Top USPSA Shooters - Individual Classes

[Dowter]

There's a few things that I realized while making the results.  Open and Limited is very accurate.  Production and Lim10 isn't as accurate.  Revolver is barely more than a glorified list of the nationals.  Production and Lim10 had too many samplings based on too few shooters.  I didn't want to throw out the matches because I wanted as many people as possible to be represented on the lists and the lists will become more accurate over time.

I currently have 3113 shooters in the database to compare scores with so over the next year these rankings should get more and more accurate.

I've come up with a definition of what the percentage after the shooter's uspsa number represents.

"The LJB number represents what a shooter should get at the nationals (if they do their best) based on what their previous peak performances have been at major matches in the last year."

"LJB" means "Leatham, Jarrett, Barnhart" and represents what the peak of shooting performance is.

I would like to hear from shooters who are ranked on the list.  Do you think that your rank is accurate of your current skill level?  Thanks for the feedback.

[chuckbradley]

I dont know if your list includes everybody it should. I shot Limited at the Aware Invitational and Indiana State Championship, won both, am classified with USPSA as a 98.735% Limited shooter. I am not listed. In fact 2 of the top guys you have listed were 3rd & 4th at the aware Aware. Dave Sevigny 3rd & Phil Strader 4th. Brian is not listed. I am sure he can still hold his own. I am not sure the list with the parameters set  gives a relaistic look of the top shooters. It may be a list of shooters who shot the matches included in your parameters, but you cant say it is a list of top shooters overall.

[TDean]

Well I certainly hope I can prove I'm better than 170th!  If anything, your list is another tool to help shooters improve, I like that.

Now along with the NASDAQ numbers, I have to closely watch the "DOW'S"

[Dowter]

ChuckBradley,

I didn't know that there was a Indiana State Championship.  It's not listed  on the uspsa webpage as a major match - http://uspsa.com/cgi-bin/results_index.cgi?year=2002 .  I would have used it if I knew of its existence.  You only have one other major match - VT Aware and you need two to be ranked.

I go by the uspsa webpage to find the major matches.  I'll try to be more careful in 2003 to catch those not listed.

"Brian is not listed."

I can't rank people based on reputation,  I have no doubt that if he shoots in 2003 he'll be way up there.

Thanks for your input!

(Edited by Dowter at 12:58 pm on Dec. 26, 2002)

[Dowter]

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Quote: from TDean on 12:40 pm on Dec. 26, 2002

Well I certainly hope I can prove I'm better than 170th!  If anything, your list is another tool to help shooters improve, I like that.

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Don't be too upset.  I'm 260th.

[Steve Anderson]

Mine is close, I guess. I only shot two majors and came in 30 @ 69% in prod. I shot one match at about 70% of my ability and one at about 85% of my ability (at that time) so it's a good reflection of my performance in those two matches.

I think it's a great idea, and very cool info.

Thanks,

SA

[Jake Di Vita]

http://www.d-s-c.org/resStatematch02.htm

Here are the results for the 2002 MI State Championship. It was not listed on USPSA's site either so I'm unsure if you got it.

[Dowter]

Aw crud...

OK.  I have the Mi State Championship.  I'll add it to the stats before Jan 1st.  

Does anyone have a link to the Indiana Championship or any other major matches not listed on the USPSA website?

Thanks in advance.

[Dowter]

OK.  I found Indiana- http://www.tsssinc.com/Area5/IN/2002SecMatch/

I'll be inputing Michigan too.

If anyone knows of any other matches not listed below please speak up.  Thanks

(Please note that 3-gun matches weren't used)

AL Sectional

Area 1 Championship Plus Staff

Area 2 Championship and Rio Salado Desert Classic

Area 3 Championship

Area 4 Championship

Area 5 Championship

Area 6 Championship

Area 7 Championship and NY State Championship

Area 8 Factory Gun Championship

Area 8 Race Gun Championship

CA Golden Bullet

CO State Championship

FL Single Stack Classic

FL South Florida Championship

FL State Championship

GA State Championship

ID State Championship

Junior Postal Match (not used)

LA Louisiana Section Championship

MA Northeast Sectional Championship

MO Fall Classic State Championship

MS Mississippi Classic

Mid Atlantic Sectional Championship

NC Sectional

NV Infinity US Open

NY Eastern Lakes Sectional

NY Firecracker

OH Sectional Championship

OR Crazy Crock Banzai Ballistic (not used)

PA Tri State Championship

SC Sectional Championship

TN Sectional

TX Open Championship

TX Space City Challenge

TX State Limited Championship

US Factory Gun Nationals

US Race Gun Nationals Unofficial Results Including Staff

VA Summer Blast

VT AWARE Invitational

[Shooter Grrl]

What are you considering a "Major" match?  Try this one:

http://www.nevadasection.com/BOB/bob_finals_all.html

Johnny Lim's Best of the Best.

