To ISI, not to ISI, that is the question!

The question is whether it benefits a professional gunslinger, i.e. CFDA, to participate in an ISI event.

There is a significant number of gunslingers who believe shooting in an ISI event will lead to bad habits, defective draws such as the flail, shooting low, generally spraying wax everywhere.  This is a valid concern especially when coupled with the observation that shooters that participate in these events have not shot as well in professional events as you would expect based on their quickness.

An opposing view is that it is just another opportunity to excel.  Mental toughness is the most significant factor in a CFDA event. It is more important than accuracy, more important than quickness, and more important than luck of the draw. More gunfights are won or lost on mental toughness than the other three factors combined.

An ISI event can benefit the professional gunslinger when used as an event to practice mental toughness.  If you can stay focused on the task at hand you will do fairly well.  You are practicing that mental toughness necessary to win in professional events.  If you lose your focus and begin to race your opponent you will be doomed to boot hill not only in these events but in professional events also.

If you are going to participate in these events it would be good if you had some objective standard to determine whether you are improving as a gunfighter or getting worse. There a simple way to do this. We can use a gunfighter rating.  ISI stands for Individual Speed Index which is your historical average speed. Since they already compute this for you if you subtract it from one you have a speed number that is compatible with your hit ratio. To these two numbers you add the ratio of shots that qualify (faster than your ISI plus .03 nationally or in Arizona .02). This gives you a good rating of your ability.  Using the ISI ratio includes the factor of whether you are erratic in your shots relative to speed.

For illustration, last Saturday my ISI was .44 so my speed number was .56. I hit 98% and 98% of my shots qualified so my ISI gunfighter rating for the event was 2.52 (.56+.98+.98). A goal to strive for would be a ISI gunfighter rating of 2.70, which would be an average time of .3 hitting 100% with 100% qualifying shots.

I will probably continue to participate in these event so long as my ISI gunfighter rating stays the same or improves. 

Gunslingers, mark your calendars!

The 2020 season is shaping up to be one of the most interesting fun years yet.

Arizona:
 
There will be an Arizona State Championship at Pioneer Village, Arizona Territorial on March 28 and 29, 2020.  It will be 100% CFDA compliant but that does not mean it will not be unique.  Don't believe the ad you see in the gazette, the prizes will exceed $7,500, prizes for the main match alone will exceed the minimum.  And that is real value.  There will be no name tags, door prizes or other frills. As the assistant general manger of the Oakland As said in Moneyball, "We believe in keeping the money on the field."

There is no lollygagging at Pioneer Village. Shooting will start promptly at 8:30 and the rounds will be brisk.  We intend to shoot down to the final seven on the first day so that the Second Chance shoot will start promptly at 8:30 on Championship Day. Magnificent shoot-offs will start promptly at high noon. 

What will be unique about Arizona is that all shooters will still be in play for cash and awards  on the morning of Championship Day.  The cash prizes for the second chance shoot equal the cash prizes for the main match.  In addition to the cash, the awards will be a pound of copper from the copper state with appropriate inscriptions. When you think about it, a shooter's chance of winning substantial cash and an award will be four times better on Championship Day than at the start of day one.  If the luck of the draw gets you in the main match, in the second chance shoot you will only have to face one fourth of the eliminated shooters. (This is the format used at the 2019 Nationals.)

Holli has something planned on site that includes chuck for the evening on Saturday. You can be sure it will be fun.  Most gunfighters are not aware of what is all at Pioneer Village.  In addition to the town where we shoot, there is a Spanish town square, two other town squares, a church, shops, banks, and about a half dozen homesteads all moved from their original site to Pioneer Village. It is worth the stroll if you have the time, but as I said shooting will be brisk, but after the fourth x a stroll would be worth your effort.

For those who like to warm up there will be a Arizona Jackpot Bracket Shoot on Friday the 27th for the paltry entry fee of $20.  There will be 5 brackets for the short gun and a shootists bracket.  "We like keeping the money on the field" so the payout will be 80%.   This state being a state true to the republic principles of the founding fathers, the division of the prize money among the brackets will be equal.

When the application comes out I suggest early entry.  Entries received prior to March 1, 2020, will receive an extra chance in the drawing for the CFDA gun, part of the main match prize package. 

Texas;

I hear that Bret Maverick is out raising his entry fee for some poker game in the vicinity of Austin, Texas.  They tell me that this state championship had to be moved from March because a movie was being made at the venue until the end of April.  Sound like a great place to have a gunfight.

Arkansas:

It is a small world, I overheard a couple of boys at Shady Mountain planning a raid on the Arkansas State Championship.  Seems like the dates fit with my plan to abscond with the Maverick money, so maybe I can catch up with them on the trail to Warren, Arkansas.

Oklahoma, Louisiana, Oregon, and California:

Not to be overlooked is Oklahoma on March 13th-15th and California on May 15th - 17th, Louisiana, April 3-5th, Oregon April  24-26th.  Oh, so many choices.

Personal Schedule:  My dilemma for Thanksgiving is whether to shoot in the club match on the 30th.  My children tell me that I would be a delinquent grandfather if I do, so I may skip it.  My real motivation for skipping it is that it gives Shady Mike and Dirty Dan a chance to catch me in top gun points.  If they don't stumble, there will be three gunslingers within several point of each other on the 28th of December. I understand Dan has completed his garage range so he must be taking this seriously.  The Ladies race is equally tight.  If I were handicapping it I would not want to bet against any of the top four gunslingers.  Anyway, looks like the 28th will decide the top gun awards, both men and ladies.

Don't sell yourself short; don't sell 19.5 short.

I write this post to be helpful, not to criticize.  Please take this that way, I do not want to be banished from another site.

At most titled events the host shoots seven rounds then quits for the day.  The eight round is shot on championship day and anyone going out can sign up for a second chance shoot, which is a shoot to occupy those that have been eliminated. Two problems with this being, one: the second chance shoot starts late thereby delaying the Magnificent shoot off and, two: those going out in the ninth and later rounds can not shoot in the second chance shoot.

The Loess Hills Paladins (not a CFDA club) held several events this year with a main match followed by a CFDA bracket shoot.  What was unique was that the second chance shoot started just as soon as there were enough shooters in a bracket (normally 6).  By doing this the second chance shoot did not delay the main shoot.  These events were last man standing affairs and both the main match and the second chance shoot ended at about the same time.  All eliminated shooters shot in the second chance shoot. 

Some critics say it is not fair to allow a shooter in late in the second chance shoot, but it is very fair.  It is much easier to advance four rounds in the main match and six rounds in the second chance shoot than it is to advance 10 rounds in the main match.  A shooter who advances 10 rounds in the main match deserves to get in the second chance shoot at a later point. We do not score by wins, we score by losses. What matters is that every shooter gets the same number of losses. For last man standing, it does not matter when you are Xed out, what matters is that you have the chance to X out.

When we tested this we found that 19.5 functions fine adding shooters after the shoot starts.  The only problem was that the match standing report during the event was not  entirely accurate, new shooters being added at the top of the standings, but this is not a huge problem since the shoot is normally last man standing.  You don't need this report during the match to run the event. Colorado State had this problem and the event ran fine without these reports.  At World, the computer crashed in round 7 and the event did just fine without these report.  I am not sure, but I think the program may correct itself in later rounds. In any event, the match standings can be adjusted at the end of the event. 

I post now because there is about four months until the next titled match and some may want to test out the capabilities of 19.5. Don't sell yourself short and don't underestimate the capabilities of 19.5

A local event:  The Association of Arizona Gunslingers will have its last shoot of the year on December 28. A good estimate of the number of shooters would be about 60 shooters.  We will have two ranges available.

A good event would be a 2x main match and a 2x CFDA second chance bracket shoot all using Nevada 8. (Arizona Five would have been better, we could have raised elimination factor in main match to 3, but that was a good idea that died a untimely death at the muster.) As with any event you need to consider range time.

A 2x main match with 60 shooters requires 119 losses to complete.  With 60 shooters you get 30 losses per full round, so it takes 4 full rounds to complete the main match. (A full round may contain more than one nominal round.)

Another way to look at it with Nevada 8 you get 25 losses per range per hour so the main match will take 2.4 hours of range time assuming 60 shooters on two ranges.  The second chance shoot will take not more than 116 losses to complete, so it will take 2.3 hours to complete.  Total range time is 4.7 hours.  We shoot from 8:30 to about 1:30 which is 5 hours of range time.  For 60 shooters with two ranges, the time requirement fits nicely.  If 75 shooters show up the elimination factor would need to be adjusted.  We would probably go with a 1x main match and a 2 x bracket second chance shoot.

