23 replies to this topic

[K & K MacIntosh]

Hi Judges,

Here are some KCBS judging procedure changes for 2009 that all CBJs should be aware of.

1. Sorting of entries. The turn-in boxes on the table captain's tray shall be presented to the judges in the order they were placed on the table captain's tray. This means the table captain will no longer sort the boxes in an ascending numerical order before presenting them to the judges. Sorting of boxes after the chicken category to prevent duplicates from going to the same table(s) will still be required.

2. Appearance scoring. During the appearance judging, all judges will be required to permanently write down the appearance score for an entry before a judge or the table captain points out what they believe may be a violation (garnish, number of pieces, etc…). If it is determined there is no violation, the scores will stand. If there is a violation the Rep will instruct the judges to make the appropriate changes to their score cards.

3. Comment cards are back! These are strictly voluntary. judges will be encouraged to submit comment cards for entries that receive a below average score. As a BBQ Judge, you are encouraged, if you desire, to provide information to the cooks which may help them understand the score you have given and to provide helpful information to improve their performance in the future. The comments should be of the type which will assist them in perfecting their art and skills. Please no derogatory comments, constructive only.

4. Ranking. Using the third scoring column for ranking instead of the usual tenderness/texture will no longer be allowed. This change only applies to ancillary categories as ranking has never been allowed for the four contest categories.

Kelly

[Ric Gilbert]

I, for one, am gald to see these changes. #2 really shows forward thinking.

Thanks for the updates K&K.

ric

Edited by Ric Gilbert, 15 March 2009 - 01:57 PM.

[Benny Adauto]

Keeping judges (especially experienced judges) from commenting on potential illegal garnish while looking at a box will be a challenge for table captains.

Kelly, is it your plan to sort boxes prior to the table captain receiving the tray?

Benny

[Ben Lobenstein]

Are we allowed to comment on any entry or are we limited to low scores?

[Ben Lobenstein]

1. Ok - more work for the sort team, less for the TC.

2. Agree with Benny but it happens so infrequently I'm not sure how much of an issue it is (I see more foreign object in boxes than garnish but ok).

3. Yay!!!!! Can I start a rewards program for judges who turn in comment cards? (not being funny here)

4. Great - I didn't care for ranking.

[K & K MacIntosh]

Benny Adauto, on Mar 16 2009, 01:20 PM, said:

Keeping judges (especially experienced judges) from commenting on potential illegal garnish while looking at a box will be a challenge for table captains.

I agree there will be a learning curve but I have confidence in our judges and TCs.

Benny Adauto, on Mar 16 2009, 01:20 PM, said:

Kelly, is it your plan to sort boxes prior to the table captain receiving the tray?

There won't be any sorting unless you are talking about sorting for duplicates in which case they will be handled in much they same way they are now.

Kelly

[K & K MacIntosh]

Ben Lobenstein, on Mar 16 2009, 01:48 PM, said:

Are we allowed to comment on any entry or are we limited to low scores?

Comment cards will be accepted and forwarded to the team(s) for any entry.

Kelly

[Benny Adauto]

Thanks Kelly, see you Saturday at the judging class.

Benny

[Brian Zalewski]

Ben Lobenstein, on Mar 16 2009, 02:35 PM, said:

3. Ya!!!!! Can I start a rewards program for judges who turn in comment cards? (not being funny here)

Please be careful here, Ben. As a competitor, I truly appreciate this idea. This is one of the greatest (and sometimes toughest) things about a backyard event. It's great to see what someone disliked, or liked, about your food. However, I'd really hate to see cards start coming in from judges that were motivated more so by the reward than by sheer desire to share their opinions with the cook. Great idea to drum up some cards though!!

[K & K MacIntosh]

Ben Lobenstein, on Mar 16 2009, 02:35 PM, said:

3. Yay!!!!! Can I start a rewards program for judges who turn in comment cards? (not being funny here)

Very creative but that's a no. Brian made an excellent point regarding unintended consequences. The intent of the card is to get constructive feedback to the cooks, not for the judge to win something. Also, the cards are anonymous so tracking it back to the judge that turned it in won't be possible.

Kelly

[Dan Drogichen]

K and K MacIntosh, on Mar 16 2009, 03:54 PM, said:

>> 1. Sorting of entries. The turn-in boxes on the table captain's tray shall be presented to the
>> judges in the order they were placed on the table captain's tray. This means the table captain
>> will no longer sort the boxes in an ascending numerical order before presenting them to the judges.
>> Sorting of boxes after the chicken category to prevent duplicates from going to the same table(s)
>> will still be required.

> QUOTE (Benny Adauto @ Mar 16 2009> Kelly, is it your plan to sort boxes prior to the table captain receiving the tray?


There won't be any sorting unless you are talking about sorting for duplicates in which case they will be handled in much they same way they are now.

Kelly

OK, rules is rules, I'll do what I'm told, but my curiosity is piqued ...

