Scores

[Flexmoney]

I shot a match this past weekend.  Another shooter and I were pretty close in the scoring.  We both shot limited.  In the overall match he beat me by about half a point.  In the limited-only scoring I edged him out by about three points.  I think he got shorted.  I added up the hit factors.  he should have came out ahead.

So, is it fair to use the point system for scoring?  The way it is set-up now there is room for a little bit of gaming.  

What is the stategy?

[Jon Merricks]

Being new to the sport it is very confusing seeing all the diffrent scoring systems. A lawyer must have been invloved in thinking them up . It would be nice to see a standard scoring system and use only that one, if it is  possible. Just my 2 penny's.

[38supPat]

Up here we completely separate Open and Limited so there is no overall score. What happened is the Open scores, because they were higher than you, bumped your points down. Everything is scored by percentage. When and if your score gets beaten, it puts you in a lower percentile, bringing you closer to the limited shooter you were competeing against. The points are then awarded according to your percentage and you get less points. Depending on what stage and how much it is worth this can easily affect your score by 3 or 4 points. In thoery, suppose Robbie, Todd and Jerry were neck and neck at the Nationals, within a couple of points overall, and some dark horse who wasn't going to win the match, has a blazing run on one field course. It could cause enough of a change in the points to alter the overall finish of the top three, even though they are done shooting and their hit factors/points totaled. Its a little tough to explain but if I sat down and ran you through it you'd see how and why.

Pat  

[Flexmoney]

Pat,

OK, I get the math.  So the idea is to do your best on the high point stages because they will skew your score up.  All stages are not equal.

Field courses with many targets are more important to your match score than, say, an El Prez, right?  

[Phil Dunlop]

I think all this is about to change with weighted hit factor.

The plan is to factor the score to the minimum number of shots reqd. See the IPSC web sight for more info,

P.D.

[38supPat]

Yeah the field courses weigh heavily on your match results, but don't ignore the speed shoots. A couple of weeks ago I shot a club match with two courses of fire, one was a 28 rnd field course, the other was a 4 popper speed shoot. One is worth 140 point, the other 20. Kinda obvious which was more important. Well I got sqeaked on the field by about 2.5 points. Both of our times were mid 14's, his was a bit faster with one more point. So on the big course I'm behind. On the speed shoot which was two full size 'classic poppers' on the outside of two 'mini classic poppers' at about 16 yds. I shot it in 2.07 he shot it in 2.44 giving me just over 2.75 points ahead of him and the win. So I won on the tiny stage, remamber its all your points added up at the end of the match and 3 speed shoots are roughly equal to one field course, you may not win the match on the little ones, but if you blow it it will sure pull you down. I lost last years Canadian Nationals on an eight rnd stage, It had two paper and four steel at 10 yds, I shot so bad I had to reload to finish after going dry. (we only have 10 in our guns up here). I lost by like 60 something points, 40 of which were on this stage (another 20 on another speed shoot but thats another story). I'm not saying I would have won with out that stage but trying to play catch up for the rest of the match put a fair bit of stress on me.

So everything counts, build up your points over the course of the match, make the other shooters beat you, don't lose it yourself.

Pat

[benos]

Each stage consists of targets. If you don't give up anything (unrealistic) on any targets, you'll fiinish well.

On your overall factor compared to the other Limited factors, I think of it like this: You actual score and finish should depend on your hit factors compared to other limited shooters. I use the overall percentage, if available, to chart my overall progress against myself. For example, compared to the match winner (if there was a good solid score shot by a GM), I would be very happy if my Limited score was 85% or better. 80 to 85% was more like "average." And if I hit the 90+% range, it was yeehaa time!

be

[Flexmoney]

Here is what happened on the Limited side...

I won the highier point, field course.  In the Limited match standings that was enough to give me a three point advantage (and the match win).  The guy I beat out actually had a better score if you were to add up our hit factors for all the stages.

So, if the match was scored using just the total of the hit factors then he would have beat me by about half of a hit factor point.

[Phil Dunlop]

Perhaps the scoring system would be more realistic if it was the average hit factor for the match, i.e. total hit factors/number of stages.

The winner should be the person that scores the most points per second, if the concept of balance in DVC is accepted, and average hit factor reflects this best.

Stage or match points only distort things.

Just my $.05 worth.

[38supPat]

There is supposed to be a difference in how he stages add up. If a shooter wins a twenty something rnd stage it shoud be worth more than an 8 rnd stage. If there were 3 speed shoots, and 3 field courses, and you won the three field courses, but another shooter won the three speed shoots by just a bit more percent, you wouldn't be too happy to be beat by someone who won all the small stages. Say he can shoot like stink but can't reload or move very well. It would suck to lose to him because he hosed 3 short stages. There should be a balance where the bigger stages are worth more.

Pat

[Phil Dunlop]

I sure would hate to loose under those circumstances, but playing devils advocate, in a 'practical' scenario the most important thing is the points scored per second.

So in several practical scenarios the average points scored per second would best determine the most practical shooter.

I'll go back through some results and see how that looks on paper.

P.D.

[38supPat]

If you add the hit factors or average them, it really skews the results. Alot of speed shoots have hit factors of 10+ while field courses are around 5-7 (at least good ones are). So the speed shoots actually outweight the fields. Win 3 speed shoots = 30+hit factor, win 3 field courses 15-21 hit factor.

Pat

I like to play devils advocate too!

[Flexmoney]

I see the light.

This is a sport.  Movement is a large aspect of it.  Freestyle is a large aspcet too.  Field courses (and their points) should get the greater weighting.

If we were to just stand in a box and hit five targets then we would be shooting just like steel (which is fun too, just different).

Thanks once again.  This discussion has helped me to grasp yet another aspect of the game.

[Phil Dunlop]

whether stand and deliver, or run and gun, the best shooter, most balanced, will be the one that most consistently scores high or highest points per second IMHO.

I rescored an old nationals, and true, because my arch rival took a miss on a 40pointer the scores under average hit factor reversed and I would have won.

He posted higher hit factors on 8 out of 13 stages, but his worst stages were worse than mine. Generally at the time he was a better field course shooter than me.

I'm not really advocating change here but just interested in the math and what we want our scores to reflect.

P.D.