FOH International Blind Tasting Update

[El Presidente]

All parcels left last week. .....well done team 

Just a reminder 

 

This year is a little different in that three of the five cigars are aged. 

Aged means 5 years + and you will be given a bonus half point by naming the cigar correclty + the fact it is one of the three aged cigars. 😉

The Rules

First of all thanks to Di and Lisa. Keep in mind with some 60 + participants, communication and rebanding cigars (numbered 1-5) is a time consuming process.

There will be Five cigars picked by myself . These are Standard Production Cigars (No Regional, Edicion Limitada or Specialty Cigars). I have picked the cigars. Again three of the five are aged 5 + years 

1. Cigars (all 5 are bandless and are numbered 1-5 in order they are to be smoked) will be sent the week of the 1^st of October. I will select cigars from same code and aroma/wrapper appearance as best I can.

2.  Cigars selected will be in current production.

The post smoking process

1. The competition commences November 15 by which time you will need to have smoked cigar number 1 and emailed your pick to Lisa ([email protected]).You will e-mail Lisa your nomination for that cigar by Sunday the 14th.  Now you can smoke all the cigars and email Lisa the results but we will be revealing cigars 1-5 over successive weeks. You get your picks in by the end of Sunday your time and we will post the results by the following Tuesday (time differences etal).

I will have a dedicated thread for 2021 FOH BLIND TASTING Cigar 1 pinned to the forum from November 1.  You are invited to provide a brief review and you can call the cigar then and there if you are confident enough. Good luck 😉


To the winner (who can correctly select most cigars sent) A $500 USD Gift voucher (AUD equivalent for locals). In the event of a tie, prize is split.

 

[Edicion]

Thanks Prez. I've received my pack. Huge thanks to the team at FOH. 

These are the cigars for everyone who couldn't attend this time and a picture of me trying to identify what they are.

Pretty much sums up how I think it's going to go. 

[Meklown]

4 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Aged means 5 years + and you will be given a bonus half point by naming the cigar correclty + the fact it is one of the three aged cigars. 😉

 

to clarify, would it mean that I should indicate something like:

cigar 1: monte 4 (aged)
cigar 2: BPC
cigar 3: BBF (aged)
... etc?

[El Presidente]

3 hours ago, Meklown said:

to clarify, would it mean that I should indicate something like:

cigar 1: monte 4 (aged)
cigar 2: BPC
cigar 3: BBF (aged)
... etc?

Works for me 

[Cigar Surgeon]

I am eager to follow this years escapades! 

[RichG]

Is it acceptable to measure, weigh, etc. Or is the idea to yield an opinion from smoking alone?

[El Presidente]

4 minutes ago, RichG-LI-NY said:

Is it acceptable to measure, weigh, etc. Or is the idea to yield an opinion from smoking alone?

.......you can sacrifice a chicken for all I care  

[RichG]

1 minute ago, El Presidente said:

.......you can sacrifice a chicken for all I care  

Sacrificial chicken may yield a snowballs chance in hell!

[Chas.Alpha]

34 minutes ago, RichG-LI-NY said:

Sacrificial chicken may yield a snowballs chance in hell!

I’ve got a better chance sacrificing a chicken than betting on the Vikings! 👿

 

Natural instinct: Beautiful sticks, must save for a special occasion. My 1st order from C Czar was the 2019 Christmas sampler and I have 9 of those left. Of course, a $500 gift card pits my instincts against the compulsive need for competition. I anxiously await my package... 😳

[MigsG]

On 10/5/2021 at 1:22 AM, Edicion said:

Thanks Prez. I've received my pack. Huge thanks to the team at FOH. 

These are the cigars for everyone who couldn't attend this time and a picture of me trying to identify what they are.

Pretty much sums up how I think it's going to go. 

You got yours fast! They look great.

[Bijan]

Got my blind sampler.

