A new way to look at that one pesky tournament judging call...

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to be an arbitrator at the WTSDA Region 22 Championship.  While that experience itself may one day become a subject for a blog post, it is today merely the impetus for this one.

Once again, as it so often has in the past, a question arose on that one pesky call...

What do you do, when, as a center judge, you have the following situation:

One judge says Did Not See
One judge says No Point
One judge says Point - Blue
Two judges say Point - Red

The answer, as anyone who has been through the certification process now knows, is that one point is awarded to Red.  The confusion comes when people try to explain it.

Some look at it as different things canceling each other out.  So, if a No Point cancels out a point for Red, then it is down to one point for each color, and they cancel each other out, so there is no point right?  No, wait...the No point actually cancels out the Blue, so there are two points for Red, so it's a point for Red right?  No wait... one point for Red cancels out one point for Blue, then the No Point call cancels out the other point for Red, so there is no point, right?  No, wait, actually the one No Point cancels out one point for both sides, so there is then one point left for Red, so it's a point for Red, right?  And what about that Did Not See?  By today's rules, his vote doesn't count at all in this situation, and that makes it even harder for some people to understand.

We need to stop viewing this situation in terms of what vote cancels out what...instead lets look at each call for point as if it it were a political election.

In each election, we have three candidates running: Mr. Red, Mr. Blue, and Mr. NoPoint.  Mr. DidNotSee isn't a candidate.  He's a voter that didn't show up at the polls that day.   So, if we count the votes, we wind up it the following situation:

Mr. NoPoint received 1 vote.
Mr. Blue received 1 vote.
Mr. Red received 2 votes.

As I said previously, Mr, DidNot See didn't make it to the polls on time.  His vote doesn't count in the final tally.  So, who won the election?  When we look at it this way, it's actually fairly obvious that Mr. Red won.  Red receives the point.

This will actually work for almost every situation in sparring, except ties.  Mr. NoPoint always wins ties, even when no one votes for him ;).

Wait, what about Warnings?  That's a post for another day.

Kick. Punch. Easy Stuff.