I've always thought that sorting into ascending sequence is a cheap way of preventing accidentally presenting entries to the judges for scoring in a different order than they got listed on the scorecard. Everyone can quickly recognize when 124 gets presented after 129 and whoops .. wait a minute ... what just happened ... fix it now.

If any order of the six numbers is OK, it may be a little harder to recognize when it's the wrong order. Admittedly, this mistake rarely happens, but it happens.

So, two questions:

1) Is the TC not allowed to sort, or just not required to?

2) When there's a change like this, somebody is trying to fix a problem. I'm curious about what problem was created by sorting that was bigger than the little increment of error prevention it adds? It can't be delay, it takes maybe 15 seconds. Were boxes getting spilled in the shuffling?

-dan

[Marcel Fortin]

As it was explained to me. Some teams make the effort to get to a contest early to be assigned the first team number for the contest. They think that when the table captains sort by ascending order their box will be first to be sampled by the judges. This might give them an advantage since the judges will taste their item first with a fresh palat. Now when the first turn in is received it will be the first on the table captains tray second will be second and so forth. This is for chicken only. The effort of not duplicating turn in boxes to judging tables will effect this somewhat for ribs. More so for pork and for brisket table captains will then be selecting boxes with numbers that they have not received before. Yes the TC's are not allowed to change this order. The table cabtains should carry a sharpie and mark the first box on their tray with the number 1 and the second number 2 and so forth. This will help the TC to keep his/her boxes in order. We practiced this with the new certified TC's at the judges class last Saturday.

Marcel
CBJ #6136

[K & K MacIntosh]

Dan Drogichen, on Mar 22 2009, 10:19 AM, said:

OK, rules is rules, I'll do what I'm told, but my curiosity is piqued ...

I've always thought that sorting into ascending sequence is a cheap way of preventing accidentally presenting entries to the judges for scoring in a different order than they got listed on the scorecard. Everyone can quickly recognize when 124 gets presented after 129 and whoops .. wait a minute ... what just happened ... fix it now.

If any order of the six numbers is OK, it may be a little harder to recognize when it's the wrong order. Admittedly, this mistake rarely happens, but it happens.

So, two questions:

1) Is the TC not allowed to sort, or just not required to?

2) When there's a change like this, somebody is trying to fix a problem. I'm curious about what problem was created by sorting that was bigger than the little increment of error prevention it adds? It can't be delay, it takes maybe 15 seconds. Were boxes getting spilled in the shuffling?

-dan

Marcel is correct. The new procedure is to more "randomize" the turn-ins. TCs are not allowed to sort the boxes numerically. After the boxes are on the TC's tray they will use a marker to number the boxes one through six. This number will assist the TCs in keeping the team numbers in the correct order during presentation and distribution. We used the new procedure at the CBJ class and it went well. There will be a learning curve involved but it won't be insurmountable.


Kelly

[Dan Drogichen]

Marcel Fortin, on Mar 22 2009, 12:57 PM, said:

As it was explained to me. Some teams make the effort to get to a contest early to be assigned the first team number for the contest. They think that when the table captains sort by ascending order their box will be first to be sampled by the judges. This might give them an advantage since the judges will taste their item first with a fresh palat. Now when the first turn in is received it will be the first on the table captains tray second will be second and so forth. This is for chicken only. The effort of not duplicating turn in boxes to judging tables will effect this somewhat for ribs. More so for pork and for brisket table captains will then be selecting boxes with numbers that they have not received before. Yes the TC's are not allowed to change this order. The table cabtains should carry a sharpie and mark the first box on their tray with the number 1 and the second number 2 and so forth. This will help the TC to keep his/her boxes in order. We practiced this with the new certified TC's at the judges class last Saturday.
Marcel
CBJ #6136

Thanks. I think I understood what you said, but it doesn't make any sense unless I'm confused about contest procedures.

The "team numbers" on the turn-in boxes are not the team numbers, they have been deliberately randomized by the contest reps so that knowing the number on the box at the judging table does not allow you to know the team number.. So the idea that arriving early to get a low team number so you will be presented for judging first makes no sense - it won't happen; if you're team 1 of 30, you're as likely to be box number 130 as is team 30.

Am I confused about something here? I know I've seen a renumbering (new stickers placed on top of the original by the rep, looking at a chart) going on at the turn-in table, and that's how it was explained to me.

And if I'm not confused, back to the original question - why the change?

Edit: I posted before I saw Kelly's reply. OK, so that's the reason. Please explain to me why the box renumbering doesn't cover this. Or if it doesn't, why that isn't in fact a bigger problem that needs fixing more urgently? With all the efffort and concern that goes into preventing "marking" of boxes to insure blind judging, if anything can be inferred about team numbers from the judging box numbers, something's broken.

-dan

Edited by Dan Drogichen, 22 March 2009 - 01:06 PM.

[K & K MacIntosh]

Dan Drogichen, on Mar 22 2009, 02:01 PM, said:

Thanks. I think I understood what you said, but it doesn't make any sense unless I'm confused about contest procedures.

