just as well do away with them and determine the ranking among those with equal number of points randomly. It's a game of chance anyway as you stated.
Third and most important at the end of the tournament if 4 people have say 60 points but you rank them 5th, 6th, 7th & 8th instead on a joint 5th place you will have a lot of explaining to do (gets worse if you have two people with say 80 points and one is 1st place the other 2nd).
Using floating points only as an invisible tie-braker is not going to work IMO and frankly I don't see the evil of floating points or what's difficult with them. That might be cultural though. If one is used to measurements, etc. using the metric system he gets exposed notably more to floating points then someone accustomed to the imperial system (OTOH he is most likely less accustomed or comfortable with fraction stuff like 1/10, 1/8, etc.).

[philqw78]

Using floating points only as an invisible tie-braker is not going to work IMO and frankly I don't see the evil of floating points or what's difficult with them. That might be cultural though. If one is used to measurements, etc. using the metric system he gets exposed notably more to floating points then someone accustomed to the imperial system (OTOH he is most likely less accustomed or comfortable with fraction stuff like 1/10, 1/8, etc.).

When I first started playing FoG I wondered WTF! they were doing with the decimals appearing and disappearing and then a tie break on some invisible number nobody knew about. So I just stopped caring.

I assume somebody throws some chicken bones on a fire with some sulfur after the scores go in. Then I bribe the judge.

Who would know?

[Martin0112]

Using decimals as a tie-breaker is what I can agree, but the real point here is: WHEN rounding the results!
As easily shown in my example on the page before, rounding after each round can (and in fact it does) falsify the result.
Rounding at the end will cause for sure real surprises, because a player can gain up to 1.6 points more than he originally have and also up to 1.6 points less (all calculated on a 4 round-tournament), which is a swing of up to 3.2 points.

Not using a computer is OK, the usage of a computer is not reducing the number of possible human errors, I'm fully with you on this argument.

But, even the official score calculation chart is using decimals, so having the decimals noted instead of rounding results manually (also something to create errors) and add up the decimals is IMO as easy as adding rouded values.

Please don't get me wrong here, the final decision on using decimals or not (or using the 'official' scoring system anyhow) is for sure up to the organizer, and nobody looking for playing for fun will complain about a tournament 'only' because of the scoring system.
The selection of the existing scoring system is anyhow arbitrary. It could have been created the same way, but only having a factor of 10 inside, which will have reduced the decimal, but increased the results (having 250 - 0 scorings)
And this is in fact what we have.
And yes, also then some people (maybe not me, but who will know) will complain again about not using a possible decimal.

The reason why I advertise for using decimals is only, because I have added all the game results in the new ranking database, and found that (taking a 4-round tournament as example) more than 75 % of the results being between 55 and 30 points at the end.
This means we have roughly 25 points in the midfield, so not much granularity.
So the reason for me (and for tournaments I'm organizing) to use the decimal is to avoid discussions afterwards, like others has written before in this thread.

Yes, a scoring system must be understadnable by all players (and not only by a computer program, but taking the official score calculation sheet and have it posted somewhere in the tournament-place whil make it understandable and transparent to everybody.
I'm printing this sheet out, and post it next to the results by round, so nobody will have to learn the small formula behind and can see why he got how many points.

[rbodleyscott]

The question is also when do you round? After each round?

After each game. The scores for each round are based on rounded scores, so that they agree with the scores calculated manually from the score sheet without decimal points. The floating point representation is only used for tie breaks.

I find the supposed difficulty with EXCEL difficult to believe. Surely it is just a matter of keeping a table of two separately calculated results for each game, then adding them up at the end. (The floating point version only being used to decide tie breaks in the integer version).

But, even the official score calculation chart is using decimals, so having the decimals noted instead of rounding results manually (also something to create errors) and add up the decimals is IMO as easy as adding rouded values.

You are clearly missing my point. What I am advocating is that the official score calculation chart be changed so that it does not use decimals.

Using decimals as a tie-breaker is what I can agree, but the real point here is: WHEN rounding the results!
As easily shown in my example on the page before, rounding after each round can (and in fact it does) falsify the result.

