About the Helper App

Who it’s for

Competition barbecue is not only the teams at the sharp end of the Master board, so neither is this. There is a section here for every part of the sport:

• Judges — what one point on your card is actually worth to a cook, measured in places rather than in points, plus every certified judge class coming up and where the tables are this season.
• Backyard cooks — the Backyard series scores out of 360 and can never share a board with a Master total, so it has its own records, its own champions and its own Team of the Year.
• Rookies and anyone who has never cooked one — what a first season actually looks like, drawn from every team that has ever had one.
• Organizers — a health card for your contest, the teams who used to come and stopped, and a check on who else has taken the weekend you are eyeing.
• Everyone, every weekend — what is on now, what just landed, and a calendar you can subscribe to.

Where the data comes from

Everything here is drawn from the public event listings, results and Team of the Year standings published at kcbs.us. Every event page links back to its official results. Nothing is entered by hand — the app refreshes every night, most recently on Oct 3, 2026.

This tool is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Kansas City Barbeque Society. It's a community project made by a fellow KCBS cook. If you're with KCBS and have any concerns, get in touch.

How the numbers are figured

• Scores are the final weighted category totals KCBS publishes (a perfect category is 180; a full four-meat overall is out of 720). Per-criterion appearance/taste/tenderness marks aren't in the public feed.
• Power rankings use an Elo rating: every team starts at 1500, and after each contest ratings shift based on who finished ahead of whom — beating a higher-rated team is worth more, and the swing is spread across the size of the field. Teams need five scored contests to be ranked. It's a descriptive, for-fun measure, not an official KCBS standing.
• Ties — when the top two teams finish on identical points, the Grand Championship is settled by the KCBS tiebreaker; those show up here as a tie, not a margin.
• Road miles, streaks, series, and search are recomputed nightly from the full results history.

Your data stays yours

There's no public data export, API or download — the map distance filter and everything interactive runs in your browser. Pages are built to print cleanly (look for the 🖨 button) if you want a paper copy of a team sheet or contest recap.