KCBS TOY Calculations

Thanks for posting this Wayne. Hadn't seen this yet. I think its a good step forward. Would like to see it capped at 5 contests like the current system. A cap means that everyone has a fighting chance, not just those that do 42 contests in a year.

I wonder if it will change the end result. Will the top 10 be the same with both old and new systems. Would be good if KCBS could show how the new system would have changed things for 2007.

We redid the CBBQA ToY this year
Top 50% Score Points
Points are based on number of teams
43 teams 43 points for the GC

Thom, do you have to be a member of the CBBQA to get points?

Yes You cant win the contest without being a member
But a non member would count in the example of 43 teams
just not score points for themselves
Some events charge $200 for CBBQA members $236 with out and buy you a new membership

Almost everyone that cooks more than one event a year is a member here

Contest is based on your best 5 scores

The Board was informed that there was little change if we used 10 or 5 scores. I would use 5 for the categories. The Board felt that TOY and the Categories were for those who compete. While I agree the chance of a team whom only competes 5 times a year against those who cook 20 a year are remote, I always enjoy seeing the underdog have a chance. I wanted to preseve that chance for the little guy.


But this is the our system for 08.
Yours in Q
Merl Whitebook

I'm trying to digest the math a bit... Is this correct ?

A team that places 22nd out of 25 teams gets 25 points + 22 points = 47 points total.
A team that places 44th out of 50 teams gets 25 points + 50 points = 75 points total.
A team that places 88th out of 100 gets 25 points + 100 points = 125 points total


Merl - Thanks for your work. Seems like you have a good pulse of whats out there.

MilitantSquatter said:

I'm trying to digest the math a bit...

Is this correct ?

A team that places 44th out of 50 teams gets 44 points.
A team that places 22nd out of 25 teams gets 22 points
A team that places 88th out of 100 gets 88 points ??

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I am not sure which system your talking about
Sorry if you were talking the other
CBBQA if your 20th at a 55 team Cook Off
you get 55 minus 20 is 35 points

say your 13 at a 26 team C/O
You get 13 points

Thanks Tom but I was referring to KCBS new system. I'm sure it will all work OK, but seems odd in some ways to grant any points to truly poor performances ... Why get any ?

I would really be interested in finding out more about the average, median, mode # of contests per team to see how that stacks up vs. the 5 or 10 contests needed to qualify for TOY.

Changing to 10 may not change the top teams but it does narrow the field considerably to at least even be acknowledged or provide insight for a team on where they stand overall. I know it's not Merl's words " for those who compete" but I'm just curious how they arrived at 10 as the new minimum #.

To make any educated decision, I would hope the BOD really has their pulse on how many the average KCBS team does rather than cater to the select who push 15-30 a year. Then the # could be re-evaluated each year based on previous year metrics on avg. participation by the core KCBS team. The best teams stand out either way but at least more get some idea of where they are in the bigger picture.

As I think we have seen in the past people like to see their names on rankings. If this is a "hard core" only competition award system, seems the backyard, occasional competitor is out of the loop, out of the loop and make people feel less inclined to be interested and then the relativity of the KCBS to the backyard, occasional competitor, rapidly declines. we should know what happens when an organization ceases to be relative to the masses of it members. Don't ask how I know. But any new system should work to expand recognition and not to exclude more. Scott

Yakfishingfool said:

As I think we have seen in the past people like to see their names on rankings. If this is a "hard core" only competition award system, seems the backyard, occasional competitor is out of the loop, out of the loop and make people feel less inclined to be interested and then the relativity of the KCBS to the backyard, occasional competitor, rapidly declines. we should know what happens when an organization ceases to be relative to the masses of it members. Don't ask how I know. But any new system should work to expand recognition and not to exclude more. Scott

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Well said Scott. That's what I was trying to say.

MilitantSquatter said:

I'm trying to digest the math a bit... Is this correct ?

A team that places 22nd out of 25 teams gets 25 points + 22 points = 47 points total.
A team that places 44th out of 50 teams gets 25 points + 50 points = 75 points total.
A team that places 88th out of 100 gets 25 points + 100 points = 125 points total


Merl - Thanks for your work. Seems like you have a good pulse of whats out there.

Click to expand...

If your math is correct, it seems like this system is more about large contests than even the number of contests you attend. If I attend the Royal and GAB, that gives me about 200 just in attendance points. Kinda hard to beat if stick mainly to the NE, for example.

<Sorry, I've edited this as I didn't see the cap was 100 for attendance points.>

Still, the system does add more weight than ever to bigger contests. That's probably a good thing. The top end reward was 50 teams. Now you get more points for competing in up to 100 teams. We'll have over 360 points next year in just 4 of our contests.

Plowboy said:

If your math is correct, it seems like this system is more about large contests than even the number of contests you attend. If I attend the Royal and GAB, that gives me about 800 just in attendance points. Kinda hard to beat if stick mainly to the NE, for example.

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Todd - If I read Wayne's post correctly, for either of these two contests (assuming a min of 100 teams for GAB) attendance points are capped at 100.

So a last place finish at a 100+ team (or 500 is AR Open is KCBS sanctioned) event would score 125 (100+25) which using these same rules is equal to a team placing 12th at a 35 team contest (90+35). That seems very weird but admittedly the exception to the rule so to speak.

