Four Corners, Rule 17, and Resurrected Shooter!

The 2016 Four Corners shoot is in the book. Although Ruah did not show up Everett did and took copious mental notes.

The shoot ran well with few problems. Although Arizona Gunslingers were the primary host the Rio Salado Vaqueros pitched in with one range.  Many thanks to them and especially Muletrain and Southwest KC. The San Juan Shootists provided equipment, guidance and did the scoring with help from Miss Betty. Wench can run one of these in her sleep, many thanks! Our club was a little short on tear down labor, but those bandits from down south (Old Pueblo Gunfighters) helped get the club in a box back in the box in just a little over an hour.  It is amazing how help just seems to appear from out of the crowd, I am thinking of all the range officers, for example that cowboy from Idaho who is not only dangerous on the line but behind the mic

One of the great strengths of CFDA is how the folks all pitch in and get the job done but that is also one of the weaknesses.  It was humorous how the board had spend a lot of time discussing and making decisions on minor details and then when the workers went to work all that planning went out the window. You can't make water run uphill, all you can do is shrug your shoulders and go with the flow.

Ground Breaking Event:  Don't know how many noticed but we had the first ever Territorial Tenderfoot Championship with Lil' James taking Coyote Kid to three matches in a Magnificent Two. Also first time at a titled event that three Magnificent shoot-offs were held simultaneously on one range.  We were prepared for 15 shooters, would have had 8 except Dismal could not handle the heat after a week of flu. We had separate championships and awards for Billy the Kid, Anne Oakley and Tenderfoot.  We got a prep talk from the newest Annie Oakley before the first round was fired on how it was okay to lose as long as you were having fun.

The Resurrection: We did have a Second Chance Shoot, which is many times misnamed as a resurrection match. Top five there received "Almost Made It" bottles filled with wax so they could practice more.  Following CFDA rules the true resurrection occurred in the ladies' main match . After 11 rounds 6 were left with 5 having 3 Xs and 1 having 2 X s. Round Twelve ended with Southwest KC getting her 3rd X and Slow Poke and Holli Day being eliminated. That left only four for a Magnificent Five, so following the rules, Holli Day and Slow Poke squared off in a resurrection shoot off to get back into the match.  Slow Poke being the more accurate shot her way back into the fifth seed.

Slow Poke then proceeded to show that though she had been eliminated she was the best gunfighter there by gunning down the next four seeds in a row.  The world record holder, Honey Badger, fought back from the loser bracket and defeated Slow Poke in their second match of the Magnificent Five.  (Slow Poke had been lamenting that she had been 2-2 with Honey Badger in the main match only to have Honey Badger win the match setting a new world record, which Honey Badger did twice over the weekend.) The third match went to 2-2 before that ice in the veins gunslinger from Washington DC, Slow Poke, won with a accurate shot on the plate to Honey Badger blazing miss.

From facebook comments I learn that some of the credit should go to WOW who helped her get a stuck cleaning brush out of the barrel and the hand judge, Cowboy Up, for reminding Slow Poke to breathe. Slow Poke won best dressed ladies award and 50/50 raffle.  But all good fortune has to be paid for and I understand as I write this that Slow Poke is still stuck in the airport gridlock trying to get home.   I am sure glad she can't be holstered and heeled or someone would have to be repainting TSA staff.

Men"s Magnificent Five:  When I made it to the top seven, I thought I had a chance to make the Magnificent Five or at least a resurrection shoot-off to get in. The men's event was unusual in that the top five had really conserved their X s with Master Gunfighter being in jeopardy being eliminated.  Only one, I, was eliminated in round 13 and  only one, Pork Rind, was eliminated in round 14, so there was no resurrection shoot-off.  Lawless Speed was first out followed by the Draw.  Rodeo Romero was on (better than 60%) hitting in the low 3s but not quite quick enough.  The Championship was determined in three matches between Marshall Cooper and Master Gunfighter with the final match going to 2-2 with Master Gunfighter hitting and Marshall missing.  Master Gunfighter had also won Fridays jackpot shoot.

School is in Session: A CFDA event is a great place to learn life skills.  It is especially good for our kids. They learn discipline, responsibility, courtesy and respect.  Before you play you got to work.  We sold souvenir cups and magnets for shoot for the stars and I tasked AZ Gunslingers and Rio youth to solicit donations. I look around and see Buckeroo Ben with the cutest gal he can find at the time in tow working the crowd. Every time he came to me to report his results he had to tell me how proud of how his little brother, Coyote Kid, was doing with donations. Together they had over half of the total of about $700 in sales.  Many thanks to all who bought magnets and cup.  Each are individually designed so it will take me a while to work through the orders.

Rule 17:  Before the event started the Comish, Quick Cal, announced there would be a change in how Rule 17 would be enforced from what had been published.  In essence, the enforcement of the rule was being changed from guilty until proven innocence to innocence until proven guilty. I don't know if this is going to be published or just announced at titled events.  The rule was not a problem and there were no loss of shot penalties but two warnings issued. I will tell you that it is a little stressful to have Quick Cal take the range when you are the only one on the line that may have a problem. But what the heck, the gunfighter facing you is a more important worry.

Summation:  It was a fun event.  Sure glad we have a full time Trail Boss running the show.  Now if I just could find another 20 milliseconds, maybe I could get back to hearing some clank in my tin. I'm afeared Shady been looking for a more worthy opponent.  Been trying to get Doc into marbles but she won't take the bait.
 

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).