PPS Scoring Modifications for Spring 2012

Hi everybody. I have been reviewing the PPS scoring system following last season’s successful trial, and I am making two modifications and adding one further facility. I attach a rather lengthy document giving more background to the changes, but the main points are given below.

Modification 1: Operate two separate divisions, one for established Seniors (6+ scores), and one for Senior Improvers and Juniors.

It seems to be impractical and somewhat illogical to attempt to compare results of established Senior competitors, whose performance is naturally slightly declining each year, against Improvers and Juniors, whose performance is increasing rapidly. It will be better to keep them separate. Competitors will therefore be allocated to a specific Division, as follows:

Seniors Division: Seniors who have six current ranking scores at the start of the Season

Improvers Division: Seniors with 3-5 current ranking scores at the start of the Season, and all Juniors.

Competitors will only change Division at the start of Season. Members who reach 3 ranking scores during the season will automatically join Improvers from their fourth ranking event onwards. The scoring system for Improvers will remain as at present. Each Division will have Separate HOT Rod Awards and League results.  The Performance Cup will remain as a single club-wide competition.

Modification 2: Classify competitors within the Seniors Division as Category A (very consistent) or Category B (less consistent), with modified scoring for Category B.

Category A will be competitors whose six scores are within a range of 10%. (Highest score/Lowest score < 1.1). They will be scored as at present.

Category B will be all other competitors. They will be scored as at present up to 100%, and receive 10% of any score over 100%. Thus a score of 116.4% will be adjusted to 100 + ( 10% of 16.4) = 101.6%.

The thinking here is that Cat A competitors are very unlikely to exceed 102%, whereas Cat B competitors could reach as high as 120%. ‘Top-slicing’ the Cat B high scores brings them back to the same likely maximum as for Cat A. Note that this top-slicing only kicks in once 100% has been reached. This change would not have altered the results of the Club Championship, but the winner would have been awarded 102.1% rather than 121.2%.  This arrangement seems more balanced and competitive for all competitors. (I suspect top-slicing may quickly become known as the ‘bandit tax’, which perhaps is fairly accurate!). 

Improvers who move into the Seniors division will automatically be put in Category B for one Season, even if their initial scores have been highly consistent. This is to give more time and more results to establish their longer-term consistency.

Modification 3: Members with 0-2 ranking scores will be included in PPS results, but will not qualify for Awards or League and Cup competitions.

We already include newer competitors with less than 3 counting events within the PPS Workbook, but without a PPS score. Their results will now be shown against a yardstick ranking, but not included in Awards or Competitions until they achieve 3 event scores and then automatically become Improvers. These competitors do not have sufficient ranking runs to provide a meaningful yardstick of performance. A simple way of providing scoring for them is to specify a fixed target ranking point score, and measure their PPS score against that. The proposed yardstick will be 70% of the highest UK ranking score in their age group. At the moment, we have some newer members with initial scores close to these levels. The yardstick will be rounded for simplicity.

This provides a mechanism to give early entry and visibility of performance of new Seniors and Juniors. The yardstick will not change over their first three events, so it will give artificial scores, but this should not matter, as they are not used for Awards. It is the relative improvement that can be seen. Administratively, this should not be a major overhead, providing a fixed yardstick is used. In a way, it is quite nice to put in the effort to help newcomers become established within the club performance system.

Summary

With the limited yet significant changes suggested above, I believe the PPS system will show more consistent results and be fairer, and as a result will maintain credibility with all competitors. We can now begin to see how we can establish a performance pyramid for all members. Hopefully people will feel motivated to challenge themselves to move on through the categories as their skills develop. The key is that the categories are measures of consistency, not of absolute performance.

I wish you all an enjoyable and successful Spring season!