Yup, saw my mistake. This is taking a bit to digest.

I can say that I would have liked to have had this system in place in 2007... for totally selfish reasons. We had ten top 10 pork calls (well, 9 I guess... one was a non sanctioned state championship) out of 13 contests where pork was a category. Only half of our calls were top 5. So we did well from a TOY stand point, but not well enough. Sure would have liked a few points in the 6's, 7's, and 8's that we got.

I hear what you are saying, but, is the point of TOY to encourage teams to participate and expand recognition? That sounds like T-Ball. I think the TOY calculus should have one and only one objective: determine the best performing team for the calendar year.

That said, I'm not a big fan of the 10 contest requirement. I think it is impressive for a team to put up big scores with just a few contests. A few years ago HomeBBQ (Kevin) placed in the top 10 overall of KCBS cooking only 5 kcbs contests total. I found that more impressive than some of the teams in front of him that had 5 higher scores but cooked 30+ contests to achieve that.

Kudos to KCBS though to make the effort to try and improve the system

Yakfishingfool said:

As I think we have seen in the past people like to see their names on rankings. If this is a "hard core" only competition award system, seems the backyard, occasional competitor is out of the loop, out of the loop and make people feel less inclined to be interested and then the relativity of the KCBS to the backyard, occasional competitor, rapidly declines. we should know what happens when an organization ceases to be relative to the masses of it members. Don't ask how I know. But any new system should work to expand recognition and not to exclude more. Scott

Click to expand...

Yakfishingfool said:

If this is a "hard core" only competition award system, seems the backyard, occasional competitor is out of the loop, out of the loop and make people feel less inclined to be interested and then the relativity of the KCBS to the backyard, occasional competitor, rapidly declines. we should know what happens when an organization ceases to be relative to the masses of it members. Don't ask how I know. But any new system should work to expand recognition and not to exclude more. Scott

Click to expand...

Amen Brother!

This system seems skewed, too... There will be "sweet spots" and "dead spots" showing up in the possible combinations of # teams and place in the comp... We will need to target comps with as many teams as possible as long as there aren't more than 100 teams. After 100 teams, the comp size "adder" loses value. Look at some examples...

10th place in a 25 team comp = 125 points = DEAD LAST in a 100 team comp.

How about: 2nd place at a 25 team comp = 5 place at a 500 team comp?

Seems like people who voted on this system may not have looked very closely at the math first....

Just my $0.02.

Ique makes a valid point. Is TOY competition a friendly backyard smoker competition or
a balls to the wall, we want extreme competition? Going to be tough to cater to both those people/teams. Should an occasional backyard competitor expect to get TOY rnakings?? Shouldn't the same team be happy with a 123rd place ranking despite despite 3 competitions in which they finished in the top five? That makes them pretty strong in those competitions but what about the team that did 20 comp's and finished in the top ten for over half? What about us nor'easters that find going to the many mid-west comp's a near impossibility due to distance, weather, etc. We may only get 5-6 comps we can attend up in this area.. Not at all like the mid-west/south.

What about a regional TOY, then the top 5-10 of each region is compared to their counter part regionally and a national TOY is announced. Seems to get more people involved, seems to account for regional variations in competition loads, etc. Just ideas being tossed out. Good topic. Scott

acorette said:

Amen Brother!

This system seems skewed, too... There will be "sweet spots" and "dead spots" showing up in the possible combinations of # teams and place in the comp... We will need to target comps with as many teams as possible as long as there aren't more than 100 teams. After 100 teams, the comp size "adder" loses value. Look at some examples...

10th place in a 25 team comp = 125 points = DEAD LAST in a 100 team comp.

How about: 2nd place at a 25 team comp = 5 place at a 500 team comp?

Seems like people who voted on this system may not have looked very closely at the math first....

Just my $0.02.

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I don't know if there is a perfect system. There were holes in the former system as there will be holes in this one.

Old System

1st place @ 50 team = 1st place @ 500 team
1st place @ 24 team < 3rd place @ 25 team

These "dead spots" are probably going to occur in any system. I'm still trying to understand the complete big picture of where this system takes us. I think it encourages participation at larger contests. Contestants get incremental points added whenever a single team enters the contest instead of the current system where you have milestones before the next point multiplier. I think the new system does reward teams who have access to larger contests. Thus, in its own way may encourage growth. Dunno. A lot to digest.

I agree with IQue on 5 contest to 10 contest change. Mean Dean's placed in top 10 in Brisket a couple years ago with only 6 contests that year. However, I'm guessing that KCBS expanded to 10 contests to help break some ties. For teams that do cook a couple dozen contests or more, they are going to get their fair share of top 5's at triple point contests (current system). It is not unrealistic for a Buffalo's BBQ to walk in at the end of the year with five 1st place finishes in brisket. Just a guess at some of the reasons why they expanded it.

But let's face it, the great majority of us don't do it for the TOY points. If all of a sudden eel becomes the fifth KCBS category, THEN I'm going to worry.

Yakfishingfool said:

What about a regional TOY, then the top 5-10 of each region is compared to their counter part regionally and a national TOY is announced. Seems to get more people involved, seems to account for regional variations in competition loads, etc. Just ideas being tossed out. Good topic. Scott

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BBQ Conference System :wink:

(Do I smell playoffs?)