1 and 2 are boxed pressed and look like PCs so that excludes Siglo II and PLPC.

3 is box pressed but that doesn't help at all (all Campanas are available in dress boxes since BBF comes in both types of packaging).

And 4 looks not box pressed but that doesn't help much either (as the Robustos that come in dress boxes are also available in tubos and Rob could be sneaky).

Not sure if 5 is box pressed. If it is can be any of the 5 piramides. If it is not it's either a Monte 2 from carton pack or P2 from tubo.

[MrBirdman]

Mine hasn’t even hit our shores 😞 Still time. 

[Ken Gargett]

okay, i know i am going to get crap for this from the powers that be (well, you dumped me in this comp - i always avoid it so my complete lack of knowledge will not be exposed. you will now be doing vids with the bloke who got zero out of five).

so, contestants are invited to include a review. however, can you confirm that this does not increase or decrease the score you receive for that cigar. 

five cigars. you get a point for each one you pick. simple as that. so someone might be the only person with four out of five and so they will win. two people get four, split the hooter. 

however, extra half points can be achieved by picking whether or not a cigar is aged. so joe bloggs might only pick three of the five, but if he also picks three aged cigars, he gets an extra 1-1/2 points and is our winner with 4-1/2. what if he gets two aged right and three picked right so a total of four - hence is level with those who picked four. is there any countback to determine deadlocks or does it simply not matter how you got there? 

what happens if someone gets the cigar wrong but guesses correctly that it is aged? does he still get his half point?  

now comes the bit (i swear that i did not set out to be difficult and perhaps my brain works differently to sane people but this seems blindingly obvious to me). 3 are aged. if you nominate a cigar as aged, you get an extra half point. but if you nominate a young cigar as aged, you do not lose anything. so why on earth (and i am doing this now, so by my calculations, i am already at 1-1/2 points, woohoo) would i not nominate every cigar as aged? i will be right three times and will not lose anything for the two i got wrong. and if you are planning to rule this out, you'll need to check every entry from every contestant to ensure they have only used 'aged' three times. a lot of work. 

and before the inevitable castigation, may i point out that i could easily have kept quiet and just pocketed the 1-1/2 points. 

[Bijan]

6 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

so why on earth (and i am doing this now, so by my calculations, i am already at 1-1/2 points, woohoo) would i not nominate every cigar as aged?

The logical solution would be a rule that you can only guess/nominate 3 cigars as aged (assuming it was stated that there are 3 out of 5 cigars that are aged).

I personally would prefer the option to wait until the end to guess which cigar is aged or not, but don't expect that to be allowed.

[Fuzz]

Actually not that hard to track if you spreadsheet all the guesses. As soon as someone has used up their three "aged" guesses, the spreadsheet can flag that user as having no more chances, so you don't count any future aged guesses.

[Ken Gargett]

Just now, Bijan said:

The logical solution would be a rule that you can only guess/nominate 3 cigars as aged (assuming it was stated that there are 3 out of 5 cigars that are aged).

I personally would prefer the option to wait until the end to guess which cigar is aged or not, but don't expect that to be allowed.

bijan, i would agree that is logical, but with the greatest respect to our betters, that is not what they have stated. say this was for something more serious and the issue was taken to court, i find it hard to believe that any literal reading of the rules as set out would not result in me being awarded my 1-1/2 points. the court won't be looking at what might have been in our betters' minds when concocting the rules. they will be looking at what is down on paper.

i was not seeking to cause any trouble for the powers that be with my observations, i simply thought the issue should be resolved now before there is 'unpleasantness'. 

 

and while they are at it, please define 'aged'. 

[RichG]

On 10/5/2021 at 12:11 AM, El Presidente said:

you will be given a bonus half point by naming the cigar correclty + the fact it is one of the three aged cigars

The way I read this (due to the + sign), I presumed you needed to guess the cigar correctly to qualify for the “aged” 0.5 point. Is that not correct?

