Muster matters, Format matters, Newbies learn!

I write this blog to the powers that be, those who make decisions and to the new shooters, those who learn. The Marshal's Muster agenda is out and it looks like some of this discussion may be helpful.

CFDA byes remind me a lot of the dogooders'  attempts to help the poor by raising the minimum wage.  Businesses close, jobs are lost and the poor get poorer. Unintended consequences matter.  A bye is when a competitor moves to the next round without competing. They are necessary for bracketing and as long as they are fairly allocated either by lot or reasonable rules, they work fine.

Some complained that it was not fair for a shooter to move to the next round without competing so we ended up with the CFDA bye which is inherently unfair. To understand this you must realize that the shooter under our system still moves to the next round without competing. If the match format is three winning shots, the bye winner does not compete in the format for the match.   What happens is that we have a three shooter shoot-off to allocate the bye. The winner of the shoot off gets to move to the next round without competing.

The allocation of the shooters who get the opportunity to shoot off for the bye is not set in advance by rule and/or is not determined by lot.  The CFDA program matches winners against winners, losers against losers, with losers shooting first.  Therefore the opportunity to shoot off for a bye is allocated to the winners.  If you are shooting a no X format or in the first four rounds, the opportunity for a bye normally goes to the best of the winners. Winners of a bye remain among the best of the winners. That is why you see repeat shooters in the bye shoot offs.  One of the clubs in Arizona do not use the CFDA program and in their program winners shoot first so the bye opportunity goes to the worst shooters of the event. Using their program you don't have repeat bye winners because the bye winner shoots themselves out of the opportunity for a bye.

The unfairness of the CFDA  bye is really emphasized in the last man standing event.  If you have a last man standing event with 99 shooters, in the first four rounds about 1%  of the field would get a true bye, and under the CFDA allocation 3% of the field would get an opportunity to shoot off for the bye.  By the start of the second day, about 10% of the field will get the opportunity for a bye.  When the field is down to 7 shooters, 42% of the field will have the opportunity for a bye, when down to 5 shooters, 60% of the field will have the opportunity for a bye.  When the field is down to 3 shooters, 100% of the field gets the opportunity to shoot off for a bye, and you would think that would then be fair, but the real unfairness comes to light.

The shoot off is a one winning shot affair with three shooters.  It favors certain shooters and certain types of shooters. In 2017 at a Territorial event I observed an event where the winner advanced through three of the last four rounds without competing. It was a last man standing event, the event winner entered the last 3 standing with 3 xs, the other two shooters had 2 xs and 1x.  The event winner won 3 shoot offs in a row. The event winner only competed in one round of the last four rounds. The format favored that particular shooter.

For the new shooter, you can train for the format that you shoot. Practice with techniques that requires you to hit and to hit right now and you can become a good bye shooter.  I love byes! So does Cal.  He is a good bye shooter. Train for it. It is not going to go away.

But Marshals, when you are thinking about SOPs realize a true bye is fair, a CFDA bye may not be.  Why muddy up side matches with time consuming CFDA byes. We love our byes, but there is nothing wrong with a true bye.  We do not score by wins anyway.  Only x count matters.  I apologize for being critical of the posse officials at the Southern. I did not know there was a SOP that did not follow the published rules.

While I am on my soap box, I call upon the Marshals to think about the CFDA resurrection. Because a significant number of titled events are won by shooters that have exceeded the x count, most recently Quick Cal at the Southern, I suggest the format is not working as well as it might.  I strongly favor a resurrection feature that is open to all shooters.  There is no reason we can not have an event where all shooters are still in play on the final day. We have the range time to do it. It would be easy to do and a lot less work than the side match system we now use just to occupy eliminated shooters.

If x count is so important and we don't want a resurrection feature open to all, get rid of it. If you exceed the x count you are out. Get rid of the CFDA resurrection.  It is easy to write such a format.
"In a magnificent event when the main match field is reduced to less than 10% for men, less than 20% for ladies, the main match ends and the remaining shooters are seeded by x count and time out for a progressive 2 x elimination match."  At the Southern, Cal would have been out and you would have shot a Magnificent 6 shoot off.

At the Southern, the powers that be were trying to save range time, but the SOP wasted the time saved and added a lot of unfairness and confusion to the bracket match (a side match).  In the gunfighter bracket, 33% of the field had the opportunity to shoot off for a bye, 66% did not.

I have been accused of advocating changes that would benefit me personally. That is not true. I am a good shoot off shooter and a good bye shooter. I train to shoot the format that is used.  You can too. But I understand that I place better than I should because of the format. Format matters.  Quick Cal places better than he should, but then he wrote most of the rules.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating that we eliminate the CFDA bye that results from an odd number of shooters.  I love the CFDA bye. But it is inherently unfair and does not need to be expanded to replace the true bye which is fair that results for someone failing to appear for a match, for whatever reason..  Also understand that to determine champions, the magnificent format is better than the last man standing format because when to field is reduced down to about 10%, the magnificent format eliminates luck of the draw and the CFDA bye from the format, both of which are inherently unfair.

Lesson from the Great Plains:  This blog has simmered for about thirty days. I started with the premise that CFDA byes are inherently unfair, which they are, but have moved moved my opinion to believing CFDA byes are a good thing.  At the Great Plains in the 8th round the last three shooters had gunfighter ratings of 1.20, 1.35 and 1.10, respectively with the 1.10 shooter being the last shooter drawn. If it had been a true bye, the 1.10 shooter would have advanced without competing based solely on luck of the draw, and the 1.35 shooter would have eliminated the 1.20 shooter.  But using the CFDA bye shoot off, the 1.35 shooter, as would be expected, won the bye and advanced without competing and the 1.20 shooter eliminated the 1.10 shooter.  Format matters.  The CFDA bye favors the better gunfighter.  Maybe  it is a good thing to have a format that favors the better gunfighter, it mitigates the luck of the draw unfairness.

On a personal note, I competed in two fewer rounds than other shooters that went out at the same time. I love the CFDA bye.

For the FGA Blast for Cash:

Cal, for the FGA blast for cash, let the squawkers squawk, start it at 8 sharp, if someone does not show up, use a true bye.  That way we probably have time to shoot a 3 winning shot 2 x affair.  In a side match in the first round true byes would save you enough time to go to a 3 winning shot format.  I can suggest a clear SOP.

"In side matches when roll call has not been taken, in the first round a failure to appear by a shooter shall result in a forfeiture of round pursuant to Paragraph IV. 6 (page 21).  The scorekeeper shall note the win and the failure to appear on the score sheet and the shooter failing to appear shall be withdrawn from the match for the next round."

"Let's dance!"