Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Organized Play 2019 Home Stretch

People have noticed that I asked if any one could overcome Don's huge lead at WBC and failed to answer.  So, lets do that.

Note that this is a bit of a guess.  The numbers of points people could get winning races and the WBC event itself will depend on how many people attend.  However, assuming a slightly larger attendance then last year three people seem like they have a chance.

Tim Baker, Brian DeWitt, and Bill Worrell appear to have a shot.  Each would likely have to win a well stocked* qualifying race AND the Finals.

Meanwhile, Don has pretty much maxed out his points potential.  Pretty much all he can do to defend himself is win the finals so no one else does.  Unless lots of people do show up and the races end up being worth more than I have guessed.

* Depending on the heat, WBC qualifying races can have 6 or 7 participants.  More will typically mean more value for the race.

Monday, July 15, 2019

Organized Play Update and Clarifications

The 3rd CFR Organized Play season comes to close in a couple weeks after WBC ends.  Don is 70 points above every one else in the rankings.  Can anyone catch up?  First a quick reminder of how scoring works.  Later this week, I'll get to some thoughts on how this season can end.


Each player's score in organized play is 5 parts race scores and 2 parts tournament scores.  When a player has more than 5 races or 2 tournaments under their belt on the season, the best 5 or 2 are picked for this purpose.

Race Scoring
Every place from 1 through 10 in each race is awarded points: 23 for 1st, 18 for 2nd, 15 for 3rd... Those points are then multiplied by a field modifier and a live event modifier.

For example, Don's best race shown above got him 38.13 pts.  That race was a win in the 1st race of the top series of this year's Redscape PBeM.  In this case the race win value of 23 was multiplied by a field value of 1.658 = 38.134.  The event was not live and so did not get a live event multiplier.  If it HAD been a live, in person event it would have gotten an additional 1.19 live event multiplier

For example, the highest values race so far this season was my win in the 1st DMV race this season.  It had a field rating multiplier of 1.522 but was also an in person event and so it also had a live event multiplier of 1.19 -- total multiplier of 1.806 (1.522 * 1.19).  That means my win that race was worth 41.54 pts (23 * 1.806).

What is the Field Multiplier?  Lets go back to Don's best race.  The field multiplier there was 1.658.  That means that the field of drivers was 65% better than the median field of any race this season or last season.

How is that Calculated?  Every driver has a field rating that is the sum of their top 5 race results (without multipliers) from this season and last season.  For instance, Don's field rating is 115 because his top 5 race results are all wins worth 23 points (remember, no multipliers here).  After adding up all of the field ratings of all drivers participating, that total is compared to the median total to generate a percentage.

What is the Live/In Person Multiplier?  Its a bonus meant to compensate for it being a lot easier to get a lot of drivers involved in a PBeM rather than having them show up in the same place and time for a live event.  It is calculated by figuring out what the multiplier would have had to have been in the past to make live and PBeM's roughly worth the same.  Note that there is a different live multiplier for races and for Tournaments.

Tournament Scoring
The last two bits of a driver's score in organized play is the score from their top 2 events of the season.  If I participate in an event, be it a PBeM series or a local season of races or a weekend tournament at a convention, I will get points for the races I participated in AND also for my final ranking at that tournament.

Scoring for events works exactly the same as for individual races.  Well, except for two things.

  1. The live event multiplier is slightly different... because individual races have been impacted less lately by the live vs. virtual divide than entire events have been.  So for this season the live event multiplier is 2.2.  
  2. Also, the field rating is calculated a little differently in that the field rating is multiplied by the number of heats in an event.  So an 8 race season will get more love than a 3 race tournament.

For example, Don's best result in an event so far was his win of the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia) season.  The win being worth 23 points * .838 as the event had a field rating below the median (largely due to being fewer races than many events) * 2.2 since the event was a series of in person races = 42.4.