Arizona Five

On Shady Mtn we did a test run of Arizona Five and found that it is works well using the CFDA scoring program.  It has two big advantages, one, there is no down time between rounds and two, you get to shoot against twice as many shooters.

I am going to lobby hard to use it this summer at our practice shoots.  Our problem is having a large number of shooters in 115* heat. Arizona Five will help getting more rounds in.

The format:  Arizona Five is a five shot option.  You shoot five shots with the shooter hitting the most shots getting the win. If the shooters are tied 2-2, both shooters get a win because both shooters are shooting good enough to win, hitting between 40-80% and winning at least 2 shots each. If it is tied 0-0 or 1-1, after five shots both shooters get a X because both shooters are shooting less than 20% and deserve an X.  Ties in time are re-shot. After five shots round one is complete for those six shooters.

The Shuffle: Upon the completion round one for those 6 shooters, the shooter on lane one moves to lane 6 and all other shooters move one lane to the left.  Must move to the left to make score sheet work. Hand judges stay where they are, since they are the next round one shooters.  You then shoot round two for those 6 shooters.  Each shooter has a new opponent.

Scorekeeping:  When setting up the match you tell the CFDA program to print only six shooters per sheet. (Or the number of lanes you have.)  The first five boxes are used to score round one, boxes 6 & 7 record W/Xs and fastest time for round one, box  8 is lane assignments for round two, that leaves 6 boxes for scores of round two.  Shooter on lane one is first shooter on the sheet and then you move him to the bottom row for scoring round two.  It can be confusing and it helps to draw dark lines between the round two matches so it is clear who is shooting  who.  On the line there is no problem because targets are scored against your opponent.

While round two is being shot, scores of round one can be entered.  ONLY round one!  When the last round one match is complete those last six shooters are entered.  The computer then draws what it thinks is round two.  You can use that draw for round 3 and 4.  You must enter a round completely then have the computer draw the next round before entering the next round scores.

Downtime  On our test run, we used two draws to shoot four rounds, but the computer drew four rounds.  We did not use two of the draws.  WARNING:  The x count listed on the draws may not accurate if you are using an earlier draw to shoot a round but you can run standings report after completion of entering a round that will have the correct x count.  If you want an accurate x count on the draws you would have to wait until the scores of the second round shot on a scoresheet are entered, but then you would have downtime while those scores are entered.

In our test run, we did wait and used draw three for rounds three and four so we did have some downtime.  But we could have used draw 2 for rounds 3 & 4 and there would not have been any downtime.  Draw 2 having been made before the completion of rounds 1  & 2.

Scorekeeping can confusing but it is not hard once you get used to the format and you "follow the form,  See score sheet for rounds 1&2 from test.

This test was actually much more confusing because we shot it on two lanes using a 6 lane score sheet.  Shooter one had to wait several matches  to shoot his/her second round.

Application to Events:  I would only recommend Arizona Five for events where you are shooting a No X event for seeding.  Shooters are not going to accept elimination based on ties.  But you have to consider that most main matches are really nothing more that seeding matches.  It is how we get to the top gunslingers on a particular day, whether it is Last Man Standing, Magnificent or Bracket shoots.

At Winter Range, Shady Mike reached a #2 seed, shooting against only 5% of the 79 shooter field.  If he had shot against more shooters it probably would not made any difference the way he was shooting.  I  shot against him all week and I was hitting 80% at 4 flat and finished 1-6 against him in marble matches.   He was just on and no one there could compete against him.  But that is not the normal event. Normally the more opponents you shoot against,  the more accurate the seedings will be.  If we had shot Arizona Five, each shooter would have had 8 opponents or 10% of the field.

At our club shoots with say 40 shooters, should be able to get in 10 rounds of Arizona Five in summertime, and each shooter will have shot against 10 opponents or 25% of the field.  So with a 1x magnificent shoot-off each shooter would get 11 matches.  With our current format we are lucky to get 4 or 5 matches with a 40 shooter turnout in the summertime.

The only challenge is training the scorekeepers and computer operators.  After we are done with Four Corners, I am suggesting we shoot this for 12 shooters every Sunday.  If you want to come shoot on Shady Mtn, you got to learn how to score Arizona Five. Vic pick it up great Saturday  That way we will have at least 12 trained scorekeepers for the summertime.

I am still trying to find people who want to learn how to announce and score a Magnificent 2 x shoot on two lanes instead of on 6 lanes.  Seems to me to be terrible waste of lanes to use only one half of your facilities, guess it it more fun to shoot in the dark than to get done by sundown (insider neddle).