The way that it would be run would be you run main match on both ranges for the first three rounds.  After two rounds you run your bracket report to seed the shooters into brackets for the second shoot.  After three rounds you have enough eliminated shooters to start the second chance shoot.  You move the main match to Range A and start the second chance shoot on Range B.  Both matches end about the same time.  By format, the main match ends not later than two round after the second chance shoot.  This is important to us because we have two ranges to take down and pack away and it is important to have most of the shooter still around.

Anyway, just a thought.  If you don't test your abilities, how will you ever know what you can do.  Don't sell yourself short, you are a better gunfighter than you know, and 19.5 can do more than you may think.

For a related discussion, see post "What we learned and fragmentation" a post on a similar format being used in a true resurrection event, a matter that I now believe to be "a good idea that can not be implemented," a quote from Dick Cheney.

Stand Alone CFDA Bracket Shoot

The Association of Arizona Gunslingers, Inc., held a stand alone CFDA Bracket Shoot yesterday with 37 shooters  participating on 2 ranges. I think is was a very successful practice shoot.  You hold club practice shoots not only for the shooters to individually practice but also for the club as a whole to practice.  We did this, in part, to practice the bracket shoot which we are going to use as a second chance shoot on Championship Day at the 2020 Arizona State Championship.  At that shoot all shooters, let me repeat all shooters, will be still be shooting for substantial prizes and prize money on Championship Sunday.  We also needed to test out the Loess Hills portable range after significant improvement were made to the range.

Here is what we learned:

The results:  All four brackets were very competitive. The only adverse comment I heard was, "Boy, there are no easy draws in this shoot."
Bracket winners were: Master Gunfighter: The Draw, Gunfighter: Half Cock Willie, Sheriff: Cort O' Whiskey and Deputy: Detox. I regret not having photos and awards but maybe next year.  Congratulations to the winners and all the other shooters.  There were no easy matches with most brackets going down to the last shot of the last match.

The Range:  The Loess Hills range worked well.  The new netting was much easier to put up and maintain.  Bounced backs did not appear to be a problem.  The CFDA timers with the Beaver Creek box worked perfectly.  Shooters were able to see misses easily.  There was no microphone interference with the location used.  

It took two men two hours to put the range up.  Take down was done in 20 minutes with five men and the range was down and on the trailer before the shoot was completed on the other range.

The one negative that I observed was that the shooters were facing into the sun with the north/south orientation. It might be better to turn the range to a east /west orientation with the shooters shooting to the west.  It would take some more modifications to do that.  We would have to weld two more brackets the back of the target panels and get two more braces. The range then would be completely free standing.  By doing this we would also get the benefit of a darker background behind the targets there being a fence to the west.  We could also then park the truck and the trailer in the parking lot freeing up some space for the shooters.

Not our first rodeo:  Although this was the first ever CFDA Bracket shoot by a club in Arizona, it was not our first rodeo. The Loess Hills Paladins (not a CFDA club) has held several this year and on Shady Mountain we have been using this bracket shoot for our 19.5 (7) training sessions. We normally shoot a 1x main match followed by a CFDA bracket match.  It gives those training the chance to use the full range of options on the CFDA scoring program.

The Format:  This was not a classifications shoot but a bracket shoot based on actual prior performance. For most of the year, I obtained bracket reports from those clubs that use the CFDA program and entered those on a spreadsheet which had a column that recorded the quickest bracket report time. I then sorted by quickest bracket report time (2nd fastest).  I had times on 79 shooters and all 37 shooters had prior bracket report times.  Registering the shooters was based on these times and the brackets were fairly even.  Only two shooters needed to move to even out the brackets.  These shooters are what I refer to as border shooters, shooters right on the border between brackets that may go either way depending on the numbers. In most titled events I am a border shooter.

It is remarkable how consistent most shooters are.  There were a few shooters, mostly new shooters, who showed improvement as the year progressed in their bracket times.  I did not use any discretion in making up the brackets, it was not necessary.  

Future:  I was a little disappointed in the turn out.  I was hoping for 60 shooters.  I would suggest that this might make a good annual affair for Arizona.  October seems to be a good month to do it.  If all the clubs got behind it by using the CFDA scoring program at their club shoots and printed out a bracket report, it only takes a click to do, it could really become a fun event.  Gives you the chance to compete against those of your speed. What do you think?

Gunfighter Rating:  When I get my hands on the scoresheets I will do a gunfighter rating on the 37 shooters and email it to them.  It is always interesting to see why you placed where you did.

Bring me another shoot!

"The Sort" or "What will the Marshals muster?"

The CFDA main match is nothing more than a seeding tournament wherein shooters are sorted from first to last.  If the event is a magnificent event, when the field is reduced to about 10%, the main match ends and the shooters are seeded in a progressive 2x elimination shoot off. This removes the two inherently unfair factors involved in the main match.  For last man standing events, those factors remain to the last man standing.

For the Marshal's Muster there are three agenda items that the substance of which has similar issues.  When discussing this, the Marshals need to consider how well the proposed format sorts. The purpose of the main match is to sort and that should always be consider.  For example, matches determined by one shot do not sort well because the average hit percentage for shooters is about 45% and therefore it may be just a matter of chance who is sort up and who is sorted down. Also, for evenly matched opponents, speedwise, who wins and who loses may depend on who was given the faster cartridge.

Now for the agenda items:

Discussion at the Springs:  For those who were not there, in the Master Gunfighter bracket, shooting Nevada 8, the field had been reduced to two shooters, with recognized places being 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.  The shooters were clean and 1 x and the match went to 8 shots tied 1-1.  Most of the match officials and spectators thought the event was over but it was not because the rule is very specific that when the match is for a "recognized place" the eight shot limit is suspended and does not apply. The eventual winner hit the next shot winning the match and the shooters were then tied 1-1 in x count.  The eventual winner hit the first three shot of the next round winning the event.

I think this is on the agenda for educational purposes.  The rule as written is clear, specific and works well.  The problem is that most shooters are not aware of the rule.  If you did not like the results at the Springs it is because your favorite did not win, not because there is a problem with the format.  When you consider these two shooters, over the three matches that they shot, the eventual winner had a hit percentage of around 50% and the losing shooter had a hit percentage of 25% or less.  Speedwise, they were the final two shooters in the master gunfighter bracket and fairly evenly matched although most would say the loser was a bit quicker.  For those that understand gunfighter rating, over their three matches the winner shot at 1.08 and the loser shot at .85.  The format works and sorted correctly.  

Arizona Five:  This is on the agenda just to recognize it as an option for local events and side matches.  It is a good format that will save about 25% range time and it does sort better than other formats as explained.  Please read the notes on the agenda for its benefits as a local and side match format.  It usefulness is to save range time so that the elimination factor can be raised.  The higher the elimination factor the more the luck of the draw unfairness is mitigated.  There are no ties in Arizona Five and this feature may be of use in the next agenda item.

Overall Shot Limit:  A  overall shot limit is being proposed for all events including the main match. Unless the Marshals come to the meeting with a rope we are going to have a overall shot limit.  The limits of 8, 10, or 12 have been mentioned.  I would favor a limit of 8 shots because most shooters have become used to the 8 shot limit of Nevada 8.  It is easy to say the match is over after 8 shots and the shooter with the most winning shots wins but what do you do with the 0-0, 1-1, and the 2-2 matches. A couple of alternatives would be the Nevada 8 rule whereby both shooters get an x whether 0-0, 1-1, or 2-2, or the Arizona Five rule whereby 0-0 and 1-1 both get a x, and 2-2 both shooter get a win.  Considering the sort with the an 8 shot limit, you could have two shooters both hitting the fastest they have ever shot and both hitting 50% and the score tied 2-2.  In that case those shooters should be sorted up as what would happen in Arizona Five. (This happens more frequently than you would expect. It is not unusual for two shooters to hit four in a row,  then to miss repeatedly as they are both trying to squeeze out that last millisecond to win.)

If you set the limit at 10, the best 2-2 can be shooting is 40%.  If the limit is set at 12, the best 2-2 can be shooting is 33%.  Both these are below the CFDA average of 45%, so the Nevada 8 rule makes sense from a sorting perspective.

A further refinement would be does the limit apply when it is for a recognized place or does it apply in the magnificent shoot offs.  You can think about this in theory and think you know how it is going to work, but until you do it, you will not know for sure.  Cal needs to run this repeatedly before the end of the year so he knows exactly how it will work before it is implemented.  Testing was one of the things that the Loess Hills Paladins did, but it is going out of existence.