[Ken Gargett]

1 hour ago, Fuzz said:

Actually not that hard to track if you spreadsheet all the guesses. As soon as someone has used up their three "aged" guesses, the spreadsheet can flag that user as having no more chances, so you don't count any future aged guesses.

fuzz, that makes sense. 

moving then from the literal interpretation to the practical application, in that case, you really need to smoke them all before submitting any answers. you don't want to have used your three 'aged' guesses (or not used your three 'aged' guesses) and then the last cigar is obviously 'aged' and you are stuck with it being not 'aged' (or the reverse). 

this, however, leads to another problem that our beloved betters may not have considered. they are revealing the answers one week at a time. i assume that this includes whether or not the cigar is aged or not, as they have not suggested the contrary (i am assuming that by this stage, we will have been provided with a satisfactory definition of 'aged'). well, each time that happens, it makes it much easier for the next guess and by cigar 5, we will already know if it is aged or not. to clarify, say cigar 1 is not aged. we now know there are three aged in the remaining four cigars. by the time cigar four (and possibly earlier depending what they are) is revealed, we will know whether cigar five is aged or not. so if say if after four cigars, we have two aged and two not aged, then 5 must be aged. if by four, we have three aged and one not aged then 5 must not be aged. there are no other options. 

 

57 minutes ago, RichG-LI-NY said:

The way I read this (due to the + sign), I presumed you needed to guess the cigar correctly to qualify for the “aged” 0.5 point. Is that not correct?

no idea. was not clear. you'll have to ask our betters. 

[El Presidente]

20 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

okay, i know i am going to get crap for this from the powers that be (well, you dumped me in this comp - i always avoid it so my complete lack of knowledge will not be exposed. you will now be doing vids with the bloke who got zero out of five).

 

... I only sent you the cigars as a freebie so that you could follow the comp along.....not actualy participate. I explained this to you at last weeks vid review. 

 

This is why you have no friends 

 

[Ken Gargett]

Just now, El Presidente said:

This is why you have no friends 

 

but i do have a lot of fun! 

i am sorry i did not pick that up at the vid. i do try and listen but it is not always that easy.

and even if i am not a participant, the legitimate issues i have raised still apply. 

[Bijan]

12 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

moving then from the literal interpretation to the practical application, in that case, you really need to smoke them all before submitting any answers. you don't want to have used your three 'aged' guesses (or not used your three 'aged' guesses) and then the last cigar is obviously 'aged' and you are stuck with it being not 'aged' (or the reverse). 

This is why I would like to submit the aged guesses separately at the end. Otherwise yes you have to smoke all cigars at the beginning.

12 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

this, however, leads to another problem that our beloved betters may not have considered. they are revealing the answers one week at a time. i assume that this includes whether or not the cigar is aged or not, as they have not suggested the contrary

I assumed we wouldn't know the aged status until the end.

13 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

(i am assuming that by this stage, we will have been provided with a satisfactory definition of 'aged')

I believe the definition was 5 years or more.

[Ken Gargett]

1 minute ago, Bijan said:

 

I believe the definition was 5 years or more.

correct. my apologies for that. 

[Edicion]

26 minutes ago, Bijan said:

This is why I would like to submit the aged guesses separately at the end. Otherwise yes you have to smoke all cigars at the beginning.

I assumed we wouldn't know the aged status until the end.

I believe the definition was 5 years or more.

I agree with this.

Would it make sense to have one competition deciding which cigar it is (A) , and (B) deciding which ones are aged. Separate deadlines for each. 

So submit the cigars weekly, and with the fifth email coming in, add which ones were aged. Not much more work for the team as they used a spreadsheet previously. They would just need to add the aged comment retroactively. 

Hope my explanation makes sense! 

[Chas.Alpha]

...

[Ken Gargett]

i think everyone should send rob their version of the rules as they would like to see them. we could also have a competition for best rules!