The 2019 World Yo-Yo Contest Thread

Fantastic comparisons, I agree 100%

Gentry isn’t the only one smart enough to craft his routine according to the scoring rules. Evan is just as smart and just as good at doing the exact same thing. I would (and have) argue that doing that is not just part of being (or becoming) a champion, but a practical necessity.

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Just clicked top 3. I don’t trust my clicking but I got Gentry first, then Yuki, then Evan. Honestly clicking makes you see how hard the tricks really are.

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What if…

When the overall scores for first and second are within some predetermined number, say 1.0 or 1.5, then the judges revisit those two freestyles via video and make sure they agree that first should be first and second should be second. Possibly using some other factor(s) to make their determination. Rarity, other things. Sometimes the same contestant going first may get a different score than if he/she went last. This would help those cases.

This may not be as easy at smaller contests but WYYC, US national and the like could do it I think.

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Yo this is actually a good idea

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Kinda like video replay in football?

I wonder how long such a thing would delay the determination and release of the final results though. It could cause a problem for events that only have the venue for a certain amount of time and then have to be out. Notice how everyone was being hurried to leave the auditorium at US Nats after the results were announced and trophies handed out.

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Just restoring the video would be fine. This is not the first time this has happened and will probably not be the last.
Polo won AP by a margin of 0.2 last year. Shion missed podium by 0.06 at worlds last year as well.

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Exactly what I was thinking. This just puts more controversy on the judging. Unfortunately judging has a small amount of human error and we just have to deal with it. What about baseball even? Strikes vs balls are determined by the umpire entirely. Yoyo is even more subjective. I’d keep it how it is. Any modifications to the scoring system should be specific and able to be done in real time. I wonder what current yoyo judges think?

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Video replay for subjective decisions is bad.

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I agree that video replay isn’t the best solution, but if some other criteria was added that may be difficult to score in real time it could help as a tie breaker.

As far as subjectivity the entire scoring system is subjective, it has to be with this type of competition. I’m sure as a judge there has to be times when a click is missed because so much is going on so fast. I feel there is a way (not necessarily the way I suggested) that video replay could be utilized in breaking these “virtual ties” that happen.

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Actually giving it some more thought I think (when the above criteria of 1.0 or 1.5 between first and second is met) simply have the judges rewatch and score the performances on video. They could do it individually and have the option to pause after a complicated sequence allowing them to digest and decide how many clicks it’s worth. This seems simple and seems it would insure the subjectivity of scoring is at least not failing due to scoring in real time.

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Ok fair enough. I feel you on the “predetermined format” part. I guess I find the format of competitive yoyoing too restrictive, as based on the outcome of high scores awarded to lots of repetitive freestyles that don’t hold my interest.

That said, where I’m coming from with the music analogy is that competition can drive creativity under the right conditions (umm…classic example… Van Gogh and Gauguin). But, as above, if the format is too limiting then creativity can be stifled.

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Yuki is my champion as well…

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Yeah I think @ColinBecko is a big fan of the “learn to click” (score) philosophy to appreciate the difficulty in both dimensions, as judge / audience and as competitor.

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Yeah, the Scales Nats and AP mock judging was my first experience with this.

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We tried a lot of new stuff this year, and as a result we made a LOT of running changes to things during the event to tweak and improve. Was a little stressful, but I feel like we overall made the best of everything.

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The judging system changes constantly. We are always discussing it and looking for ways to improve it, while also talking to competitors and fans to better understand what the community whats to reward and how the play styles and attitudes are changing.

People talk a lot about the judging system as though it’s the unyielding monolith that’s blocking innovation when the reality is that it was designed to score players based on what the community felt was the most accurate way to quantify yoyo player, and since those attitudes are always changing the scoring system is constantly trying to adapt to meet new wants and expectations.

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This. A lot of people say that we should “blame the system” for picking the wrong winner. But honestly, the system is pretty accurate. The people that place highest in contests really are the best players in the world. Every champion truly deserves the win, even if some people complain that they don’t. I like the way comps work, it’s understandable and comprehensive.

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I think this would be a good idea if there was 1/a few judges. If I recall there were twelve people behind the table during 1a finals. Even though the score was remarkably close, the result among 12 judges was that Gentry slightly edged Evan.

But not all of those are clicking
Suppose Asia Pacific has 10 judges, 5 of which are clicking, and 5 of which are doing evals.
If one judge changes one eval by one point, the score changes by 0.2, which is the same as the difference between Hirotaka and Polo’s scores at AP last year.