Why is there a 100 point rating scale for cigars?

[Çnote]

On 3/24/2021 at 5:07 PM, mprach024 said:

Lol depends on what week it is

I'll just be deeply offended so we can make up and be great chums.

[mprach024]

5 hours ago, Çnote said:

I'll just be deeply offended so we can make up and be great chums.

[NSXCIGAR]

On 3/24/2021 at 2:15 PM, Çnote said:

Google this, I'm pretty sure there's a thread here as well. There's also harvest vs box dates, hello rabbitholes...

Every cigar necessarily comprises tobacco from at least 3 years' harvests. Volado, seco and ligero all require different processing times. And it doesn't necessarily come from the last 3 consecutive harvests (a harvest could be bad for a particular leaf and need to be skipped).

[PuroDiario]

On 3/18/2021 at 4:31 PM, IanMcLean68 said:

Saying that because we generally only use the numbers say 80-100 in a 100 point scale means that it is equivalent to a 20 point scale is a bit misleading. Looking at it from a purely mathematical standpoint, it is not. 18/20 is equivalent to 90/100. 19/20 is equivalent to 95/100. There is an additional resolution of 4 points in-between to differentiate quality that are lacking in a 0-20 point scale unless you use decimals.

However, I have to ponder on what a lot of people here are really saying. Do we really need that extra resolution for scoring a cigar, at the cost of having a mostly redundant lower end of the scale? After all, if a cigar is an un-smokable dog rocket, who really cares if it is given a rating of 20, 50 or even 70 points?

To me an ideal, but maybe impractical scoring system would be to place the cigar somewhere on an asymptotic curve. One that rises steeply from dog-rocket to smokable, then flattens out at the top to give the resolution required at the higher end of the scale. The other advantage of this scale is that, by definition, it never actually gets to 100% perfection, which always leaves room for something better! This would probably be closer to how we rate cigars in reality, and in fact how we kind of do it already with the imperfect 0-100 point scale currently used.

Interesting. I think you are referring to a sigmoid (S) curve more than asymptotic (S, has a max / saturation point) which is derived from a normal distribution and is mathematically probably the best way to score cigars, and many more really. The only problem that we have is that cigar rating is subjective and not sure we were able to define the standard deviations off the mean that make a cigar unforgettable vs excellent vs bad vs terrible. And what a standard deviation, or the mean itself looks like. So an A+, A,...D...would work great and I can see saying something was a B+ less arbitrary than saying a cigar was an 88. At the end of the day, we would still only be seeing ~2.1% of Fs and ~2.1% of As. 

Maybe this is the system the half wheel guys use for Cubans after all and that’s why they basically rate all as average performers (mathematically ~68% of cigars) jajaja 🤪 

[Çnote]

1 hour ago, PuroDiario said:

Maybe this is the system the half wheel guys use for Cubans after all and that’s why they basically rate all as average performers (mathematically ~68% of cigars) jajaja 🤪 

While I know this is meant somewhat in jest, the HW guys don't rate Cubans the way 'we' smoke them. They only rate the newest from HSA as they are able to source them. If you read the annual updates to their math, it looks alot like what we've covered here.

[NSXCIGAR]

14 minutes ago, Çnote said:

the HW guys don't rate Cubans the way 'we' smoke them.

They sure don't. It's been years since I've seen them rate a CC higher than 93. I smoke several 93s a week. And I'm a hard grader.

[PuroDiario]

6 hours ago, Çnote said:

While I know this is meant somewhat in jest, the HW guys don't rate Cubans the way 'we' smoke them. They only rate the newest from HSA as they are able to source them. If you read the annual updates to their math, it looks alot like what we've covered here.

Not in jest, just find their whole scoring thing “misleadingly” accurate. I am saying that mathematically it is sound that most of their reviews rate the cigars they smoke as “average”; it’s just logical that cigar scores would follow a Gaussian distribution (not necessarily I am saying this is on purpose, but the important thing is they are there).

 

Their bias however is that the average Cuban cigar, smokes better than the average non Cuban (maybe this is my, and many others’ bias here). Hence the average for their distribution of scores should be different for NC than CC and you should see higher average performance scores for the latter....etc. 

In the picture the horizontal axis would be the scores and the vertical the number of cigars sampled. The dotted distribution would be Cubans with an average performance higher than NC following my example (maybe we are biased). If using one single bell curve (an absolute mean point for all cigars), then Cubans surely should be performing consistently towards the ~16% of great and outstanding performance and that would make me question again their scores.
 

 

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[gojira]

So that NC companies can pay certain cigar magazines to get a high rating? 😝