Minimum buoy count needed to ski Western Regionals?

[JC McCavit]

What buoy count would I need if I only ski one tournament before Regionals?

[RichardDoane]

@JC McCavit‌ don't you have any other scores from the past 12 months ?

[JC McCavit]

@richarddoane - No, I live in Alaska and was not able to get out to the lower 48 last year. Last tournament was at Warman a couple years ago. I can't find this information anywhere on USAWATERSKi or AWSA Rules.

[ntx]

@JC McCavit‌ Wow. There are a ton of variables. Only one tournament score will carry a deduction. The amount of deduction will depend on the class of the tournament. Ten percent deduction for class c and five percent for class ELR. I am not sure what level is required for regionals in the West for your age. Plus the lowest level score can move until it gets locked in several weeks prior to the event. If a level 7 is required and a class c event my guess is about 102 buoy count. If you can ski with a level 6 about 93 should be close. Hope this helps. With the ranking system there is no way to know for sure until the scores get locked in.

 

[Horton]

102 is 6 @ 38. That can't be correct

[RichardDoane]

right now the top of M4 Level 6 is 91, and top of Level 7 is 95.5, I'd guess 92 will get you there

[ntx]

@Horton‌ Don't forget about the one score deduction. 102 only gets you 92.8

[Horton]

@ntx‌ makes sense math wise. Ridiculous in real life.

[Kelvin]

@Horton, the fix is to ski more tournaments. In this case, the system encourages participation in more tournaments. That's a good thing.

[Horton]

@Kelvin‌ we as a sport are so broken that I don't know what is a good thing or a bad thing anymore.

[JC McCavit]

Let me get this correct. At 51 I need to run 38 off or 102 to qualify because I will receive a penalty for not participating in enough tournaments, this will give me a 92, but not sure, could be higher or lower, any other variables I need to consider? I feel like the organizers of the sport are doing a really good job reducing participation. How many Men's 4 guys ran 102 at the 2014 Western Regional? The answer is zero!

[Than_Bogan]

Well, it's been a while since I complained about the penalties, so here I go again:

 

Percentage penalties make no sense.

 

I understand that we want a system that encourages people to ski in more tournaments, so I get why penalties could be a good idea. But percentage is not the way to do it. This was always true but suddenly became patently obvious (or I guess not??) when we changed to zero-based scoring and everybody got free buoys. A 10% penalty on 60 was one pass. A 10% penalty on 100 is more than a pass and a half. And yet NOTHING has actually changed -- so we just increased the penalties by a huge amount. In addition, a skier in some divisions might have 50ish for a score, so their penalty is much less than those in the 100 range.

 

If we must have penalties, then they should be a fixed number of buoys, not a percentage.

 

But I'd much rather see that events simply set a qualification rule of "must have competed in N tournaments" (presumably with some exception process if you live 1000 miles from the nearest sanctioned tournament). Not only do I think that's more fair, but I have more complaints about any form of penalty:

 

Handicapping. Every year we do a well-received handicapped "overlay" at our September tournament, with prizes and everything. Setting up the handicaps is made much more complicated by the penalties. I have to manually remove them, or else anybody with 1 score has a huge advantage. A process that could be almost completely automated instead becomes a bit of a chore.

 

Ranking. With a system that averages your top 3 scores, taking more shots already is a great way to increase your ranking. That's a good thing. But the penalties for those with 1 or 2 scores just create confusion. Earlier this year, I out-ranked Jamie Beauchesne, among others who are clearly better skiers than I am. Indeed, unless we think people are carefully selecting only the one awesome site that they can get to, it's already a disadvantage to have only skied in one tournament. Penalizing that further just makes the rankings less likely to reflect reality.

[Dirt]

@JC McCavit‌

 

2014 We s t e rn

Regional

Championships at

Laku Jul y 2 3 - 2 6 , 2 0 1 4

Hosted'by'Laku'Tournament'Water'Ski'Association

Location: Windsor Colorado. 45 miles North of Denver

and 5 miles SE of Fort Collins. Take I-25 to

Crossroads Blvd exit 259. Go 4 miles east to Road

17 (7th St.); go north to Lakulake Rd. located 2 miles

North on left just south of river.

