In the event of a tie...

[barrysuperhawk]

So, at USPSA match my score matched another competitor (in a different class) down to four places worth of hit factor.  I had more alphas but he was shooting major.  Looking at the overall scores afterwards, I note that the other competitor is listed one place above me rather than tied, and I am curious why.  -Note I am not complaining or anything, there is no money or prestige riding on this, I am just genuinely curious how this works.. If you would have asked me before how this would be scored I would have thought that number of alphas would be the tiebreaker but that doesn't seem to be true.

He signed up and shot thru before I did, alphabetically my name comes before his.

Edited August 13, 2023 by barrysuperhawk

[Jmo2011]

Maybe he got brownie points for shooting major

[BritinUSA]

I think it used to be decided by the number of A's but it's not in the current rulebook.
 

IPSC allows for the MD to nominate a stage to be reshot by tied competitors if necessary. It doesn't change the points but just determines placement order. 

[shred]

Used to be Bravo count, way back when for match ties.

 

Otherwise ties are seemingly sorted in PS by shooter number or something similarly random.  I was in the 4-way tie for 2nd on one fixed time stage at Nationals a couple years ago and it was difficult to see any pattern.  I think (it's been a while) USPSA marked them all as tied in their results.

 

 

[IVC]

Practiscore will sort it out any way it likes, it doesn't really have to be "by the book." What you're seeing is just random ordering that is either based on which sorting algorithm they use (stable vs. unstable sort in computer science lingo), or how the data is entered into the system. Even the stable sort will create seemingly random result because the initial order of shooters is not based on anything predictable. 

 

USPSA rule book specified handling of ties in section 9.3, but it's not quite consistent and it's only about *match* results, not individual stages. And tie breakers don't change any score, they only determine ranking of tied shooters. 

[euxx]

Folks, first of all, the "overall results", AKA "combined" aren't the official results and are not covered by USPSA rule book.

It is already been pointed out, that the 9.3 rule only cover match results ties and it also states that the the tie breaker stage selected by MD is only used for the final ranking and "original match points will remain unchanged". In other words, PractiScore doesn't do anything about it there.

As for the order in the tied stage and match results. The 9.2.2.1/9.2.3.1/9.2.4.1 and 9.2.5 don't mandate anything beyond HF. So, to not give any random shuffling (including the DNF and DQed ones) the PractiScore does use "stable" order - HF, then stage time, then the last and first name. It is been like that for over 10 years now.

The last part is why @barrysuperhawk is seeing what he is seeing having the same HF and time in his combined match results. His last name comes 2nd.

[Schutzenmeister]

∆∆∆∆∆ He would know!

[MikeBurgess]

Another thing to think about is what is posted is a stage score, while its cool to win a stage, its not an actual thing as far as the sport is concerned. Tie for a stage win get 100%  of the match points the order they are displayed is meaningless. 

[Schutzenmeister]

^^^^^^

[barrysuperhawk]

This is just our weeknight "practice league", so like I said there was literally nothing riding on this especially since we were in completely different classes, divisions etc.  I was just curious because I think this is the first time I have ever tied with someone since I started shooting USPSA 33 years ago...