Is Gurim favored in Zimriyah? Part 1

When it comes to Zimriyah, is it fair for every other aydah to match up with Gurim? There is no question that Gurim is at a significant disadvantage because of the age difference, and yet most years they do quite well in terms of rankings. How is this possible, and is it true that they might be given a leg up?

When people ask these types of questions, often times there is no factual basis for the answers that are given. People say it all the time, but how can we tell if Gurim is in fact favored? Is there proof besides either looking at individual years, or just going by a gut feeling?  Back in 2007, right after Gurim almost won Zimriyah, I was in the old roshes room having a heated debate with Seth Pertain about the validity of their near victory. My argument was that Gurim was good, but not great, nothing compared to how Maalot or even the third place Kerem performed. I said that Gurim is held to a different standard, and frankly it isn’t fair for the rest of the adyot that they are allowed to compete. His response was that I was a) a sore loser and b) they deserved second place. I couldn’t argue without actual statistical proof, so I gave up. However, now three years later, I have decided to actually look at the numbers and see how the adyot have performed each year over the past ten years. In order to do a proper analysis, I gave 6 points for first place, 5 for second, 4 for third, 2 points if the aydah didn’t place and I subtracted .5 if an aydah tied[1]:

Gurim	30.5
Kfirim	29
Arayot	26.5
Leviim	40
Maalot	42.5
Kerem	41.5

When I did this the first time, one thing clearly jumped out. Leviim through Kerem all perform about equally, and Gurim through Arayot perform about 10 to 12 points worse. Gurim, in fact, does better than Kfirim and does quite better than Arayot. However, I was not done looking at the data. I also counted how many times each aydah placed in the top three:

Gurim	5
Kfirim	4
Arayot	2
Leviim	6
Maalot	7
Kerem	8

What does this tell us now? Gurim places 5 times which is more than Kfirim and Arayot, and almost as much as Leviim. Does this mean that Gurim is doing almost as well as Leviim? NO! Leviim has almost 10 more points than Gurim has!  Something fishy must be going on.

Before I throw my final set of numbers at you, I want to remind you that Gurim are the 8, 9 and 10 year olds. Their counselors stand in the back row of the bleachers in order to give the aydah some added sound. Their songs are simple; their hand motions are even more so, and there are never Harmonies or Solos unless it is in Shir Israeli so that the aydah does not have to learn all of the words. In short, how can an aydah like this perform and do better than Kfirim and Arayot?

To really drive this point home, I wanted to know the answer to a simple question. Given that an aydah placed, what can I say their average position is? In mathematical terms, I throw away the points assigned by default (anything 2 or below) and then I add up their score.  I then divide this number by the amount of times they have placed.  Given an aydah does well (top three), how well do they do?

Aydah	Places in Top 3	Total Points Given Top 3 finish	Average Place (6,5,4 scale)	Standard Deviations away from mean	Percentile
Gurim	5	21	4.20	-1.22	89
Kfirim	4	17.5	4.38	-0.90	82
Arayot	2	11	5.50	1.13	13
Leviim	6	32.5	5.42	0.98	16
Maalot	7	36.5	5.21	0.61	27
Kerem	8	37.5	4.69	-0.34	63
Average	5.33	26	4.88	0.00	50

What does this mean? The most important stat to look at is the Percentile category. This is an indication, as a relationship to other aydot, of how well they do given that they make the top three. The higher percentile, the worse one performs in this situation. What does that mean? I’m going  to use a football metaphor to explain.

Imagine that placing in Zimriyah is like the NFL playoffs, and the first place finisher is the Superbowl champion. If you make it to the playoffs (the top three) you either do well (Superbowl) or do poorly (lose in the first round). Now, in a lot of years there are teams that are mediocre, but make the playoffs because they come from a bad division.  In general, they end up losing pretty bad. If this were to happen over many seasons in a row, they would amass a very bad playoff record. You might look at the stats and say, wow this team is making it to the playoffs a lot, they must be good. Or you could realize they come from a bad division, and once there, they end up losing, because they are really not good in the first place. This is Gurim. They make the playoffs (Top 3) because they have a bad division (being favored) not because they are good at football (Zimriyah).

     Here’s another sports metaphor: Gurim is like a high school basketball team, Kfirim and Arayot are like College basketball teams and Leviim-Kerem are like an NBA teams. The judges think that the college team can compete against the NBA team. But guess what, they get crushed. However, because everyone knows how unfair it would be for a high school team to play an NBA team, the judges let the high school team start with 50 points. Even though the NBA team still wins, the competition appears a lot closer.

---

[1] It is a little more complicated than this. My rules are basically as follows: the total amount of points per Zimriyah is 21 (6,5,4,3,2,1).  In a normal Zimriyah, only the top three aydot are announced so the last three aydot have to be given 2 points each (to compensate for the last 6 points). However, in some years when there is a tie, essentially the point value for the four aydot are known, but everyone’s point total is adjusted based on 21 points. For example in 2009 when the order was A / Kf,K / M, the point total awarded was A=6, Kf and K = 4.5, M= 3, G and L = 1.5. This totals 21.