I was in "a mood" last night. My apology. Sincerely!
I've mostly judged and competed in others, not much KCBS. When we've done KCBS two times the first time the pork went out COLD (very bad) and was just in that bottom 1/3 (26th out of 45 or something like this). The other time we were in that top 1/3 with a call (as best I recall), but it was about 9th, unsauced and unsliced... You are right in that KCBS differs (from what I've seen) from other sanctioning bodies in that KCBS judges seem to want sauce and they want/prefer St Louis spares. Probably the other extreme/opposite would be MBN, where around here the pork is probably 70-80% unsauced and I've never seen a spare rib win, ever, it's about baby backs. Why the difference, even in the same approximate region, I dont know... It just is. BBQ Pitmasters, IMHO, has played a part at least here in this region. Probably one comment by Myron did more than anything I've ever seen. Meaning, in 2004-2009 we'd almost never see anything sliced in pork come across the table, not even the MM. Now, probably 70% have the MM sliced (in blind boxes); not in on-site [MBN]. Still, some MM's will come in sliced with a tiny amount of sauce, some unsauced, occasionally heavily sauced. MBN sauce is better on-the-side (IMHO), if at all.
As for your personal experience doing better with sauce, part of that could've been that the judges expected the sauce, and/or it could've been that it needed sauce to become more moist/tender and help with presentation, or perhaps it was a tad bland without the sauce and needed it for flavor. I've seen (and still see) these types of things from unsauced meats coming across the tables. But, every once in a while, an unsauced entry comes across that hits the mark perfectly and WOW is it something else!!
Like in the last contest I judged. Good pork table; 2 unsauced entries, others sauced or sauce on side. I had one entry that was unsauced, beautiful presentation, perfectly tender and moist, but was bland and definitely needed a little pick-me-up. It scored middle of the pack. I had another entry that put a mustard sauce on the side. The mustard sauce happened to be the best mustard sauce I've EVER had, EVER. But, this sauce didnt go well with the meat presented, and so it scored lower than the bland one. Funny, after judging was over, I dipped some of the bland meat in a little of that mustard sauce and OH WOW did that do the trick. Combine those two and it would've been amazing. Anyway, this is an example on one table where sauce hurt one entry and would've really helped another.
