Bracket Test Shoot - What we learned?

We always test and train on any format that we are going to use in a club shoot.  We are planning to use a CFDA Bracket type shoot for our final event of the year.  See the previous post. The question to be determined is whether the CFDA scoring program and system will work with the point systems we are using.  That system determines place by x count and speed and therefore there is an inherent speed bias involved.  This is the exact method used in the seeding in the Arizona Bracket Shoot.  It is not unusual for a shooter to be placed below another shooter he has beaten head to head because  of the speed bias.  

The Test: Today to test how it would work, we shot a one bracket CFDA bracket shoot placing all shooters in the Master Gunfighter bracket, 3x last man standing format.  The consensus of the four board members that were there was the CFDA system would work provided we were aware of what a "recognized place" is.  Under the CFDA rules if an elimination with more than one shooter affects a recognized place there must be a shoot off.

In the bracket shoots itself there will be no recognized places.  We are not giving any thing out for the placement in the bracket. However, the placement may affect the top three for points.

Today, the current leader of the Master Gunfighter bracket was eliminated in the 8th round with one other shooter.  He is tied for the lead of the bracket and just a few points ahead of third.  Whether he gets third place or fourth place points may make the difference between whether he finishes 1st, 2nd or 3rd in his bracket.  Therefore, under CFDA rules it is a recognized place and there should be a shoot off for place.  These shoot offs will be quite rare and probably will be shot off on lane 5 & 6 at the same time as the finals are decided.

I think the folks figuring this out will be able to make these decisions while the shoots are occurring.  The only time that I would think that it would be difficult to determine would be if someone would come to win for a long way out, say 5-10 points or more back.  Possible but not likely. 

What is likely is a tie in Master Gunfighter . If top three are tied, which is likely, if they go out early together, multiple shooter shoot-offs may be required, but that should be obvious if it happens.

The CFDA scoring will work!  To make it clearer we might just decide that for the top five places in each bracket there will be a shoot off if more than one goes out in the same round.  This does not take any more range time because lanes are available. That does not solve the problem of a competitive shooter going out early.  We will just have to be aware of that possibility.

The Association of Arizona Gunslingers Club Point System

I write this post to explain to the membership how the new club point system works and to let other clubs know of the system if they might find it beneficial.

The Problem: Under the old system only the same 2 or 3 shooters were competitive in each of the gender divisions. Year after year less than 10% of the membership had a reasonable chance of winning an award.  We had tried to solve this with most improved awards but that did not function very well.

This was the result of points being awarded by gender even though we never shoot gender divisions.  We shoot exclusively the Arizona Bracket Shoot at our club practice events wherein men, women, and youth all compete in the same event.  How well you do in the point standings many times was determined not by how well you shot but by who you drew.  Luck of the draw really played a major factor in your placings.

The old system was not as performance driven as the new system.

The Solution:  Under the new system we maintain a master spreadsheet of all shooters recording their fastest CFDA Bracket Report time for the year. We will have about 100 shooters on this list. For club points we only use club members (currently about 60) and divide the members into the four CFDA brackets, Master Gunfighter, Gunfighter, Sheriff and Deputy.  Club members are competing for awards, top three, against those other members in their bracket. The last shoot of the year, December, will be a CFDA bracket shoot so that in that event those who are competitive will have a chance to directly affect their standings.  It will be a big point event, probably a more than 20 point event.

Even though we only have four events so far this year it is apparent that over 40% of the membership will be competitive for awards and have a chance to be in the top three of their bracket come December.

The brackets are fluid, you can move up or down between the brackets based on your performance and the performance of the other shooters.

This is not a classification system.  Your bracket is determined by your performance at actual events.  

Club Points:  We recognize that the "main match" is nothing more than a seeding tournament and that points ought to be awarded based on your performance and not luck of the draw.  In the Arizona Bracket Shoot, competitors are seeded into brackets and the competition starts at that point.  Most events have three bracket but some have six such as Winter Range or other Jackpot shoots.  Points are awarded in inverse order and in the number of competitors in a bracket.  The larger the shoot the more points you can get. For illustration, January was a 20 point event, Winter Range 18 points (6 brackets), August 8 points, September 15 points.  You can probably count on having 20 point events through the end of the year.  In the State Championship, the 2nd chance shoot will count and those making the Magnificent 7 will get top bracket points plus 1 point and 1 point for each other club member they place above.

Sandbagging:    You really can not game this system.  Because your bracket is set by your fastest time for the year you can only move up to a faster bracket by your shooting, not down to a slower bracket.  The only way you  move down is if someone else moves above you and pushes you down into a slower bracket. Sandbagging will not be a problem.

Intentional sandbagging would be a Conduct Violation for "bending the rules to create an unfair advantage over fellow competitor," but we do not foresee that will be a problem with our membership, none of them will give you a millisecond.

For those that think you could do it on an event level consider this September event.  A shooter upon getting his first X mused that he should lose another to get into bracket B (he did not lose again). What that would gotten him was the opportunity to shoot against the hottest shooter at the event, the quickest shooter in the club.  You really don't know who is going be in bracket A, B, or C.  B or C might be tougher brackets.

Current Status:

The system seems to be working fairly well so far after only four events. It appears we will at least 24 to 30 shooters competing for awards come December.  The system is very performance driven.  Brackets do not appear to be that important. For illustration, the shooter with the top points in each bracket would be competitive for the top award even if they moved up to a faster bracket.  For example, top shooter in Deputy would be in third in Sheriff, top shooter in Sheriff would be 2nd if in Gunfighter. This is a result of the system being so performance driven.  You need to shoot well every event, or at least in 6 event, it being a best six event system.  

When we adopted this system we thought we would have 6 events by April. Making it a best six event system would have made the numerous snowbird members viable.

Another interesting factor is that this system gives shooters a chance to recover from tough luck of the draw or a slow start.  At the last event, the quickest shooter in the club, was able to recover from early losses to win 6 or 7 in a row to get 2nd place points. At the end of the event he was the hottest shooter there but not tough enough to get 1st place points.  The top gun Sheriff and  top gun Gunfighter both got 1st place points.  "A" bracket could only muster 2nd place points. (But on a personal note, the Master Gunfighter bracket is in a tie between the 10th and 11th quickest shooters in the club, performance counts.)