Format Matters! Will be looking for those byes this weekend.

Butt in the Pocket

After enduring years of verbal harassment from my good friend and training partner about that silly rule I have embarked upon a training program to put the butt in the pocket.  I figure if I am putting the butt of the gun in the pocket of the holster when I fire all that frivolous noise about that silly rule will go away.  So I am doing at least 20 draws a day in front of a mirror attempting to move my anchor point. Will see how it goes.

What prompted this was an incident wherein my good friend and training partner produced a photo from the Mag 7 at the springs. My reaction was, "Boy, that draw is perfect."  He was blabbering about the silly rule and even drawing lines. I had to seek counsel from the best Range Master in CFDA who recited that it must be "clearly obvious."  To which he, training partner, produced a magnifying glass and I retorted "if you have to get a  magnifying glass it is not clearly obvious." See what goes on on Shady Mountain.

I like that photo so much I am having it printed on a T-shirt with the rest of the story, which I embellish every time I tell it. I like the photo, in part, because the opponent is clearly shooting  the flail and is the author of the silly rule.  I hope my t-shirt comes today.  Training tomorrow.  Bring me another shooter. Really like shooting against the flail.  Got to go. Putting 20 butts in the pocket this morning.

What we learned and Fragmentation.

Today on Shady Mtn we shot a 1x Main Match shooting down to two shooters and at the same time a 2x True Resurrection Bracket shoot, last man standing, followed by a 1x Magnificent Five.  The two top seeds in the mag 5 came from the main match and the other three seeds were the champions of three brackets.  Making the mag 5 were two Sheriffs (one from the brackets and one from the main match), two Master Gunfighters (again one from main match and one from the brackets) and one Gunfighter. The Gunfighter, No Name, won the event by being the toughest gunslinger on this day.

Range Time:  We had 15 shooters on two lanes and were able to complete the entire event in 2 1/2 hours. Match format was Arizona 5.  Extrapolating out, had we had 6 lanes we could have shot the event with 45 shooters in 2 1/2 hours including the shoot off. There was no down time on the range. There was always a round ready to be shot when the prior round was completed.

The Association of Arizona Gunslingers:  This would be a viable alternative to the Arizona Bracket Shoot for summer time use.  We normally get 30 to 40 shooters and need to be done in 4 hours.  I believe we could shoot a 2x main match shooting down to 6 with a true 2x bracket resurrection 4 brackets with the champions going to the Mag 10 1 x shoot off.  We could seed the remainder of the shooters on lanes 3 & 4 and 5 & 6. We are used to shooting 3 simultaneous Magnificent 10 to 12 etc. shoot offs.  

One might ask why do this.  Well, just for a little variety. By doing a different format occasionally, it might give other shooters more opportunity to be successful. We tend to have the same shooters dominate our shoots in part because they have learned and trained for the format. A little change would be good for us.  This format is actually more compliant with the structure of the CFDA titled shoots than the Arizona Bracket Shoot.

Innovations:  What is novel here is that we shot a true resurrection and we shot it simultaneously with the main match.  This has some really great advantages.

A true resurrection mitigates the unfairness of the luck of the draw.  A great illustration of this unfairness was at the Texas State.  Quick Cal was clearly one of the top shooters of the event but was out in the 5th or 6th round because of the luck of the draw.  A true resurrection allows for advancement through what would be "a loser bracket" in other sports.  Adverse draws can be overcome by higher x counts.  A resurrection feature ups the x count.  In this event from 1 to 3, but if used in a 6 lane event, it probably doubles the x count.

We shot the resurrection simultaneously with the main match.  As shooters were eliminated they were added to the appropriate bracket match. 19.5 allows this and it seems to work well.  When I did test runs of this, the match reports were in error but I did not consider that a problem since we were shooting down to the last shooter standing and the standings were not relevant.  However, in this event the standing reports were accurate.  To do this you have to have some arbitrary bracket times and you have to be willing to live with uneven brackets. Our brackets were 2 shooters, 5 shooters, and 6 shooters with 2 shooters remaining in the main match.  This will work better with larger shooter numbers, but the times need to be set in advance.  Time out time was used, not bracket report.  A larger event might allow more administrative time and the bracket report might be an alternative.  When you complete scoring a main match round you get a match standing report, it would have been easy to run a bracket report at that time, will do so next time.

Fragmentation:  Another advantage is that you can fragment the field.  At most titled events ranges sit idle for a significant amount of time.  Normally, this is to draw rounds or simply to manage the event.  In the early rounds you can shoot the men on all ranges and while you are doing that you can draw and administer the ladies, again shooting on all ranges.  But later, as the field is reduced this is not possible and ranges sit idle while rounds are drawn.  By fragmenting the field into brackets and with 19.5 scoring program you can designate the brackets to the idle ranges.  The goal is always to have a round waiting at the table when the prior round is completed.  

By starting the resurrection as soon as there are enough shooters in a bracket to make a viable posse or round you can keep the ranges full.  By waiting until all of the shooters are eliminated you are wasting valuable range time.  You don't need to wait.  We need to remember that we don't score by wins, we score by losses.  What is important is that everyone gets the same number of xs to used.  It really does not matter when you use those xs.   (See confusion below!)

Confusion:  19.5 worked well adding shooters as they were eliminated.  However, I was trying to be the score keeper and enter data at the some time.  I goofed and failed to enter two shooters into the bracket match. One of the shooters brought this to my attention during the match and it was not a problem, I simply entered him in the appropriate bracket and he got his two xs.  The other shooter did not tell me he was left out until the match was over and then it was too late. (Actually it was not we could have reopen that bracket and entered him but I had already announced the Mag 5.)  

Next time we do this we will alert all to be sure they get put into a bracket when they are eliminated.  It really does not matter much if they are added late because we score by losses not wins.  Looking back over the score sheets it would have been really easy to rectify this oversight, I just was too busy running the event to think straight.

Administration:  We ran this event using two laptops and one printers.  Shady ran the main match and we now declare him competent to be a data entry guru from start to finish on the main match.  There is probably going to be a test tomorrow, but he will protest Trail Bosses don't test.  I ran the bracket match and need my attention to detail sharpened.  

When the smoke clears:  After the event was over Shady said he had five specials for me. After the bellow and smoke of the first round I knew something was up, was scared a bit, but won three on speed before those specials caught up with me, then a I put a .191 on the plate just to let him know that he had better add more powder next time.  In the interest of honest reporting, I will note he put me out of the main match on speed, hitting 80% to my 100%. Guess speed is sometimes relevant.

Someone said, "if you are not growing, you are rotting."  Growing abit on Shady Mtn.

Southern, National and Mitigation

Many times how you finish at a titled event has more to do with who you draw than how well you are shooting.  Not only is it important who you are shooting but it is also important who the other shooters are shooting. In the last round of the main match of the Southern there were 11 shooters left, four lost leaving the field of the magnificent seven.  For me, the most important draw was the match of Buzzard Cooper against Old West. Had Buzzard won that match there would have been 8 shooters left and we would have had to shoot another round.  In that round there would have been three losers so the field would have been five leading to resurrection shoot off between 3 shooters.

In the final match of the Magnificent Seven the winning shot was a .367. Speed is glamorous, but if you watched the entire match you will know that not a single shot was won by speed.  You might think that the Southern was won by accuracy but that is not the case. The losing shooter by and large is a much more accurate shooter than the Southern Champion.  The final match was won by the shooter who was mentally tougher in that match.  The Southern Champion entered the Magnificent Seven with three xs so he too benefited from the Buzzard/Old West match.
Who knows if he would have survived the next round and subsequent resurrection. 

The National was won by that five time World Champion. I do believe there was a resurrection in this event but do not remember the details.  It is interesting to note that the mag 7 of the Southern and the mag 7 of the National were substantially different although the field of both shoots were the same.  That might be due to the shooting of the gunslingers or might be due to the luck of the draw.

I was having breakfast on the second day of a titled event and a seasoned shooter was asked how did he do.  He said "I am out!" and then said, "What chance did I have?"  and then he named 4 of the toughest gunslingers there. He was right he had no chance even though he is in the top 20% of shooters in the CFDA.  That is the unfairness that can occur with the luck of the draw.  Can this unfairness be mitigated? The answer is yes and it is really quite easy to do.  Higher x count mitigates this unfairness.  The more xs you get the more chance you have to recover from a tough draw.   But a resurrection feature also does a great job mitigating this unfairness.  I can name at least a half dozen titled matches won by a resurrected shooters. Happens often.  We shoot all these side matches that really simply occupy eliminated shooters when we could be shooting a true resurrection which would be mitigating the luck of the draw unfairness.  That seasoned shooter could be shooting his way back to fifth rather than being occupied by a meaningless 2nd chance shoot.   

