The REAL world's results!

jeffmudd6 · Post by **jeffmudd6** » 28 Feb 2009 18:30

The Stanford University Footbag Club has calculated the results of the 2008 top three routines using the official formula-based system that was last used during the 2001 worlds.

The judging follows a formula, with some subjectivity in the "presentation" category.

The maximum possible score is 30, there are 4 categories:
drops (5)
composition (10)
difficulty (5)
presentation (10)

drop score = 5 - (.25 x drops)

composition score = delays (2) + body (2) + dexterity (2) + technical (2) + crossbody (2)

presentation = timing (2) + planes and travel (2) + form (2) + linking (2) + personality (2)

difficulty = (total adds / 100) + (total adds / contacts)

unfortunately the system is inherently flawed... difficulty is *supposed* to max out at 5 points, but mathematically the formula is unbounded. And so we have two different results!!!

Firstly, without bounding difficulty at 5 points, we conclude

1st: Sergey Kozlov (25.937 = 5 + 8.4 + 6.6 + 5.937, respectively*)
2nd: Vasek Klouda (25.735 = 5 + 8.0 + 7.7 + 5.035, respectively*)
3rd: Damian Gielnicki (23.173 = 4.75 + 7.8 + 4.8 + 5.823, respectively*)
*respectively referring to the order of the above listed categories.

Secondly, capping off difficulty at 5 points, we conclude

1st: Vasek Klouda (25.70)
2nd: Sergey Kozlov (25.00)
3rd: Damian Gielnicki (22.35)

Thirdly... the actual results:

1st: Damian Gielnicki
2nd: Vasek Klouda
3rd: Sergey Kozlov

So, it can be concluded that either Vasek or Sergey won. No matter the judging interpretation, Damian lost. I speak for the Stanford University Footbag Club when I say we should step up the judging next year.

MathieuGM · Post by **MathieuGM** » 28 Feb 2009 21:02

There are some things that are not mathematicaly calculable. That might explain why Damian won.... imo, there was something more fluid an more artistitic in the damian routine than the sergey and vasek ones.

In my opinion, with what you calculated, we can see that depending of what we were looking for, the winner would have been different. We can't say that Damian should defenitively have win, but we can't say he really should not have win...

Well, that's only my opinion

Eric Chang · Post by **Eric Chang** » 28 Feb 2009 21:24

MathieuGM wrote:There are some things that are not mathematicaly calculable. That might explain why Damian won.... imo, there was something more fluid an more artistitic in the damian routine than the sergey and vasek ones.

In my opinion, with what you calculated, we can see that depending of what we were looking for, the winner would have been different. We can't say that Damian should defenitively have win, but we can't say he really should not have win...

Well, that's only my opinion

That may be the point, but I was in charge of unique symposium/ducks/paradox/body rolls. He scored so much less than Vasek/Sergey. IN fact there was no flip spin, I believe only one duck and hardly any density in the tricks. If you analyze the routine to the core, its really one sided, no traveling, not as dense as the others. Less contacts, and less add ratio the list goes on with JUST the mathematical side of the routine.

In terms of presentation, Sergey had travel, both side had a thicker density in unique paradox/ducking/symposium than Damian's routine. Not to mention he was more balanced and had no drop(which should count again you). Watch Damian's routine and really just watch it to the core, you can see he was unbalanced in couple of parts. This is really the only part Damian could win in (presentation), but it wasn't as strong as the others to be very frank. (Stanford was bored and we decided to watch the worlds videos I filmed)

If people want to do this for real, I'd be happy to collect the full number of judges, send them the raw footage and from there do a full on calculation on the routines.

Kyle Hewitt · Post by **Kyle Hewitt** » 01 Mar 2009 00:08

i think steve was all like lets make vasek mad and made him lose

SUCK IT OVER THINKERS

Eric Chang · Post by **Eric Chang** » 01 Mar 2009 00:36

Kyle Hewitt wrote:i think steve was all like lets make vasek mad and made him lose

SUCK IT OVER THINKERS

Think not.