Entry Requirements:

Level 6 ranking in all divisions.

Level 5 ranking in Overall for all divisions.

Skiers must be competitive member of USA-WS, a US

citizen and qualified to ski in the Western Region per

rule 4.03(3). Note – Scores from Collegiate class C and

above can be used for qualification

 

From today's ranking list. Lowest level 6 skier in Mens 4:

 

248T White, Tim 83.70 * AL S USA 30.81

 

It looks like you need 83.7 plus 10% but you can ski a tournament weekend in Sac for instance and get 3 tournaments in 3 days. Ski Friday, Sat and Sun. Different tournament each day=no penalty.

[RichardDoane]

or come ski the Broho event June 6/7

[Horton]

@dirt I just got am email from a important rules type person sometimes known as "Pogo". She says you are 100% correct.

 

She recommendeds everyone else get a rulebook.

[MattP]

@klindy‌ is this your area? Thoughs?

 

[Dirt]

@Horton Pogo is hilarious unless you are the one hobbling around. She may kill you.

[Edbrazil]

Note that you can download a Rulebook at:

http://www.usawaterski.org/pages/divisions/3event/2014AWSARuleBook.pdf

 

Sure is interesting to see how formidable the Class C discount can be, such as a pass to a pass

and a half. Turning a full 38 into a few at 35 for some people. This appears to be discriminating

against well-run Class C events. As a Chief Judge of many Class C's in NH, I've surveyed the

course, set up centerline viewing (survey theodolite), measured towlines, and set up a handle

checker. OK, no gate video or from-boat video. But: Yup, back when, there were "Easy" Class

C's, where they ran 1mph tolerances vs. 1/2 mile tolerances. One noted site in the South

raised alarms when the Class C performances on their 2nd course were a pass or two above the

performances on their Record lake.

 

These days, are Class C performances all that great? Class C events tend to be run in site

conditions that are not conducive to big performances. Would be interesting to do a study to

run the numbers comparing skiers' scores in C events vs. L/R. There probably isn't a lot of data

to deal with for high-level skiers who do both. Maybe not much beyond the East, where L/R

tournaments are a bit rare. Of course, in the East, it is relatively easy to generate scores to

qualify for the Regionals. In my age division, that's about like being a warm body.

[JC McCavit]

Thanks everyone @ BOS, I have this figured out now. Even with the unnecessary 10% penalty, I think I'll make it in.

[klindy]

@MattP‌ math sounds right, western region qualifications sound right, penalty sounds right.

 

You mean to tell me that no where in the western region there's a weekend where there are two (or more) multiple round slalom tournaments scheduled on the same site or on sites which are close to each other? I've already committed to torurnrnents in the SC and S region where there are two, two round records at the same site in one weekend. Two record tournaments = no penalty and four scores recordd (using the best two).

 

@jcmccavit‌ PM me and I'll give the locations and low down on both sites. Once you get on the airplane theres not much difference between a 3/4 hour flight and a 5/6 (or whatever) flight. C

[klindy]

@DaveLemons‌ that would help but with 3 rounds that means class c. There will still be a penalty for only two class c scores. Not as much but still a penalty. Best bet is to get to a site where there are two, two round records.

[Kelvin]

@klindy, it could be 2 L rounds and 1 E round per day. That would satisfy the no more than 4 L rounds in a weekend rule.

[klindy]

@Kelvin‌ you are correct that would work.

[nate93]

Go back to ratings!! This level stuff is way to "calculated". Set a benchmark that is easily understood and isn't constantly changing through the year!!

[SkiRV]

Just spent 1/2 hr reading through the other threads about D1/D2 Nationals, Big Dawg rule changes, and how to make tournaments more fun...Who care if he only skis 1 tournament?

If the guy wants to travel from AK to WA and ski Regionals why would you not want him there?

 

If he's good enough to place or win then more power to him. Numbers are declining at all level of tournaments without putting up more barriers to participation.

[Deanoski]

And they wonder why less skiers are going to turnaments.

[RichardDoane]

@deanoski - it takes a "special breed" of skier to enjoy skiing tournaments, the level of frustration can be too high for some people who forget that it's supposed to be fun, (my .02)