Scoring 19.5 will function just fine adding shooters into a resurrection as they are eliminated from the main match.  Want to do this, shoot the main match down to five or fewer shooters.  Fill the vacancies from the resurrection, two or three, whatever is needed from the resurrection.  The complaint will be what about that 6th or 7th place shooter.  So what, he or she might be shooting in the present resurrection like what might have happened had Buzzard won.  The next complaint will be it is not fair for the 6th or 7th place shooter to come into the  resurrection clean when the resurrection shooters may have won 9 or 10 matches to get get there.  But it is eminently fair.  It is far harder to win 9 or 10 matches in the main match against those 4 tougher shooters than it is to come through the "eliminated" match.  The bottom line is all shooters get the same number of xs and all shoot to championship day in matches that matter.

This is just a little change, but one that would make a big difference mitigating unfairness of the luck of the draw. 

Since I am on my soap box I will add that in categories I shot in final match but only competed in two of the last five matches. Love those byes, train for them, bring me another shooter.

What we learned

We had a very enjoyable shoot at the Loess Hills Paladins Added.  It was not a CFDA event because there was no hosting club but all CFDA rules applied except as announced for testing.  22 shooters attended.  Here is what I learned.

Range Time: I wanted to shoot a CFDA bracket three winning shots 3 x event and used 24 inch targets at exhibition distance to lessen the range time.  That was effective with most matches being resolved in 6 or less shots.  Only one match went to 9 shots.  We had plenty of range time.  We completed three brackets in 2 1/2 hours.  We then shot a 1x Magnificent shoot off which took 45 minutes.

Most shooters had a substantially higher gunfighter rating than one would normally expect. 15 shooters had a gunfighter rating near 1.0 or above.  1.0 or above normally means a shooter is in the top 25% of the field.  Using exhibition distance boosted that to 75% of the field.  There were several shooters that had a unusually low rating for them.  I think for those shooters the change in size and distance must have caused them to lose their focus.

I would not use the 24" target at exhibition distance again unless I was really concerned about range time or purely for fun.  

The "Added":  The Added work well.  I thank all of the sponsors especially the corporate sponsors.  If you need wax, see Royal Wax, if you need that gun slicked up see Thirsty Gun Works, LLC;  if you need pool service, see Blue Cactus Pool Service, LLC;  need  a lawyer on the plains of Nebraska see Egr, Birkel, & Wollmer, P.C.; and for that dirt see Double Lux, Ltd.  I do not mention the many individual sponsors, but thank them also.  We had entry fees of $220, paid out $265 in prize money and still paid a range fee and the charity netted 20%.

While the "Added" worked well, I do not intend to solicit these sponsors on a recurring basis.  I do think that the "Added" may have some usefulness for our major jackpot shoots.

Testing:  The main purpose of this shoot was to test out bye procedures.  The standard bye procedure is inherently unfair because of how the "advance without competing", that is the "bye" is allocated, and there is a gunfighter bias.  In this event no shooter was allowed to advance without competing.   A very significant advantage to this is it shorten last man standing events significantly.  This results because all shooters compete in every round.

We shot three brackets, two with 8 shooters and one with 6 shooters.  All brackets were completed in 6 rounds except the 6 shooter bracket which was completed in 7 rounds.  There was only one shoot off for place which was shot during the final round of the 6 shooter bracket thereby taking no additional time.  This all resulted in a substantial saving of range time.  Using the standard bye procedure the 8 shooter brackets would have taken a minimum 10 rounds with 8 allocating shoot offs.

The 8 shooter brackets would have required some shoot offs for place but the astute scorekeepers suggested  an easier solution.  The normal procedure for a shoot off for place is to have a start over match format shoot off which requires an additional round.  The scorekeepers pointed out that the shoot off shooters were already at the line and had shot at least three shot against each other in the "Arizona bye" procedure so why not just complete that contest which is what we did.  This worked well and required no additional rounds and few shots.  This modification is easily added by the following sentence. "If a shoot off for place is required, the competitors will continue the match format to completion resolving the issue in the current match with the current score between them being used."

I doubt anyone will use this, but maybe, so here is the Arizona Bye rule:

Arizona Bye

All shooters must compete using the match format in every round except when Rule IV.6 forfeiture occurs. If there is an odd number of shooters in a round, the last three shooters will compete together using the match format to its conclusion. Each shooter will be scored individually against each other shooter of the trio, a loss to either of the other shooters results in an X for the shooter. If a shoot off for place is required, the competitors will continue the match format to completion resolving the issue in the current match using the current score between them.

Range Time Benefits:  The tested bye procedure worked well and resulted in substantial range time savings.  This may be of useful benefit for the bracket shoots at titled events but for the unintended consequences set forth below. Titled events currently shoot bracket shoots before the main match continues on championship day.  To expect a shooter to shoot a 10 to 15 round bracket match and then resume the main match and be at his or her best may be asking too much.  I truly believe it would cut the rounds required by about 30-40%. Bracket matches and for that matter, last man standing events seem to go on and on and it is in large part due to the fact the one shooter is not competing in a round.

Unforeseen Consequences:

It is as important to find out what does not work as it is to find out what does work.  While the current bye procedure is unfair in allocation and there is a gunfighter bias, the suggested procedure eliminates the allocation problem, there is a clear speed bias in the suggested procedure.  The best way to explain it is by illustration taken from the data of this shoot.  If you are down to three shooters, a low 4 shooters hitting 90%, a high 3 shooter hitting less than 60% and a low 3 shooter hitting less than 50%, under the current bye procedures the odds favor the 90% shooter.  That is the gunfighter bias of the current bye procedure.  However, if you match the three together as this suggested procedure does, the 90% shooter probably has no chance because the combined hit ratio of his competitors is better that 60%, and as we all know at 60% in three winning shots the quicker gun wins.  This speed bias could somewhat be eliminated by having the remaining competitors shoot the trio to completion as some have suggested, but this defeats the range time savings, since you have two winners and one loser instead of two losers and one winner.  You will still have the range time benefit of no shoot-off rounds.

Local Consequences:  

It was so successful I think we should have at least one bracket shoot as a class D event each year. Maybe we can do one in the summer up in the mountains to avoid our summer heat.  We had more variety in our winners which I think is a good thing.  When you shoot the same format month after month, one should not expect different results.  A change in format might open the door to some other winners. 

We did not have enough long guns for a separate bracket.  I think a separate long gun bracket is doable and would be fun.  I would note than even without their own bracket all of the long guns were in the money at this shoot.

I would not use the Arizona Bye again because of the speed bias unless we had an over capacity crowd. For example, a 5 bracket 30 to 40 shooter shoot one range would be great and a lot of fun.  If 50 shooters showed up, I would go to the Arizona Five for range time reasons.  If 60 shooters showed up I would go to Arizona Five with Arizona Bye for range time reasons.

Next Up:

How well you do at a titled match or for that matter at a club event many times has more to do with who you draw than how you are shooting. I refer to this unfairness as "luck of the draw."  Luck of the draw is mitigated by the elimination factor.  The higher the x count the more chance you have to recover from a tough draw.  The magnificent format eliminates the luck of the draw at the top of the event.  Titled events also use a resurrection feature in about a 1/3 of our events to fill vacancies in the magnificent field but resurrection feature is not open to all.  It would be really easy to remedy some of this so here is the next test.

I propose to do a 5 x test with a true resurrection for all shooters.  It would be a 3 x main match shooting down to 5 or less with a 2 x resurrection for all shooters to fill the magnificent vacancies.  All shooters would get total of 5 x s.  Magnificent 7 1 x shoot off, maybe 2x at director's option.  For range time reasons and because it does a better sort, Arizona 5 match format.

"It is hard to know what you don't know because you don't know."  "If you never try, you will never know."  Ruah

An Apology

I apologize if I offended any of the competitors or hosts of titled matches by my recent comments.  It was not my intent to do so.  To make the magnificent shoot off you have to be good, tough and a little bit lucky.  Those shooters deserve all the praise. Congratulations on great shooting.  Likewise it is tough to host a title match.  Those hosts do a great job.  I like the magnificent format, it is better that last man standing for reasons I have said in prior posts.

