Is Cheating Common At The Lower Club Level?

[GunBomB]

Edited September 14, 2006 by GunBomB

[Micah]

Did the popper activate a swinger or disapearing target? The mikes carry no penalties for disaparing targets...so maybe that explains what you are encountering.

[Matt Cheely]

As long as that was a disappearing target it sounds like he gamed it. Now if it were a swinger, he'd still get the mikes, but it's not cheating. Someone forgot to write down the proper penalties.

ETA: If he's the one not writing down the penalties...

Cheating is not common in this sport. Pushing the rules, yes.

Edited September 12, 2006 by Matt Cheely

[GunBomB]

The target was set out of view but presented itself until the activator ran out of energy, it was a swinger. The dissappearing targets usually only present themsleves once or twice, correct? He acknowledged the mikes, giving them up for a way better time, so it would not have been the case of no penalties for dissapearing targets. And if that is true, wouldn't everyone just ignore that target for a better time, and therefore it's pointless? Accidents and mistake happen, I know.

Edited September 12, 2006 by GunBomB

[raz-0]

well, his 100% is relative to the rest of the people whooting the match. If it was disappearing (not visable at rest after activation), he gets no penalties and is jsut down 10 points for not getting hsi two As. If he did this fast enough to have a higher hit factor, then it's simply aming the stage, and not cheating.

However, if the target remains visible at rest after activation, then he should have been assessed two misses and a failure to engage. If that's the case, the score he got was not what he should have had.

ETA see what taking time to respond does? Now I'm jsut repeating people ;P

i may have just been gaming bad stage design.

I have a swinger, it will eventually stop. If that stopped position doesn't present an A-zone hit, may not be complying with 9.9.1. If it doesn't have an electric motor on it, it WILL stop eventually. So you might have some rules lawyering going on there?

Anyone else have any insight as to wheather a swinger that swings for 2 minutes before hiding the a-zone is "continually" appearing and disappearing?

Edited September 12, 2006 by raz-0

[XRe]

PB is right regarding disappearing targets. For a swinger, it depends upon whether the A-zone is available when the swinger comes to rest. If neither A-zone is available from some point in the course of fire when the target is at rest (after first being activiated), its deemed to be a disappearing target, and 9.9.2 applies. Otherwise, it falls under the stipulations of 9.9.1 and misses and procedurals for FTE apply (ie, he'd take a -30 for that target).

Re: other occurences, I wouldn't even begin to speculate what might've brough about a reshoot. A shooter can't "grant himself a re-shoot" - that comes from a determination by the RO (of course, the case may be crystal clear, so its not obvious that the RO made the decision - like a range equipment failure, or something...).

Its good to ask questions, of course - I'd suggest asking the shooter in question about it next time, and get him to explain the whys/hows, and see what he says.

If the target was disappearing, BTW, you might've just learned some interesting stage strategy Totally valid, and can be useful, depending on the situation....

EDIT:

I guess I got in late, here - sounds like a disappearing target. No, disappearing swingers are often visible quite a bit while they swing. Its where they come to rest that matters, not how many times they are available.... Re: taking or not taking the points - it depends upon your exact skill level, and your stage strategy. You have to know how Comstock scoring works, too, to figure out if its a better bet for you or not... In general, you want all the points you can get. Sometimes, on high HF stages, you can trade points for time and come out ahead, though - if you have the skills to captialize on it....

Edited September 12, 2006 by XRe

[GunBomB]

No, it was not visible at rest. There are so many things I don't understand that look weird to newb eyes. I will just maintain awareness and focus on my game. Honestly, I don't even care, and I will play the rules right to the edge myself, I am just grasping onto the concepts.

[Mistral404]

Actually at club level matches there is a tendency to let GM/M or long standing members get away with stuff. No one really confronts them or when confronted they raise a rukas.

As a new guy to the club it is not worth the future grief.

I was new guy at a club where an old timer in who would quote rules only to be in error and no body would confront him. He was terrible to be around when challenged, otherwise who could be a very helpful guy. Everyone just let it slide.

I would recommend just rolling with it.

[shred]

Roll with it, then learn if he's really cheating or just gaming a bad stage design. If he's cheating, you can laugh at him. If not, you can learn from him.

At the last spin of the rulebook the definition of disappearing targets changed a lot (mostly for the better, IMO), but this is one of the tough spots-- if it ever disappears, no matter how long it takes, it's a disappearing target.

There's also some 'casual' rule-bending at local matches-- from people declaring Major with known (or unknown) Minor loads to equipment that doesn't quite fit the claimed division, to letting new shooters get away without some proceedurals they deserved. Generally it doesn't matter, but it's still something to watch out for.