It does not falsify the result. If it is stated in advance that the scores are based on the integer (rounded) scores for each game, then that is the rules of the tournament, so how can it be a false result?

It is a simplified result, and it does not agree with the floating point result, but that does not make it false.

The correct result is whatever the scoring rules say the result is. If the scoring rules state that the integer result is used for each game, then that is the correct score.

[nikgaukroger]

And thus we run head first into the difference of approach between the "scientist" and those who primarily deal with people on a day to day basis Always amuses me.

People are nasty, fuzzy and illogical - there is no logical reason why wargamers, who tend to be more intelligent than average, should have trouble with a scoresheet with decimal places in it, however, they do and do often. The best approach is to remove the problem.

[philqw78]

And thus we run head first into the difference of approach between the "scientist" and those who primarily deal with people on a day to day basis Always amuses me.

And I thought medicine was a science. Or are they still using leeches to cure people and blind faith to avoid driving off bridges in Usk?

[rbodleyscott]

And thus we run head first into the difference of approach between the "scientist" and those who primarily deal with people on a day to day basis Always amuses me.

And I thought medicine was a science. Or are they still using leeches to cure people and blind faith to avoid driving off bridges in Usk?

Medicine combines science and dealing with people. This provides us with a degree of omniscience and empathy only exceeded by the deity.

[philqw78]

Medicine combines science and dealing with people. This provides us with a degree of omniscience and empathy only exceeded by the deity.

Surely you exceed the deity, as god does not think he is a doctor, but.......

[Ghaznavid]

The question is also when do you round? After each round?

After each game. The scores for each round are based on rounded scores, so that they agree with the scores calculated manually from the score sheet without decimal points. The floating point representation is only used for tie breaks.

I find the supposed difficulty with EXCEL difficult to believe. Surely it is just a matter of keeping a table of two separately calculated results for each game, then adding them up at the end. (The floating point version only being used to decide tie breaks in the integer version).

You aren't earnestly arguing for using two separate sheets, do you? One of which either has to take it's values from the other or (IME more likely) people will enter the results twice (with the added risk of input errors).
IF one uses spreadsheet and IF one wants to use rounded scores and decimals for tie-breakers, the only clean solution is to create the sheet so that it calculates with floating points but displays only the rounded results.

That said I still don't see the problem with results that have decimal places. Last time I was in the UK, neither the shops nor the gas stations used rounded prices, yet people seemed to handle that just fine (unlike me as I couldn't make heads or tails of those darn English coins).

[rbodleyscott]

The question is also when do you round? After each round?

After each game. The scores for each round are based on rounded scores, so that they agree with the scores calculated manually from the score sheet without decimal points. The floating point representation is only used for tie breaks.

I find the supposed difficulty with EXCEL difficult to believe. Surely it is just a matter of keeping a table of two separately calculated results for each game, then adding them up at the end. (The floating point version only being used to decide tie breaks in the integer version).

You aren't earnestly arguing for using two separate sheets, do you? One of which either has to take it's values from the other or (IME more likely) people will enter the results twice (with the added risk of input errors).

Not separate sheets but separate tables of integer and floating point results. And of course the data only needs to be entered once.

IF one uses spreadsheet and IF one wants to use rounded scores and decimals for tie-breakers, the only clean solution is to create the sheet so that it calculates with floating points but displays only the rounded results.

This is simply not true. Perhaps you can e-mail me some time Karsten and I can explain better what I am getting at.

[peterrjohnston]

People are nasty, fuzzy and illogical - there is no logical reason why wargamers, who tend to be more intelligent than average, should have trouble with a scoresheet with decimal places in it, however, they do and do often. The best approach is to remove the problem.

We use the tournament program written by Thomas Peters. It does all the calculations and gives the results in the correct format for the rankings.

So all players have to do is fill in the very simple score sheet with the number of BGs and attrition points lost.

Many cannot even do this correctly...

So frankly I don't think using rounding or decimal places is going to make much difference.

[KillingZoe]

After each game. The scores for each round are based on rounded scores, so that they agree with the scores calculated manually from the score sheet without decimal points. The floating point representation is only used for tie breaks.

