These simulator runs were designed to answer the question, Aren't discards better than promotions for finding the "best" boats?  The answer seems to be, It all depends...  and it all depends upon the character of the boat abilities in the fleet.  The following results all use the very sharp J discrepancy weighting method, where only the top boats have high weightings.

In summary, the more separated the abilities of the top boats, the clearer it is that discards don't matter as much as promotions.  It seems clear that four promotions will nicely separate the top boats from the also-rans, and the number of discards doesn't really matter.

As the abilities of the top boats get closer together, the more random the outcome, such that neither discards nor many promotions are able to reliably sort out the fleet.  That is unexpected...

©2024 Lester Gilbert