USA Boxing Release: AIBA's New Electronic Scoring System

[Slythex]

This was posted today on the USA Boxing website regarding the new electronic scoring system:

To: USA Boxing Membership

From: Angel Villarreal, Officials Task Force Chairman
John Santore, Officials Task Force Technical Advisor

Date: February 22, 2011

Subject: New Computerized Scoring System Software Update

USAB Membership, After a couple years of testing, AIBA recently voted to change the scoring methodology used by the computer scoring system. USAB and all other national federations will be receiving the required software update for their existing ESS systems. We wanted to make our membership aware of the information we have received from AIBA regarding the new changes to the scoring system.

USAB expects to have the software updates in March 2011, at which time we will engage in a thorough testing. The new scoring will be in place for the 2011 USA Boxing National Championships, scheduled for June 19-26, in Colorado Springs, CO. While these changes are covered in more depth within the AIBA documentation, here is a summary of the changes to the scoring system:

• Eliminate the one second window for judges to respond to a blow, instead replacing this by using each judges' individual score
• Eliminate the 'accepted' score for judges, instead calculating an average score based on the three most similar scores by individual judges. This average is calculated independently for each boxer (i.e. the three most similar individual scores for the red corner may not be the same three used for the blue corner)
• In the event that there are multiple similar scores, the system will trim these scores by dropping the highest and lowest, and taking the average of the remaining three judge scores
• Ties will be resolved by a simple polling of the judges.
• Eliminate computerized judge evaluations
• Eliminate the real time running score of the bout. Scores will be posted at the end of each round only.
• Warnings will not be included in the averaging of judge scores, but added on to the similar/trimmed average at the end.

Below is an illustrated example of how the system looks (the attachment elaborates in more detail): Consider this score after round 1:

Code: Select all

       Judge 1           Judge 2            Judge 3            Judge 4            Judge 5
     R       B          R       B          R       B          R       B          R       B
     5       2          5       2          3       4          6       6          8       6

For the red boxer, we have scores of 5, 5, 3, 6, and 8. Looking at every combination, we see that the scores of 5, 5 and 6 are the most similar. So we would take the average of these which would yield a Similar Average of 5 for the red corner.

For the blue boxer, we have scores of 2, 2, 4, 6, and 6. Since the groupings of 2, 2, 4 and 4, 6, 6 are both equally similar, we instead use the Trimmed Average. This drops the highest and lowest (2 and 6 respectively), leaving us with scores of 2, 4, and 6 to be averaged. This yields a Trimmed Average of 4 for the blue corner.

Therefore, after the first round, the score would be Red 5, Blue 4.

We are providing you with the same documentation we've received from AIBA. We still have a few scenarios we would like to test with the new system and we're hoping to address any questions when we finally have the software in our hands. We also welcome any input, so if there is something specific you'd like us to check, let us know and we'll run through your scenario.

If you have any questions after reading the supplied documentation, feel free to contact by email any of the following people.

John Santore at [email protected]
ESS Technical Advisor

Angel Villarreal at [email protected]
USAB National COO

Nicki Smeland at [email protected]
USAB Event Coordinator and ESS Staff Point of Contact

References:
USAB: AIBA's New Electronic Scoring System
AIBA: Presentation for New Scoring System

[Slythex]

Some additional comments from me (John Santore on the USAB ESS committee).

• Unless they've received it in the last day or so, I don't believe that USAB has yet received the software update from AIBA/Swiss Timing. And yes, we have been talking with Swiss Timing about this.
• I know that there are occasional criticisms about USAB not being transparent with information. I can state definitively from personal knowledge that we are sharing everything we know about this system with membership. See the attached AIBA documentation in the post above. You now know everything that we know.
• I will be glad to try and answer any questions you may have with the understanding that I don't have any more information than is listed in the AIBA documentation. This means that my responses will be my interpretation (nothing more, nothing less) of their documentation and may differ from yours. That's ok, and in fact, is a good thing, because it will provide us with specific test scenarios to run once we have the software in hand.

My gut instinct is that this is a drastic improvement. I know a lot of people (myself included, believe it or not) didn't care for the old system as it encouraged running, limited the practical effect of combinations and a host of other 'game the system' quirks. I think this similar score/trimmed score averaging approach will be more natural and yield better results. At least I hope so.

[Dennis]

It is a big improvement. The fans will also like it better than the old system. Fans did not like watching punches land throughout the round and yet have a 0-0 score at the end of the round (boxers and coaches didn't like that either).

The scores will be higher which will improve the sport. Warnings will have less of an impact with higher scores which is also a good thing.

[coachingGOLD]