**Judging**

Unless you are an award-winning competitor, do not score down because you "can do better than that at home."

My experience at my 1st contest was that everything was awesome and I probably gave high scores. These cooks are amazing but overtime you will start to figure out the subtle differences between a "9" and a "7". Just judge each meat as it's presented. Take enough of a sample to judge an entry fairly but be careful not to "overindulge" in the early catagories or you might so full that pork and brisket don't get your full attention. Enjoy the experience and I guarantee that you will meet some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

Lot's of good things being mentioned in this thread. It is very difficult to leave your personal tastes out of the judging. As mentioned people like different things. Some like vinegar or mustard based sauces, some don't, so how do we judge things we don't like. It was mentioned, balance. Does the everything that went into that piece of BBQ on your judging sheet balance. Does the sauce over power the meat? Does the rub over power it. Or does it meld with the meat and make everything work together? When ever I get something that is not with the "normal" flavor profile, I try to work out if the new rub or sauce enhance the BBQ meat to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. As for scoring it's right there on the card 9=Excellent (NOT PERFECT as some has pointed out) 8=Very Good, 7=Above Average, 6=Average, 5=Below Average, 4=Poor, 3=Bad, 2=Inedible. Just as you should not be afraid to give 9's, don't be afraid to give 6's or lower. But, let the team know why you gave them a low score. If judges give everything nothing lower than a 7's then we are being dishonest as well. I have had contests where I was amazed at the outstanding BBQ entries I was allowed to judge. I have also had contests where most of the entries were less stellar as well. It is the luck of the draw. But most important be have an open mind when you judge the entries.

Smoke'n Ice said:

With the new score program, comment cards can not be tracked so therefore, they are going away. Not something that I would have done but, computer programmers are limited in their ability, especially the ones that KCBS contracted.

This will be in place by mid-July.

Takes a load off of the judges as they will not have to be able to read and write. (this was meant sarcastically (sp))

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That is bulls##t and laziness, it should not be much of a deal to program in functionality for someone to put notes in with a given score.

TailGateJoecom said:

That is bulls##t and laziness, it should not be much of a deal to program in functionality for someone to put notes in with a given score.

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Personally, I'd like to see KCBS go to where every judge was required to provide comments on EVERY score. This way the cooks know exactly what the judge was thinking and would make the judge truly think about what they were giving.
Would this slow down the process, YES, but it would be better for both the cooks and judges. Most likely the turn in times would have to be an hour apart, but that would also help the teams, judges, REPs, and organizer.

Just an idea. Other organizations do it this way very successfully.

TailGateJoecom said:

That is bulls##t and laziness, it should not be much of a deal to program in functionality for someone to put notes in with a given score.

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That is what I thought too. Could it be that they are going to use handhelds that do not have a keyboard?

Dauvis said:

That is what I thought too. Could it be that they are going to use handhelds that do not have a keyboard?

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No, the reasoning is the computer is so blind that trying to marry comment cards to the final printout would be hard for the rep to do. I do believe that this is BS but that is why they be history. I know that some people oppose this but, standing up to ML, who is and has been against the comments cards, is a battle that most BM's won't, can't. ba;;'s, to try.

Smoke'n Ice said:

No, the reasoning is the computer is so blind that trying to marry comment cards to the final printout would be hard for the rep to do. I do believe that this is BS but that is why they be history. I know that some people oppose this but, standing up to ML, who is and has been against the comments cards, is a battle that most BM's won't, can't. ba;;'s, to try.

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I don't understand that. The scores have to get linked to the team, how can comments not be linked up as well.

I have dealt with good devs and bad devs in my time, the good ones can figure out a way to get something done that I require, the bad ones find reasons why it can't or shouldn't be done because they don't know how to do it. I can't imagine this scoring system is sooooo advanced that it supposedly took over 2 years to develop, that would be the first red flag to me.