IDPA Gaming

[PistoleroJesse]

Since the thread is back, I'll throw in one. Pay careful attention to how you use cover. Sometimes you can eliminate a lot of movement while still using cover properly. You just have to have your lower body and 50% of the upper body hidden from the target. This doesn't mean you need to run right up to a wall and lean around the corner. Depending on the stage layout, you can find opportunities to shoot on the move that other people don't see.

Agreed. Staying 5ft behind cover and being right on top of it equal the same cover.

Even from a 'tactical' stand point, IDPA enforces the bad habit of crowding cover.

[Forrest Halley]

Even from a 'tactical' stand point, IDPA enforces the bad habit of crowding cover.

Please give me examples of what you mean by this.

The rules require %'s of upper and lower body to be behind cover and a knee to be in contact with the ground for lw cover. I haven't seen anything that says "thou shalt have intimate relations with the cover," or states a distance off max or min.

In the tactical reality the further off from cover you are the better it protects you by making the exposed portion more difficult to hit and keeping you safer from bullets splattering on/splintering the cover. Say for example you expose the body area of an 6" round plate to engage a threat. Said threat is ten yards forward of the cover. Crowding cover it's a ten yard shot on a randomly appearing 6" steel plate. At five yards behind cover you pose a fifteen yard shot. There's a substantial shot difficulty increase as the range increases, but you don't care you're the small steel plate not the full cardboard target.

In the gamer reality there is an optimum distance off of cover. This is the minimum distance to allow unencumbered operation of the weapon and transitions without the need to dismount the weapon from the sighting plane. Too close and it's difficult to move around...too far and you're moving more than necessary to quickly transition to the next target.

[Strick]

I have shot plenty of matches where the MD or that particular SO on a stage has deemed that you must be within "x" distance of cover for you to be considered in cover.

[Forrest Halley]

I have shot plenty of matches where the MD or that particular SO on a stage has deemed that you must be within "x" distance of cover for you to be considered in cover.

This is part of the freelance that the rules afford a stage designer or MD. I am looking for where IDPA specifically enforces cover crowding.

As a shooter I feel that to some extent a proximity to cover should be enforced due to the fact that at some point you distance off of cover is going to give more cover to the threat and less to you. Also it must be stipulated at times to ensure a consistent flow of the competitors through the stage, consistent shot angle and sequence, and keep the cover from getting shot up.

[jar]

I have shot plenty of matches where the MD or that particular SO on a stage has deemed that you must be within "x" distance of cover for you to be considered in cover.

That's the real dichotomy in idpa, between those who do the best they can enforcing the rules as written and those who make up rules to suit their perception of the spirit of the game.

Sent from my PG06100 using Tapatalk

[Rob Tompkins]

Cover:

1st - you must comply with the stage description but lacking directives in the stage description...

2nd - closer then 1 arms length and much more then 1 1/2 arms length off cover is not good, as pointed out to close is hard to maneuver and to far you have to move more but to far off cover also makes it harder for the SO to see you are in compliance and more likely to give a PE - that is how "proximity" to cove is enforced.

[RickB]

Has nothng to do with scores or who wins what. Has to do with gun types.

So I guess Production and Limited are silly as well?

Taran doesn't shoot a Glock and why would Robert and Dave compete against each other when they can race for their OWN division title?

At our club, we discourage stages requiring a minimum of 10 or 11 rounds, so that if anyone has to reload, everyone has to reload. We rarely have 18-round stages, so reloading is the same across the auto pistol divisions. Our "High OverAll" changes from month to month, and there's no telling the division in which the HOA shooter will be competing. It was CDP in April, and SSP in February. I was second both months, shooting ESP and CDP. The action types really need to be realigned, now that the striker-fired guns can often have nicer triggers than stock single action guns in ESP and CDP.

[solaritx]

Getting back to the premise of this tread:

Look at all the top shooters, either the gamers or those that just do well at this sport..........they all do the same thing: Shoot fast AND DON'T MISS.

Garry

[Duane Thomas]

Let's go easy on the discussions of "tactical reality" versus match shooting, and confine ourselves to discussing application of the cover rule in a match setting.

[hankfan79]

Are we still talking about this? Just do this...

GAME until they say you can't do it. Then figure out another way.

[Duane Thomas]

[hankfan79]

He is such a GAMER that he doesn't even have eye/ear protection. SMOOTH!

[xd1977]

Are we still talking about this? Just do this...

GAME until they say you can't do it. Then figure out another way.

Agreed...if IDPA is based on "real world scenarios", then who can honestly say that you're not gonna bite, kick spit, gouge, and attempt find every other advantage possible to stop the person or persons who mean you harm in a "real world scenario". I love shooting IDPA because it makes you think and react instinctively while you shoot in many cases. But honestly; I'm gonna turn that stage inside out as much as I can in the avalible time I have before it's my turn to shoot.

[Forrest Halley]

Let's go easy on the discussions of "tactical reality" versus match shooting, and confine ourselves to discussing application of the cover rule in a match setting.

Duane,

By using the term "tactical reality" I was referring to those that shoot IDPA by a tactical mindset that the cardboard is an actual threat and use cover as effectively as possible. Notice that I used only target nomenclature when referring to amounts of competitor exposed from cover. These competitors are aware of the fact that they are participating in a competition, but choose to further constrain themselves in order to more closely pursue the spirit of the game/mission statement. The bullet splinter/spatter comment is derived from the number of folks that seem to miscalculate while attempting to utilize cover from a distance.

By using the term "gamer reality" I was referring to those competitors that engage the targets as effectively as possible while using cover as ineffectively as allowed by the rules.

Tactical vs. Gamer...method focus vs. result focus.

Regards,

Forrest Halley

[toddje]

I don't think I've seen it here yet, so here's a tip:

Become a Safety Officer. Then in all your club level matches you can shoot the stage last so you get to see what everyone does wrong first. Also, you get to design stages, so you can play to your strengths. And you see lots of folks trying to 'game' things and can learn from their mistakes. No, you don't need to be able to shoot fast to be an SO, you need to be able to see fast.

By the way, the guy that wins every match he shows up to in our group wins EVERY time. He's even taken a procedural and won. With his revolver. And he's not "gaming" to do it, he's just plain accurate, fast and efficient. So the best gaming advice seems to be the older advice - hit the zeros REALLY fast.

[Duane Thomas]

Since we seem seem to be drifting in the direction of match shooting versus real-world self-defense (the last two of three messages have dealt with "What you're gonna do in a match versus what you're gonna do in reality" - a topic we highly discourage on this board), I'm going to go ahead and close this one down.