Ners · Post by **Ners** » 01 Mar 2009 04:31

I applaud your idea of measuring difficulty by counting ADDs.

Pozdrawiam
Szymon KaÅ‚wak (Ners)

Eric Chang · Post by **Eric Chang** » 01 Mar 2009 04:38

-reminds himself that he wasn't posting in modified anymore ^^-

If you look at the post Ners the add difficulty was a minor portion of the routine.

-last post from me on this issue-

krawallier · Post by **krawallier** » 01 Mar 2009 11:24

i watched damians routine three times (= rounds). every single time, it had an outstanding choreography - compared to both sergey and vasek.

(Stanford was bored and we decided to watch the worlds videos I filmed)

on your videos, (i assume they are the samne as online), the audio is so bad that damians routine didn't come accross as it did in real life. damians routine was heavily dependent on the song, and especially its details and changes of rythm. (whereas vaseks choreography was dependent on pauses in the music, which is much less complex)

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 01 Mar 2009 13:03

I disagree about his choreography. His routine was mainly just pixie, stepping, legover, mirage, butterfly. I thought both Vasek and Sergey had better choreography and better variety. Maybe not in terms of unique tricks, but in terms of real variety. I think it's pretty telling that if you remove the scores from the 2 Polish judges (and the Czech judge if you want), then Vasek either wins or draws (I can't remember).

I find it hard to believe Damien actually choreographed many moves at all. He just shredded in time with the music, or at least that's what it appears on the videos.

Eric Chang · Post by **Eric Chang** » 01 Mar 2009 15:53

krawallier wrote:
(Stanford was bored and we decided to watch the worlds videos I filmed)
on your videos, (i assume they are the samne as online), the audio is so bad that damians routine didn't come accross as it did in real life. damians routine was heavily dependent on the song, and especially its details and changes of rythm. (whereas vaseks choreography was dependent on pauses in the music, which is much less complex)

It wasn't the same videos online.

jeffmudd6 · Post by **jeffmudd6** » 01 Mar 2009 23:38

Difficulty does have some dependency on the ADD count, but only because that is how the judging system is set up. I have already specified the formula that is used to calculate the 5 point difficulty category, which does rely on ADDs.

In any case, the "new" judging system is fundamentally based on the "old" system. The new system sidesteps the painstaking process of processing formulas and counting tricks and such, and instead relies on the intuition of the judges to accurately judge routines much more effectively. This intuition should ultimately reflect the results that would be (or in this case are) yielded by the mathematical judging model.

This means that the results should correspond exactly, or at least somewhat.

Over the years, judges have lost loyalty to the original judging system specified in the IFPA rule book. This may be because they are not aware of the old judging system, have deemed the old system inaccurate, or didn't know that the new system should reflect loyalty to the old system.

It is the judges responsibility to evaluate routines accurately with respect to the official IFPA formula-based judging system last used in the 2001 worlds. It is important for judges to be impartial and loyal to the formulaic system instead of creating a system that is becoming even more subjective.

Had this extent of subjectivity not been present for the 2008 judging process, the results would be radically different, and in my opinion, much more accurate.

Paulsator · Post by **Paulsator** » 04 Mar 2009 01:28

it is not possible to judge a routine objectively.

Webslinger · Post by **Webslinger** » 04 Mar 2009 05:39

It is.... and Damian was an obvious winner and who thinks different should not judge... ever.... seriously...

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 04 Mar 2009 15:50

Webslinger wrote:It is.... and Damian was an obvious winner and who thinks different should not judge... ever.... seriously...

So Steve Goldberg should never judge?

Webslinger · Post by **Webslinger** » 04 Mar 2009 16:51

In case he really thought Damian should not win...

But I am sure nobody reasonable would think so...

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 04 Mar 2009 17:47

edit; In hindsight it's not appropriate for me to make this post. Apologies.