Everyone has an agenda. Mine is the 7 x titled match.  With just a few minor changes, we could be shooting titled matches where all shooters are still in competition on the Championship day. 

Yesterday at Rio our new Regulator,  publicly warned new shooters about the two miscreants here in the Valley of the Sun.  The miscreants publicly acknowledged the error of their ways and but both invited the shooters to come and learn how to be better CFDA shooters.  The irony is that no one here in the Valley or for that matter in the nation, has done more to promote, recruit, train CFDA shooters than those miscreants.  "Want to be quick, come to the Camp; Want to win come to Shady Mtn."

Rio was interesting yesterday.  Three of the four top shooters were Shady Mtn shooters.  The Camp shooters were all well down in the pack.  Last month 3 of the top 4 were Camp shooters, including our new Regulator.   

I know there have been some out there complaining that we are going to use 24" targets at 15' at 47".  And I know some titled matches shoot some side matches at 15 feet at target height of 50 inches, but this up coming shoot is a practice shoot.  Shooting at 15 feet with a target height of 50 inches is just practicing to miss.  We don't do that!  I will let the Sage from the mountains explain why shooting a target height of 50 inches at 15 feet is practicing missing. 

At the Loess Hills Added,  all CFDA rules apply except those which we are testing as announced.

Heh, how about a 6 x Arizona State Championship in November.  It would have to be a Class D experimental affair.  Would be easy to do, big money payout.  We could invite match directors, Marshalls, Regulators, and Quick Cal to come and see how well it would worked. When you are testing something it is just as important to find out what won't work as to find out what does work, maybe more important.

(This posts has now been sanitized, I hope it now meets standards, but if not, it is the best that I can do. 05/13/19)

Plainsight, the Comish, and Serious Matters

I recently had a post banished by the political correctness police, the Comish.  Quick Cal was right to delete my post to protect the brand.  Aspirin was originally a brand name but its owner lost the right to use it as a brand name because it did not prevent it from becoming a descriptive term. Now onto serious matters.

I am going to  move the Board of the Association of Arizona Gunslingers to maintain a log of "bracket reports" for each of our club events.  If the Board agrees we will then be able to hold a "CFDA Bracket Shoot" at a club practice shoot.  It would be identical to what is done at a title match. Brackets are formed based on the prior main match performance.  Seems easy but!

The but is what do you do about club top gun points. Here in Phoenix we have two clubs.  I am a member of both clubs.  Rio bases club points on a 24 point system and uses the seeding rounds to assign points.  At Rio, shoot off results do not count.  The Arizona Gunslingers use a CFDA-like 40 point system and base the points on the shoot off results.  In effect both club arbitrarily assign higher points to Bracket A, then B, then C as shown on the seeding report, a timeout report.

If you hold a CFDA bracket shoot as a club event what do you do about assigning club points.  The Camp followers are going say it is obvious the Master Gunfighter bracket should get the top points.  But that is not right, then you are just assigning points on a classification, not performance.  That is not the cowboy way.

My suggestion would be a Magnificent 12 1x shoot off among the top three in each bracket.  I would seed them arbitrarily for administrative ease but you could seed them as is done in titled matches using the timeout report. (We are going to test the arbitrary method on the 18th and I will compare it to the CFDA method in a later post) Those 12 would get the top 12 point numbers. For example, #1 would get 40, #2 would get 37 and so on at Arizona Gunslinger events.  At Rio, you would go from 24 points.

For the remainder of the field the gunfighters would start with the 13th position in points, 23 points for  the Arizona Gunslingers and probably 11 points for Rio and progress downward 1 point per position.   After the top twelve point positions there would be four gunslinger receiving identical points until the points are exhausted.  The points would accurately reflect the performance of the competitors.  Sounds like a reason solution to me.  What do you think?

Back to the silliness of the day. The Loess Hills Added is more of a Class D event than most club shoots.  Had we been using the Loess Hills range it would have been because that is the requirement for using the range. Anyway, I apologize if I offended anyone, as I emailed Cal, I do ride for the brand but sometimes stray a bit.

Anomalies at Oregon/Oklahoma

"If you do not see what is in plain sight, you are probably not looking."  Alleluia Ruah

The Ladies Oregon State match was very unusual. After 8 rounds there were 12 shooters left with 11 shooters having 3 xs and one shooter having 1 x. After round 9 there were only 6 shooters left and after round 10 only 3 shooters left. The match director was probably saying "Well that work well."  But such efficiency led to the following anomalies:
1. For two shooters the main match was a 6 x event.
2. For two other shooters the man match was a 5 x event.
3. For one shooter it was a 3 x event (the 2nd place shooter).
4.  I do not know for sure but I suspect that one shooter reached the final five without competing in her final round of main match.

At Oklahoma in the men's event there was similar anomalies.  For one shooter it was a 6 x event. For three other shooters it was a 5 x event. For two others a 4 x.  If I was going to root for anyone at Oklahoma it would have been Jayhawker, but unfortunately for him it was a 3 x event.

I am not necessarily lobbying for change, just pointing out what is in plain sight.  If we are resurrecting shooters, why not open up resurrection for everyone?  We normally shoot the resurrection anyway, believe it would have been Wax Killer at Oklahoma.

The "Added"

The Loess Hills Paladins, Inc is hosting a jackpot shoot on May 18 at The Camp.  It will be an "Added" event.

Many hosts of title events struggle meeting the prize requirements. They do it mainly by soliciting door prizes from sponsors.  This has always seemed to me to be inefficient.  The Paladins are experimenting with an "Added" event.  Cash sponsorship are being solicited and the cash is being added to directly to the prize money.   Business sponsorship is a minimum of $20 and individual sponsorship is a minimum of $10. For that minimum amount you get listed on the sponsors board and verbally recognized during the shoot.

The Association of Arizona Gunslinger's Winter Range jackpot shoot is always well attended, more than 90 in 2018, more than 100 in 2019, in part because it pays so well, 80% payout.  I would like to recommend to the board that we go to an "Added" event in 2020 and see if we could get to more than a 100% payout.

If this makes sense to you and you would like to see these "Added" events occur, do a sponsorship.  You can send your check payable to the Loess Hills Paladins, P.O. Box 74726, Phoenix, AZ 85087.  You might want to send me a message, e-mail or call to make sure I get you on the list. 

We are, as always, testing out some other innovations.  One of which is a separate bracket for Shootists.  This seemed to be very well received at Winter Range. I can think of a few Colorado/Utah shootists that might want to take a road trip for the 18th.  Heck, for out of staters, I could be talked into doing a seminar on mental toughness Sunday morning before they leave.

For more details on the shoot see my post on the shoot.

P.S. The Camp's address is 901 E Dolores Rd., Phoenix, AZ 85085

Loess Hills Paladins Bracket Shoot

As a fund raiser I plan to host a CFDA bracket shoot the third weekend of May.  It will be held at the Camp on Saturday, May 18th.  Sign in will be 8:00 a.m., shooter meeting 8:30 a.m. Entry fee will be $10.00 for all shooters including any youth.  

It will be a CFDA type bracket shoot with the shooters placed in brackets based on their last time out reported time except for shootists.  Shootists will be a separate bracket.  In order to have a separate shootist bracket at least 5 shootist must sign up. If there are not at least 5 shootists then shootists with be seeded with the short guns.  I anticipate two other brackets, Master Gunfighter and Gunfighter unless turn out is greater than 28 shooters.  If there are more than 28 shooters there will be four brackets. It will be a 3 x last man standing three winning shots affair.  Match Director reserves option of placing shooters in appropriate bracket if shooter is missing a time out time or has aberrant time out time.

Innovations:

1.  We will be shooting 24" targets at 15 feet set at 47 inches.  We do this because a shooter does not get better practicing missing.  Also, this should shorten the matches with most matches being determined on quickness, not chance.

2.  We will be using the Arizona Bye for bye rounds.  This, in theory, should shorten the number of rounds needed to resolve a bracket and should do a better job sorting the shooters.  

3. Entry fees shall be paid out 60% to shooters, 20% to range or host club, and 20% to the Paladins.  Prize money will be divided equally among the brackets with the top three in each bracket receiving 50%, 30%, 20%. 

4. Added.  This will be an added event with sponsors donating cash for the added purse.  The added purse will be divided between the top three shooters in a Magnificent 9 shoot-off, split being 50%, 30% and 20%.