PS - the results are DEAD ON for me

(Edited by Shooter Grrl at 12:46 pm on Dec. 26, 2002)

[Dowter]

Yup, that looks like a major match to me.

Thanks for the help.

*sigh* I hope I get them all.

[Jon Merricks]

Dowter I figured you would take some heat from people that are not happy in there standing.  Thanks for what you have done and keep up the good work.  

[Dowter]

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Quote: from Jon Merricks on 8:52 pm on Dec. 26, 2002

Dowter I figured you would take some heat from people that are not happy in there standing.  Thanks for what you have done and keep up the good work.  

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Actually the response has been suprisingly positive.  There hasn't been anything really negative - mostly just concerns or questions on how the ratings worked.

I don't really mind constructive criticism.   I wouldn't take it personally if someone disagreed with my system.

[professor]

Dowter,

I've got some comments on the relative difficulty of a particular match. You mentioned taking the results from the Nationals, and comparing them against the results from the major match, based on the relative standings of people who shot both.  I'm thinking that because the National shooter pool is more restrictive than any of the Area or State matches, that is going to bias the shooter list used to compile the match difficulty. What you'll end up with is not really representative of the difficulty of the match, even though it is representative of how well one of the other shooters would do if they were to go to the nationals.

Say you've got an Area match that is set up exactly the same as the National match (even though that will never happen in practice, due to different number of stages, etc.) The Area match will draw some, but not all, of the big guns, along with a bunch of other shooters throughout the classifications. The National will draw all of the big guns, and a few of the lower classifications.  

Assume that the shooters that participate at both matches shoot IDENTICAL hit factors on each stage in both matches. When the scoring is complete, the list of Area shooters will have percentages ranging from 100% on down to maybe 50%, because one of the top guns will undoubtedly win the Area match, and only the better ranking (and finishing) shooters will also go to the Nationals. In the National scoring, the same hit factors might only rate at 95% tops, if the Area winner is outgunned by one of the other top guys in the sport. Because everybody shot identical HFs, every shooter will also attain 95% of their Area match score. The Area match would be rated at 95% relative to the National. At any rate, it is a true measure of what any one of the other Area match shooters would score at the Nationals, but it is not a measure of the relative difficulty of the two matches. Remember, we're assuming the match itself was identical in both cases. The number you're calculating actually turns out to be a measure of the relative strength of the top shooters that attended both matches.

[professor]

Dowter,

Division-specific ratings of Area matches is going to be necessary, since the National matches are broken up to Race gun and Factory gun. And that means that the gene pool [whoops],  the common shooter list  for each division at the Area matches will need to match up for the division-specific national match.

Statistics will continue to be sparse for the Revo shooters [the so-called recessive gene pool].

[Dowter]

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...but it is not a measure of the relative difficulty of the two matches. Remember, we're assuming the match itself was identical in both cases. The number you're calculating actually turns out to be a measure of the relative strength of the top shooters that attended both matches.

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OK.  I think I understand your point now.  You're right in that I'm not measuring the difficulty of the match in terms of physical and mental challenge.  When I say "difficult match", I mean how difficult is it to get a high percentage.

If Rob Leatham set the 100% at a match I would call it difficult even if it was nothing more than standing and shooting at targets 10 feet away.

If a D class shooter set the 100% at a match I would call it easy even if it included stages where you hang upside down from your feet and have weasels attacking you.

Do I understand you correctly?

[Dowter]

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Quote: from professor on 10:13 pm on Dec. 26, 2002

Dowter,

Division-specific ratings of Area matches is going to be necessary, since the National matches are broken up to Race gun and Factory gun. And that means that the gene pool [whoops],  the common shooter list  for each division at the Area matches will need to match up for the division-specific national match.

Statistics will continue to be sparse for the Revo shooters [the so-called recessive gene pool].

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Just so I'm certain of what you are saying.

Divisions - limited, open, production, limited10, revolvers

Classes - d,c,b,a,master,grand master

I already rate all the divisions separately.  The divisions have nothing to do with each other in terms of determining scores.  I compare the area 8 limited to the nationals limited and the other divisions don't come into the mix. Each division is an island unto itself.