The "team numbers" on the turn-in boxes are not the team numbers, they have been deliberately randomized by the contest reps so that knowing the number on the box at the judging table does not allow you to know the team number.. So the idea that arriving early to get a low team number so you will be presented for judging first makes no sense - it won't happen; if you're team 1 of 30, you're as likely to be box number 130 as is team 30.

Am I confused about something here? I know I've seen a renumbering (new stickers placed on top of the original by the rep, looking at a chart) going on at the turn-in table, and that's how it was explained to me.

And if I'm not confused, back to the original question - why the change?

Edit: I posted before I saw Kelly's reply. OK, so that's the reason. Please explain to me why the box renumbering doesn't cover this. Or if it doesn't, why that isn't in fact a bigger problem that needs fixing more urgently? With all the efffort and concern that goes into preventing "marking" of boxes to insure blind judging, if anything can be inferred about team numbers from the judging box numbers, something's broken.

-dan

To simplify my answer I left out term "alternate" when describing the team numbers. To maintain the blindness aspect the Reps will still continue to re-label the boxes with alternate numbers. The issue with the old procedure was when a team was randomly issued a low number their box would go to "the head of the line" on the judge's tray. Whether this is a real or perceived benefit is up for discussion. The new procedure prevents this.

Kelly

[Ben Lobenstein]

K and K MacIntosh, on Mar 22 2009, 03:01 PM, said:

Whether this is a real or perceived benefit is up for discussion.

Best line in this thread.

[Ben Lobenstein]

Marcel Fortin, on Mar 22 2009, 12:57 PM, said:

As it was explained to me. Some teams make the effort to get to a contest early to be assigned the first team number for the contest. They think that when the table captains sort by ascending order their box will be first to be sampled by the judges. This might give them an advantage since the judges will taste their item first with a fresh palat. Now when the first turn in is received it will be the first on the table captains tray second will be second and so forth. This is for chicken only. The effort of not duplicating turn in boxes to judging tables will effect this somewhat for ribs. More so for pork and for brisket table captains will then be selecting boxes with numbers that they have not received before. Yes the TC's are not allowed to change this order. The table cabtains should carry a sharpie and mark the first box on their tray with the number 1 and the second number 2 and so forth. This will help the TC to keep his/her boxes in order. We practiced this with the new certified TC's at the judges class last Saturday.

Marcel
CBJ #6136

I was going to say I've never seen this "first team to arrive = issued team #1" in CA but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. Most often I've seen reps provided a list of teams alphabetically (ask Bram of 155 South how many times he's been team #1), some reps will reverse the list for fun.

[Bram Britcher]

Ben Lobenstein, on Mar 22 2009, 03:19 PM, said:

I was going to say I've never seen this "first team to arrive = issued team #1" in CA but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. Most often I've seen reps provided a list of teams alphabetically (ask Bram of 155 South how many times he's been team #1), some reps will reverse the list for fun.

I've seen 1 and 11 more than once. reps seem to be a little more tricky as of late.

[Dan Drogichen]

K and K MacIntosh, on Mar 22 2009, 03:01 PM, said:

To simplify my answer I left out term "alternate" when describing the team numbers. To maintain the blindness aspect the Reps will still continue to re-label the boxes with alternate numbers. The issue with the old procedure was when a team was randomly issued a low number their box would go to "the head of the line" on the judge's tray. Whether this is a real or perceived benefit is up for discussion. The new procedure prevents this.

Kelly

Aha. OK, I'll buy that. The team can't control it, it's randomly assigned, but it's like winning the lottery for the duration of the contest. The team that gets randomly assigned box number 101 will always be first at the table for all four meats. 102 will be first for at least three meats. Etc.

"Winning the lottery" assumes order at the table actually has any advantage or disadvantage. I'm skeptical. But I agree the presentation order "stickiness" is a real effect that the rule change eliminates.

Kelly, thanks so much for being here to demystify the reasoning behind some of this stuff. It really helps.

And nice to hear that the ordering for error protection is being preserved, even if it means adding a third set of numbers. Sounds workable.

As for whether the effect is real or perceived, presumably if anyone cares, the data is there in the records of hundreds of competitions, waiting to be crunched.

-dan

[K & K MacIntosh]

Ben Lobenstein, on Mar 22 2009, 03:19 PM, said:

I was going to say I've never seen this "first team to arrive = issued team #1" in CA but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. Most often I've seen reps provided a list of teams alphabetically (ask Bram of 155 South how many times he's been team #1), some reps will reverse the list for fun.

Yes, we are frequently provided a list of teams sorted by team name but Reps are advised to enter the teams in the scoring computer in a random basis. It must not be based on team name, order they entered the contest, order they arrived, location in the contest, etc. Even if the list supplied by the organizer appears to be random the order of the teams being entered into the computer should be changed in case there is a non-random criteria the organizer's list is using that isn't obvious (such as the order they entered the contest) to the Rep.
Kelly