5.  The top three in each bracket will be placed in a Magnificent 9 shoot-off either 1 x and 2 x depending on the time that the shoot off begins. Seeding will be 1) Master Gunfighter #1, 2) Gunfighter #1, 3) Shootist #1, 4) Mastergunfighter #2, 5)Gunfighter #2, 6) Shootist #2, and 7) Mastergunfighter #3, 8) Gunfighter #3, and 9) Shootist #3.  If there are 4 brackets then the seeding will be adjusted accordingly and the shoot off will be a Magnificent 12 1 x. 

Purpose:  The Loess Hills Paladins, Inc is a charity and it will not survive without a source of funds.  If you think having a second range is a good thing support this shoot. Also this shoot allows us to test out innovations such as the Arizona Bye, the Magnificent shoot-off and the "Added" feature.

We would like to get about 30 shooters to test out the Arizona Bye.  Three or four brackets of 7 or more shooters in each would be ideal, but probably not enough shootists for that, but that is okay.   It may cause some to take up the long gun to better their odds. Long guns will definitely be at an advantage because the likely short bracket.

Dance with the girl you brought, or bought, whatever!

I was going to post this on the training blog but saw only 7 reads on my "bad day on the bucket" post so I decided to post this here.

About a month till nationals, so your draw should be pretty well finalized. If it is not, you need to decide which pretty girl you are going to take to the big dance. You are not going to get much quicker in the next month, speed is overrated any way.  Most matches are won on mental toughness.  That draw needs to be finalized which means bucket work.  If you can't explain how you draw, have no memory of what you do during a draw, then you are about ready to go.  Chunk that data.  Little bitty adjustments are the order of the day. Just walken!

Alleluia shooters, "Bad day on the bucket" is worth the read. 

Dance with the girl you brought!

Life is stranger than fiction!

While looking for an old post I ran across two fictionalized sagas from four years ago. That got me thinking, life is stranger than fiction.  I have witnessed the following:

In the main match at the Fastest Gun Alive, I saw KK Kid shoot the winning shot of a match setting a new ladies world record.  Because it was a world record time she was given three shots to back it up in three attempts. Since she could not back it up, the shot was by rule declared an anticipation and therefore the match was still tied 2-2.  Then in the next shot she wins the match with a shot that was fast enough to back up the world record.  Sorry was the response to KK Kid, no world record for you, even though you shot one and did back it up in the match.  Rules are rules.

I saw Quick Cal set a new world record in a title match which he conceded was an anticipation even though any grade school math student would calculate that he started his draw at least 50 to 75 milliseconds after the light came on.  I don't buy for a second that he was just following the cowboy way in conceding anticipation but believe it was not wise to test out the new rules he had just put in place to protect the integrity of the world record.

I saw a Territorial champion win the event even though the champion did not compete in 4 of the last 5 rounds of the event.  The champion entered the last three with 3 x s and the other two had 2 x s and 1 x  respectively.  The champion won four bye shoot offs in a row and therefore did not have to compete in 4 of the last 5 rounds of the event.

I have seen many title events won by a shooter that had reached the elimination factor.  4 x is 4 x except when it isn't.  We don't believe in resurrections unless we need to fill a spot. I can remember this happening frequently, most recently Quick Cal at the 2018 Southern.  

There are relatively easy fixes to all of these aberrations, but to do so, we need to get over our "you can't do that" mentality or maybe it is "that is the way we always have done it."

Well that worked Well!

Shady is an amazing fella.You plant an idea, a plan or a design with him and off he runs.  I wrote a post about shooting with three lanes at a jackpot shoot and before the next day I get this:

I was going to try out Arizona bye with three lanes at the next Loess Hills Jackpot shoot but since the lanes are up and we always get a good crowd on Wednesday we decided to give it a whirl.  We had 19 shooters and we shot 6 rounds of Arizona Five on three lanes, all three shooters at a time unless there were only two shooters.  It took about 3 hours and the scoring and CFDA program worked well.  When you set the match up you put in that you have 3 lanes and the program divides the shooters into sets of three.  Lane assignments needed to be adjusted a bit but that was easy to do.

We shot Arizona Five so it is possible to get 1 W and 2 Xs, or 3 Xs, or 2 W and 1 X.  Had it been three winning shots all rounds would have resulted in 1W and 2Xs. The scoring was easy and I think everyone understood the scoring.  Just remember you score each shooter against each of the other shooters and a loss to either is a loss in the match.

We were testing the scoring, CFDA program, and whether there were any unforeseen problems.  Ordinarily you would only use Arizona bye when there was a odd number of shooters, but as used today it allowed us to use three lanes to their full capacity.

Be careful of conclusions:  Shady had the lanes set up yesterday and I came over to practice. Old West stopped by and so we shot 6 rounds of three winning shots Arizona bye.  In 6 rounds I never won shot let alone a match. In the first 2 rounds today I could not find the target, so I went 8 rounds and won just one shot.  It would be easy to conclude that the format is not my cup of tea and to say I hate it, but in reality it was just poor shooting or luck of the draw (yesterday). The ship, or more accurately the system, righted itself and I finished the event third out of nineteen.

Loess Hills Jackpot Shoot:  I am planning a Loess Hills Jackpot Shoot for May 19 and what we really need to do is test the Arizona bye in a bracket environment where it is designed to shine.  Not only will it save rounds but it will sort better than the CFDA bye.  What I need is 18 shooters with $10 apiece to do a little two bracket shoot.  So as not to be accused of doing a classification shoot, we will divide the 18 into two brackets using their last fastest time as shown on the last fastest time report that they have shot, nine in each bracket. We then shoot a 3x three winning shots last man standing bracket shoot using two lanes with the three lanes being only used for the odd shooter set.  For time considerations shooting 18 shooters on two lanes will be comparable to shooting 54 shooters on a 6 lane range.

Pot, Pot, whose got the Pot:  In these small jackpots normally the division is $50, $30, and $20 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  Since we are trying out new things what we will do is we will have a 1x Magnificent 6 shoot off of the top three shooters in each bracket. The seeding will be Master Gunfighter 1, Gunfighter 1, Master Gunfighter 2, Gunfighter 2, Master Gunfighter 3, Gunfighter 3.  One-third of the field will be in the shoot-off.

Gunfighter Rating:  I will do gunfighter ratings on all of the shooters since this helps evaluate how the format is sorting.  It is interesting to see how just in the two shoots so far, some gunslingers have made impressive improvement in their gunfighter rating.

Proud PaPa:  My youngest was a division 1 athlete but motherhood and life had somewhat weighted her down.  She has now taken up roller derby and the fire is back.  You will never know how good you can be if you don't try.   As I texted her, be quick, slow is not in our genes.  I am looking for 18 gunslingers to venture into new places and it will only cost you $10 and a morning of your time.  Try the Arizona bye, you may like it.  Never ever slow down!

Innovation and Charity

We did not have enough shooters to hold a Jackpot shoot yesterday at the Loess Hills Shoot but we shot any way.  The shoot is held as a fund raiser for the charity and to test out new ideas.  The pot is $100 so we need a minimum of 10 ten dollar entry fees to hold a jackpot shoot.  We had only seven preregister yesterday.  A donation of $10 is not too much to ask to support a traveling range but what do I know, maybe it is.

Innovation:  Yesterday we tested out shooting Arizona Five two rounds at a time.  We drew the first round and then had the program draw the first round a second time. By putting two rounds on each sheet we had in effect drawn the first 4 rounds.  Each two shooters shot the first round of Arizona Five then traded lanes and shot the second round. (We have been shooting this for years on Shady mountain and I think that is why Shady Mtn shooters do so well in in competition)  The score sheet will accommodate the first and second rounds since there are 14 blocks on the sheet.  The first five blocks are for the times, 6th block is for W/X, 7th block is for fastest time in round one, 8th block is not used, just blackened out, that leaves 6 more blocks for round two, with the W/X block and fastest time for round 2 preprinted already.  I knew the preprinted score sheet would work well, what I needed to test was the score entry feature of the CFDA program.

Testing the CFDA program I found that you could enter the scores in the normal fashion but when you attempted to enter round two scores the program would tell you could not do that until you drew round two.  You could, of course, draw what the computer thought was round two and you would have round 5 and 6 drawn.  However, the program will let you enter round two using the edit shooter score button.  This is a much easier way to do it when shooting double Arizona Five.  For example, Shady Mike was the first shooter on page 1, you just bring him up and enter both round one and round two scores.  There is no delay to enter scores since round three and four already have been drawn and are being shot while you enter these scores.