Honza you are entitled to your opinions, and no doubt because of your footbag ability some people will respect them. However if you want your opinions to be listened to and taken into account by the people within the IFPA and IFC who are responsible for managing the judging systems, writing them up and trying to ensure that they are correctly implemented then I'd suggest you dramatically change your approach and give far more specific details without making as childish statements as (paraphrasing) "people who don't have the same opinion as me should never judge." While you obviously have a lot of knowledge about footbag, I'm not convinced that you have a significant understanding of the judging systems and their intentions. The judging systems and rules put forward a specific and perhaps arbitrary view of what a good footbag routine is. Your view of what a good footbag routine may contradict the systems view. However the role of judges should not to be to impose their own values, but to impose the values of the system they are using. This appeared to be a significant problem this year and with a lot of comments about which routine was better. I'd suggest reading the rules again very carefully - which unfortunately probably means either the Australian rules or going through the old .org email lists, since the current judging systems are not mentioned in the current IFPA rules. However the intention of the current judging system was supposed to essentially give the same results as the previous judging system but be quicker and easier to use, so you also probably need a good understanding of that system to correctly understand the current system.

Webslinger · Post by **Webslinger** » 05 Mar 2009 07:54

Jeremy, I don`t have problem with the judging system, I think it is correct and of course I understand it very very well (I attended like millions of the judging clinics, helped to prepare some, judged at most of the tournaments I attended and more importantly I have been around for couple of years and know how it works...)
Another discussion would be the judges, that is the main problem in this sport. (not Worlds finals 08 though! I cannot believe it is such an issue, I thought in 07 the results were just hilariuos or perhaps 02, 03, 04, but definitely not 08, but whatever...) If there is something to do, it would be some rules or system of choosing the judges, so we don`t end up having judges, who competed for the last time when Dexter was a little kid having a wooden duck on a string

or there are judges who think that hard move or a nice smile give you artistic points... and so on...
We need experienced routine players, who have kinda the 6th sense and feeling for the judging...

I would also suggest you to come once to Worlds or other bigger tournaments in Europe and NA to see how it really works. I mean theoretical knowledge is great, but I think you lack the praxis experince (no offense, just professional advise). I know it is hard to save money for it and I do not even know if you want to spend them on it, but than you cannot be saying things you do because when a guy who has never really seen anything like this tells me I don`t understand the system, I honestly think it is some kind of joke....

I just thought my "childish statement" fit the post standards here

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 05 Mar 2009 15:00

Rather than having some kind of pissing contest, how about you explain in detail, in the context of the definitions in the judging system, exactly why you think the judges interpreted the system correctly and why Damien's routine is better technically and "artistically" to Vasek's. Perhaps you could also explain exactly what constitutes "artistic merit" as I feel this is one of the most misunderstood and poorly named aspects of the judging system.

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 05 Mar 2009 16:25

Jeremy wrote:I'd suggest reading the rules again very carefully - which unfortunately probably means either the Australian rules or going through the old .org email lists, since the current judging systems are not mentioned in the current IFPA rules.

Why aren't judging rules specified in current IFPA rulebooks? How could someone really argue one way or the other if there's so little to abide by, relating to current rules? I understand Australian judging rules may be similar, or could be completely different, but should not IFPA have such an important aspect of competitions clearly explained?

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 05 Mar 2009 16:43

Yes absolutely, and that's why I joined the IFC in 2004 - specifically with the goal of updating the rules and judging systems to the level that they are the same as the actual rules and systems used in competition.

The reason that hasn't happened yet (but certainly is looking like happening in the near future) is long and complicated. The biggest problem (in my eyes) has been a lack of active freestylers on the IFC in general and especially the problem that the person driving things in the past (me) wasn't able to attend any of the meetings at worlds. That said, I have a lot of confidence in the new rules director - Wiktor Debski - who has managed to get the IFC active again and has been making great progress.

In footbag everybody has opinions about how the sport should be organised, but probably about 1% of people actually turn those opinions in to actions. It's hard not to be a bit resentful of this.