Well, it's not that easy. As you might know, my tournament software allready includes the option not to use the floating point.
My first implementation was exactly to round after each game, but this had a strange effect:
If you have a (not rounded) result of 22,5 to 2,5 (for excample) this will round up to 23 to 3, ruining the 25 to 0 score. So it is not sufficiant to round after each game, you have to round the loss and gain points of each player, then calculating the result by this.

You are clearly missing my point. What I am advocating is that the official score calculation chart be changed so that it does not use decimals.

So, why not just doing a second score calculation sheet and offering both, giving the organizer of the tournament the choise?


By the way, there is one point in your argument I just don't see:

On the one hand you tell us, that people don't want to use computers for organising there tournaments, on the other hand you want exactly this people to operate with rounded results most of the time, but doing a tie break by including the floating points. Do you realy expect this to work?

After all, transparency is an important point, I think. For me this would mean, that a player can sum up all his points gained during the tournament and coming up with his final result. Next he should see himself on the same place in tournemant with all other players that gained the same overall result.

This means: Either use rounded points during the whole tournament with no exception, or use the floating point during the whole event, but don't do a mixture. This will really baffle people, for sure.

I personly prefere using the decimal place, just for martins argument: its more precise and avoids having to many people with the same overall results.

(Still, if you insist on playing a game of chance anyway: why not just creating the whole tournament result by random? Not a solution? So, lets do a decent, mathematical plausible scoring system )

[Ghaznavid]

IF one uses spreadsheet and IF one wants to use rounded scores and decimals for tie-breakers, the only clean solution is to create the sheet so that it calculates with floating points but displays only the rounded results.

This is simply not true. Perhaps you can e-mail me some time Karsten and I can explain better what I am getting at.

We could do that, but honestly I don't believe much in the use of Spreadsheets for tournament scoring anyway, I was just mentioning them because they seem still widely used (although they often seem to me like part of the problem, not part of the solution). As Peter does in Italy, so far all tournaments in Germany (except the very 1st, which took place before the Software became available) did use the Program made by Thomas Peters* and hence never encountered any problems aside from late or (rarely) erroneous result slips. Since the result slips do not include floating points numbers, getting rid of floating points is not going to help with wrong result reporting.

* Can be DL here for all those that don't know it yet.

[Martin0112]

...
If you have a (not rounded) result of 22,5 to 2,5 (for excample) this will round up to 23 to 3, ruining the 25 to 0 score. So it is not sufficiant to round after each game, you have to round the loss and gain points of each player, then calculating the result by this.

...

Even if agreeing nearly 100% with what you saying, the problem you are mentioning here is already solved on the calculation table.
It staes clearly that when a result ends on .5, the player with more than 10 points will be roundes up, and the other rounded down (which is another arbitrary and non-mathematical decision)

What I really like in this forum is that we can hard strong argues without having somebody feeling personally attacked (have not seen this in many other forum before)

So, I think this discussion will not change any minds, neither the minds of the supporters of the non-decimal system nor the minds of the decimal fans.

So I like the idea to let it to the organizer of an event to decide what to use.
We can see in the upcoming years what people like more, as lots of results have been posted (and honestly, I have not done any checks if more tournaments uses floating or non-floating results).

Maybe there will be a strong favorite in the future, let's see....
And I#m more than happy coming to Britcon this year to have a nice discussion at the evening or during the breaks.

[Ghaznavid]

Maybe there will be a strong favorite in the future, let's see....
And I#m more than happy coming to Britcon this year to have a nice discussion at the evening or during the breaks.

If you feel like having a serious discussion on Saturday night after 3 games at BritCon you are much tougher then me.

[nikgaukroger]

That said I still don't see the problem with results that have decimal places. Last time I was in the UK, neither the shops nor the gas stations used rounded prices, yet people seemed to handle that just fine (unlike me as I couldn't make heads or tails of those darn English coins).

Thta is because, apart from the terminally anal, people don't actually calculate what they are spending as they go along (other than in a very rough way) - they don't know what their shopping has cost until thye getb the total at the check-out.

As for coins - heads is the side with the queen's head on, the other side is tails