We  had three new shooters to train so after the first four rounds we took a break to train the new shooters. While doing that we entered rounds 3 and 4 using the edit feature.  We then told the computer to draw round 2, which was used for rounds 5 and 6.  The CFDA program really worked well for this type of shoot.  

The only real negative to doing double Arizona Five this way is that you are shooting the same opponent in rounds one and two.  Last year I tested rotating by moving each shooter one lane to the left, while this work well for the shooters, I concluded it was not worth the effort to use special paper and train scorekeepers.

Format Matters:  Again yesterday the hit ratio and gunfighter ratings of the shooters were poor.  Only Shady Mike managed a respectable rating of 1.21 and his hit ratio was below what we normally see for him.  I think this is just a reflection of the fact that Arizona Five is a tougher format than 3 winning shots,  BUT it prepares you for the stress of competition.  

The sort was adequate.  QC Carver won the event because when it came to the shoot off he had the best gunfighter rating in the shoot offs, although he was third overall in gunfighter rating.

Next up:  I would like to do the next Loess Hills Jackpot on May 19.  I set it for Sunday so that it does not conflict with the Camp shoot on May 18. I talked to Rodeo and I am impressed with his speed index concept.  I highly recommend giving it a try but I have some trepidation about shooting blockers. They don't seem to help CFDA shooters, but the speed index seems to have merit.

On May19th I am looking for 18 shooters to test out the Arizona bye.  Cal does not believe me but  the Arizona bye would sort better and save about 50% on the number of rounds needed in last man standing after you get down to 7 shooters.  Last man standing events seem to drag on and on because one shooter is not competing in each round and the aberration of the event winner not competing in 4 of the last 5 rounds did happen in a title event.  Any way I need to twist Shady's arm to get three targets set up then we will shoot 6 sets of three shooters each to test the Arizona bye.  

"Thresholds are frightening places: We stand between what we know and what we don't know. Thresholds offer an invitation to leave the familiar behind and step into the new, the unexpected."  
 Author unknown.

The manna has ceased, now will the milk and honey sustain us? Alleluia Ruah






 

Tombstone - What If?

What if Rodeo Romeo does not draw Troublemaker in the first round? He would have been seeded # 1 and probably would have won Tombstone.  What if he had shot consistently in the shoot offs, he probably would have won the event from the 8th seed.  What if Pork Rind would not have drawn Rodeo, he would have been seeded 3rd and not had to face Rodeo again in the shoot offs. Lots of "What ifs."  What if Alleluia shooters had not drawn other Alleluia shooters?

If you take a look at the top seven shooters, there is a common attribute among all of them.  They are all consistent shooters.  They do not beat themselves.  If you are going to win against these shooters you have to out quick them.  Among these top gunfighters generally they get sorted according to their quickness.  Shoot offs are contests of speed, not lotteries.

The Arizona Bracket Shoot rewards consistency.  The mentally tough gunfighters will come to the top in an Arizona Bracket shoot where they are sorted by quickness and mental toughness.  The Tombstone event was well run.  The only knock is that there was only one range for 80 shooters.  We only got 4 seeding rounds in.  Even with just four rounds, there was the opportunity to recover from a tough draw as Rodeo almost did from the 8th seed.  It was his event to win, all he had to do was shoot "average."

It was not a fluke that the two top shooters were Alleluia shooters. Shady Mike used just 20 shots to win 5 matches. The second place Alleluia shooter shot just average using 26 for 6 matches. (80% is just average.) Other Alleluia shooters did not fare as well, but as one told me, "it is hard to transfer the system from the practice range to competition."  It is not easy to stay focused for the entire event.

Sunday I went back to the venue to search for a lost name tag. The Old Publeo Gunfighters had the venue cleaned up better than it ever had looked in the past.  They did a great job running this event.  It is a great venue.  I had the opportunity to again measure the venue.  The Loess Hills Paladins range will fit easily on the east end of the venue.  It was designed to fit on the west end and still will fit there but a section of the fence would have to be moved.

Well it is back to the drawing board for me.  I got a can of marbles to get.  I never forget a lose. Back to the bucket.

A Better Bye.

I write this post for the powers that be, match directors, Marshals, club officers and the CFDA.  This is something that you should think about and maybe experiment a bit with.

We love the CFDA bye even though it is inherently unfair. We love it because it is unfair. We all look forward to being that lucky shooter that advances without competing. It is not going away because we love it so much, but maybe there is room for improvement in some events.

For illustration, I am going to talk about the Old Timers Category at the Texas State Championship.  There were 7 shooters and it was  a 3x last man standing event which took 10 rounds to resolve.  It took 10 rounds because the event winner lost his first match and therefore 19 loses were required. Because of CFDA byes one shooter did not compete in each of the first 8 rounds.  The  first 3 rounds (7 shooters) produced 9 loses. The next 3 rounds (5 shooters) produced 6 loses. The next 2 rounds (3 shooters) produced 2 loses. The last 2 rounds (2 shooters) produced 2 loses, for a total of 19 loses resolving the issue.  Ten rounds were required because in the first 8 rounds one shooter did not compete in the match format.  In additions to the 10 match format rounds, 8 shoot offs were required to allocate the bye.  That is a total of 18 rounds.

Now what happens if every shooter is required to compete in every round.  In the first 3 rounds (7 shooters), there would be 12 loses. In the next 2 rounds (5 shooters) there would be 6 loses.  Then in the final round (2 shooters) there would be 1 lose for a total of 19 loses.  The matter would have been resolved in 6 rounds with no shoot off rounds.  So you go from requiring 18 rounds to 6 rounds.

It shortens up the match to such an extent that in the same amount of range time you could have shot a 4 x.  Four x would have required 25 loses.  Probably 4 rounds at 7 shooters for 16 loses, 2 rounds at 5 shooters for 6 loses, 1 round at 3 shooters for 2 loses and 1 round at 2 shooters for 1 lose for a total of 25 loses.   The matter would have been resolved in 8 rounds using 4 x if you eliminate the noncompeting CFDA bye procedure.

So the questions for the shooters is which would you prefer? A 3 x with CFDA bye or a 4 x event without the CFDA bye.  A side benefit is that you will get a better sort because the inherent unfairness of the CDFA bye is eliminated.

How do you do it without the bye. It is really pretty simply. The Rule would be:

"All shooters must compete using the match format in every round except when a Rule IV.6 forfeitures occur.  If there is an odd number of shooters in a round, the last three shooters will compete together using the match format to its conclusion. Each shooter will be scored individually against each of the other shooters of the trio, a loss to either results in an x for the shooter. (This always results in one win and two loses, except in Arizona Five match format.)"

To give it a name I am going to call it the Arizona Bye.  I think it will work well and could be use to great advantage in some of our side matches.

We are seeing more and more bracket matches on the championship day.  I think this is good but one of the adverse side effects is the additional wear and tear on the shooters remaining in the main match. In 2016 Powder Keg won the Master Gunfighter bracket at Texas and I won the Gunfighter bracket.  We both had the same comment, "Boy, that was a lot of work and shooting to do before the main match resumed!"  Powder Keg went on to win the State Championship and I  was eliminated  in the first round after the bracket shoot.  Some shooters forego the bracket shoot to rest for the main match.  We might think about the Arizona Bye for these bracket matches.  It probably would shorten the rounds necessary by 50% and the sort would be better.

You never know how something is going to work until you actually do it.  We are going to test out the Arizona Bye at some Loess Hills Jackpot shoots to see how well it works. In fact whether I shoot or not at the next Loess Hills Jackpot shoot will depend on whether we have an odd number of shooters.  If I need to sit out to make the number odd I will.

I always do Gunfighter Ratings on all of the shooters at Loess Hills Jackpot shoots.  I don't need this to rate the shooters, I know who is who, but it is a good tool to evaluate how well the format is working.  If a top shooter places much lower than you would expect you can look at the gunfighter rating to tell if he or she was just having a bad day or whether there is some other aberration involved in the format.  Most of the  time it is the unfairness of the luck of the draw.

I suggest clubs give the Arizona Bye a try.  At the club level is the place to try these  innovations out.  Give it a try.  I heard some other clubs are now trying Arizona Five.  Try it you will like it.  Try the Arizona Bracket shoot. I am tuning up today for that Arizona Bracket Shoot at Tombstone.  Booked a room Saturday night so I can stay for the promenade on Allen Street.  Hope I am celebrating and not drowning my sorrows.