The only time the different divisions meet is when I combine them at the end.  The forementioned ranking works under the premise that a 80% gained at the nationals in production division is just as good as a 80% gained at the nationals in open division.  My argument is strengthened by the fact that Todd Jarret was setting the 100% at both the production and open nationals.

If (let's say) none of the top guns shot at the Lim10 nationals and it was won by some C Class shooter.  If this did happened then the 100% at the lim10 nationals wouldn't be a true 100% and that would totally screw up my system and I therefore would have to probably completely throw out the lim10 class from my scoring.  I couldn't therefore say that an 80% at the lim10 nationals is just as talented as an 80% at the open nationals.

[Duane Thomas]

I'm 166th in Lim-10. I'm amazed. Did I even shoot two major USPSA matches in 2002?

[Dowter]

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Quote: from Duane Thomas on 1:28 am on Dec. 27, 2002

I'm 166th in Lim-10. I'm amazed. Did I even shoot two major USPSA matches in 2002?

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The nationals count as two matches since they are more important and have about twice as many stages as most regular major matches.

[Duane Thomas]

Ah.

Next year the plan is to fire many more major matches. Hopefully that'll translate into a higher rating. We shall see.

[Dowter]

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Quote: from Duane Thomas on 1:45 am on Dec. 27, 2002

Ah.

Next year the plan is to fire many more major matches. Hopefully that'll translate into a higher rating. We shall see.

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Ahhhhh.... music to my ears.  That's the exact kind of positive mental attitude I was hoping to inspire in shooters.

[Duane Thomas]

That's me!

[Jon Merricks]

Dowter,  One thing you may want to change is that if the section/state match did not draw enough to even be considered a classifier percentage not to use it.  That may help a little with the accuracy that Professor was speaking of.  

[lynn jones]

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Actually the response has been suprisingly positive.  There hasn't been anything really negative - mostly just concerns or questions on how the ratings worked.

I don't really mind constructive criticism.   I wouldn't take it personally if someone disagreed with my system.

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dowter, it's not easy to complain about hard work.

thanks,

lynn (somewhere in the 100's) jones

[professor]

OK, to clarify my comments on "difficulty of a match":

First and foremost, the method you're using can accurately compute  National-equivalent percentages from the results at an Area match, so that when you combine all percentages for a given shooter, you are combining "apples with apples". [i'll use "Area match" as a generic term to represent any of the major matches on your list, as it's the shortest name to type].

I had one suggestion to improve the method, if you weren't already doing it. That was to use division-specific percentages for each Area match. By that, I meant that for each Area match will have a list of Open shooters who also shot in the Race Gun Nationals, a separate list of Limited shooters who also shot the Race Gun Nationals, a separate list of L10 shooters who also shot the Factory Gun Nationals, etc. for PRO and REV division shooters. Each division list produces a different percentage. So five different factors get used to convert the percentage a particular shooter got at the Area into the pseudo-National equivalent.

The main reason this is necessary is because the shooter mix is likely to change from division to division. Say Todd Jarrett shoots Open at an Area match, and wins Open division and overall (100% & 100%). Since he can't also shoot Production at the same match, he is not on the list of PRO shooters. Someone else wins that, say Dave Olhasso (100%), who finishes at 85% overall [since PRO equipment is inherently slower than Open].

If you use a single factor for this Area match, based on a list of all shooters who shot it and the respective National, the average factor will contain Open shooters stats, which will be valid, but also stats from all the other divisions, which will not be valid for them. In particular, Dave Olhasso, the PRO shooter winner, will have his area finish compared to his results at the Factory gun National, where Jarrett established the norm, and that will produce a ratio which is relatively low, perhaps close to his overall finish of 85%. Even worse, the top REV shooter might be a Class C shooter who goes up against Jerry Micelek at the Nationals, and only gets 20% there. That 20% divided by 100% further depresses the average for the Area factor.

Since most of the top shooters opt for Open or Limited at the Area matches, yet also participate in a second division at the Factory Nationals, a single Area-specific factor will probably end up lower than it ought to be for the Open and Limited shooters, but higher than it ought to be for the other three divisions.

Of course, breaking the shooter list down into 5 separate lists means that there will be divisions with few or no shooters. In those cases, I'd use the factor from the next "higher" division, on the assumption that the relative strength of each division will be similar at any given Area match. Plus, this should only affect a few shooters anyway.

(This is long enough, see next message for match difficulty factor)