Texas State Championship

2019 Texas State Championship will go down as the year of the youth.  There were 6 youth shooters shooting with the men, Trigger Happy, Lonestar Leadslinger, Just-in Time, Willy Hit It, Akaraka Zach, and Marshall Dylan.  These young men are all now seniors and ready to take on the challenges of the world.  What has always impressed me the most about CFDA is the kids and youth shooters.  You will not find a more disciplined, respectful, courteous group of young people.  I believe it is, in part, because they participate in a true sport that teaches discipline, responsibility, respect and courtesy.

The men's division was dominated by the youth shooters.  Quick Cal was quickly dispatched to the scorer's table by drawing three of the youth shooters. It did not matter how quick Cal was, a .375 would be matched by a .372 by Willy Hit It, or if Cal got up 2 zip as in their second meeting, Willy Hit It then put three on the plate to send him to Boot Hill.  I share Cal's pain, having drawn Willy Hit It, in my first match and being set down in three. 

Every good deed does not go unpunished.  I had the privilege of hand judging Lonestar Leadslinger early in the event. He was a bit flustered and fell behind his opponent. I spoke some words of encouragement to him and he settled down to put three on the plate to win the match.  He made the Magnificent Seven with  3 x s where I meet him on lane 3 and 4.  Three shots and I sat down in seventh place.

As in all titled events, luck of the draw is so important.  At the 2019 Texas State you did not want to draw any of the youth shooters, they have now combined enough accuracy with the blazing speed to be deadly.  None were deadlier than Trigger Happy.  Look at the x count and time out of the top seven shooters.  Trigger Happy won the event and has a time out speed of .433.  Seventh place time out was .427. In between are 3 three shooters and Gentlemen George plodding along at .501.  

Texas also shows you what a family affair this sport is.  Gentleman George (Grandpa) was the crowd favorite but Trigger Happy (Grandson) took home the buckle but not before it went two matches down to the last shot. The battle for 4th and 5th was also family tussle between father and son, if only by law, with youth, Sgt Buck, prevailing over age, the Shootist.

On a personal note, I shot up to my ability. I missed my first four shots in the category match but after that hit better than 80% ("80% is just average").  All shots were within a 40 mls range and my quickest was on the final day.  I got better and better, but that is the Alleluia system. 

Texas was a well run titled event.  Great place to shoot.  Many thanks to all who helped put this event on.

More than one way to skin a cat.

We shot the Loess Hills Paladin Jackpot shoot at Shady mountain yesterday on two lanes with 15 shooters. We had an odd number shooters but because we only had two lanes we could not use the CFDA bye procedure.  I have written on the inherent unfairness of the CFDA bye previously, see "Muster matters, Format matters, Newbies learn!", 9/17/2018.  In a comment to that post Rodeo Romeo suggested a solution of having the last three shooters to continue to shoot until there is a winner among the three then the other two shooters both get an x.  This suggestion has great merit and should be considered by CFDA. It would go a long way in solving the inherent unfairness that is especially troublesome in last man standing events.  However, we could not use this suggestion because we only had two lanes.

What we did was to take the loser of the last full group and have he or she shoot against the odd bye shooter.  That way nobody got to advance without shooting the format of the match.  (The inherent problem with the CFDA bye is that the bye winner moves forward without competing in the format of the match.)  This worked well until we had two losers in the final full group (possible with Arizona Five.)  In that event, we had a one shot shoot off for the opportunity to shoot against the bye shooter, winner getting that opportunity.

This bye procedure worked well.  I would note that the two top seeds both saved an x with this bye solutions. Remember in CFDA scoring wins do not matter.  We score by loses that is "x"s.

Other Comments: 

Generally, the Arizona Five format worked well.  We shot 6 rounds in 3 hours, 15 shooters on 2 lanes.  The gunfighter ratings of the gunslingers were lower than what you would expect at a club event, but that is what you would expect of Arizona Five because it is a little tougher format than 3 winning shots and therefore better for a practice event.  If you want to get better at titled events, shoot Arizona Five!  If you are going succeed you have to hit now, within the first 5 shots, there is no 7,8,9,10, etc shots to redeem you. 

The sort was good. The seeding matched the gunfighter rating of the gunslingers.  Arizona Five does a better job sorting because of the increase of rounds, elimination of the one shot lottery shoot off, and the feature that both shooters can get a loss if they are shooting poorly or both can get a win if they are shooting well. 

We shot 48 matches in the seeding rounds.  Only 2 matches resulted in double loses or 4% of the matches.  Only 6 matches resulted in double wins or 12.5% of the matches. Together that would be 16% of the matches.  The fact that double wins were three times more likely is a reflection of the quality of the shooters attending. To get a double lose both shooters must be shooting really poorly.  On the other hand with the quality of the shooters attending, it is much more likely to have two shooters both shooting well and in that event both might get a win.  Arizona Five properly sorts when two shooters are 2-2, both hitting 80%, both having won 2 shots on speed.  It also sorts properly when one of those shooters hits 100%.

I think the Loess Hills Paladins will continue with monthly Arizona Five Jackpot shoots, third Sunday of the month looks good to me.  I just need to sort out locations.  At a minimum, the less than 20 works well on Shady Mtn.  

When it gets to be 115 in the shade this summer, a little jackpot shoot at Rented Mule might be in order.  Have Range, Will Travel.

2019 Winter Range

For years I have been lobbying for a title match at Winter Range. We are doing all the work and we should have a championship, but I am changing my mind.  The weather could not have been worst this year during the week including literally 3 feet of snow in the mountain passes.  But Saturday broke clear and it was a perfect day for shooting. Even with about 20 folks not making it over the mountains, we had 102 shooters participate.  It was a great shoot.  The Arizona Bracket Shoot is so well liked and so much fun that it would be a shame to give it up.  For 2020, I think we should plan on 3 ranges and 120 to 150 shooters.  We have the facilities, the manpower, and the space.  With 3 ranges we could have 9 brackets.  If we get more than 25 shootists we could have two shootist brackets.

When you look at the money winners there is so much diversity, that you know the purpose of the Arizona Bracket Shoot is working. In Bracket A, Cowboy Up was clean and only needed three shots to win. I suspect he must have pirated my training blog, he is shooting so well, just joshing. He out shot Broken Spoke and Whiskey for the win. Bracket B really shows the merit of the shoot, with youth Bandana Kid out dueling Smoken Hank and multi-National Champion, the Draw.  Bracket C was won by Grey Wanderer out shooting Dusty Jam and Desert Gator.  Dusty Jam is using his prize money to buy a backup gun (CFDA Shady Mike tuned) that is being sold by the Loess Hills Paladins. Many thanks to him.

Bracket D was the most colorful bracket. Big Foot was third. He just could not compete with that dogboy shooting with a parasol, but dogboy met his 2x4 in the match with The Stud.  It was a sight to behold.  Bracket E was some of my students dueling but Eagle Eye shooting a Shady Mike holster (his holster having been snowed in) prevailed over Viper and Lone Rider.

Final bracket was the Shootist Bracket.  I have had a long standing argument with the Counselor about what is possible in competition and the shootist bracket made my point.  Dirty Dan was hitting better than 80% at high 4 low 5 speed but lost to BA, also hitting better than 80% at mid 4 speed. That set up the finals, with BA continuing to hit three in the mid fours to no avail, with Quigley putting three on the plate in almost identical .392 speed.  This what cowboy fastdraw can be. Every shot decided by quickness. "80% is just average!"

Loess Hills Paladins:  The second range was provided by the Loess Hills Paladins, Inc.  We had some timer issues but those will get resolved with some adjustments to the backstop.  The Association of Arizona Gunslingers had purchased a raffle gun from the Paladins and all 250 tickets were sold, the lucky winner being Silver Lady.  She had purchased her ticket early at Rio. Many thanks to all who purchased tickets. All the proceeds will go to range improvements.  Silver Lady's pardner, Minnesota Maverick, finished 5th in Bracket A so I guess the couple from Minnesota did quite well.

The Arizona Bracket Shoot is unique to the Valley of the Sun. If you would like to give it a try in a historic setting, head down to Tombstone on March 23.  I said it before the promenade between the Crystal Palace and Big Nose Kate's is worth the trip.  The Arizona Bracket shoot will be great also.

Thinking of next year, I think the Paladins will sponsor a little warm up match on Friday.  Just a little jackpot to get you trained up.  Arizona Five and we will show what a good sort can do for you.

Shady and I are playing the what if game.  If you lose your focus you are shuffled out.  Wait till next year! Or can't wait till next year!