[GENE S]

A grand master shooter once told me, that you can miss fast enough to win........

[tptplayer]

I know this sounds trite but...At the club level the only person you can cheat is yourself. When you attend a State or higher level match you are found out.

[BSeevers]

Not sure of the description but I have often left a "disappearing" target to gain a higher hit factor on a stage.

Disappearing targets occur NO misses or Failure to Engage penalties. IF that specific target was presented more than once, then he should the -30 penalties and I would then shoot said mover and not leave it as its pretty hard to overcome 2 mikes on 99% of stages

PS if he is winning stages with 2 mikes -20 don't worry that ain't gonna happen with real competition around. Remember its also -5 and -5 on top of penalties for no "A's"

As a side note shot a stage that had 2 FAST targets on a roller sliding down a cable. Started up a hill hidden and activated but a popper early in the stage, it then went behind a building, reappeared for 2 sec and finished behind a wall. 2 "appearances" so misses and FTE applied as it was no longer a disappearing targets. It was a hard target presentation

Edited September 12, 2006 by BSeevers

[ChuckS]

Bill,

The 2 appearances may be an old rule. From the book:

9.9.1 Moving targets which present at least a portion of the highest

scoring area when at rest, or which continuously appear and disappear,

will always incur failure to shoot at and/or miss penalties

(exception see Rule 9.2.4.5).

9.9.2 Moving targets, which do not comply with the above criteria,

will not incur failure to shoot at or miss penalties except where

Rule 9.9.3 applies.

9.9.3 Moving targets will always incur failure to shoot at and miss

penalties if a competitor fails to activate the mechanism, which

initiates the target movement.

for completeness:

9.2.4.5 Fixed Time courses of fire do not incur failure to shoot at or

miss penalties.

Later,

Chuck

[Chuck Merriam]

Just practice and soon you will shoot fast enough to beat the gamers at their own game. I have a local indoor match where the guys start to bicker after awhile...about poofer loads and such. I don't get involved and when asked what I think I just say, "let them cheat, I will beat them 90% of the time". I have the opportunity about once a month to shoot with two GM's and I have improved by leaps and bounds just from following their leads and mental preparations. Good luck and quietly subdue your competition.

[tightloop]

Chmerr

Respectfully disagree...if you call it gaming, or cheating...if they are good at it, chances are you won;'t catch them and on top of that, they are probably working and practicing just as hard as you are...

Back in the day, I for a fact knew a guy was cheating, he told me he was, and I still did not figure how he was doing it...maybe I am just dumb, but we (the whole club) never caught him...

[Vlad]

Back in the day, I for a fact knew a guy was cheating, he told me he was, and I still did not figure how he was doing it...maybe I am just dumb, but we (the whole club) never caught him...

Ooh Ooh I know ... He wasn't cheating, he was just telling you he was to screw with your mind. While all of you where watching him and trying to figure it out instead of concetrating on your game, he was grinning and shooting his.

Edited September 12, 2006 by Vlad

[John Heiter]

Not sure it applies here but I've done a good bit of scoring and I know of several times when I failed to properly transcribe the penalties from the score sheet to the computer. They were simple human error type mistakes but I'm sure some people wondered if there was something weird going on in the scoring.

The scorer at our local club is typically going through 150-200 score sheets under pressure to have them done for the end of the match and it's easy to not notice a single vertical line in the penalty section (often in pencil or on crumpled up sheets) when reading across the columns for hits and times. When I'm running the clip board and someone gets a penalty, I typically circle it, draw an arrow pointing to it, put some stars around it, etc. It's not because I"m trying to be a jerk and rub it in for the competitor, just making sure that I do something to bring it to the attention of the person entering the scores in the computer.

John

[tightloop]

Yep, it only took us about 8 yrs to figure that out...LOL

[ipscbob]

If this was a disappearing target, he was NOT cheating and the stage was scored correctly. He was just a little smarter than everyone else. Get over it and learn from him.

[Flyin40]

I've been shooting in matches since mid-may. I am a newb, but my eyes don't lie. Take this for what it is. I shot a match on sunday. On the third stage, there were three poppers, they had to be shot from the box. The center popper activated a swinger. An open shooter's plan, which was known to everyone in the squad, was to activate the swinger but bypass it and clear out the other six paper targets which where to the left and right of this array. He cleared the stage in 12 seconds, he would receive his mikes but no failure to engage since the target had been activated. The scores posted yesterday showed no penalties for that stage, and with his time, it was a god-like 100%. These are mistakes, which may be human error, but I have watched this same shooter grant himself a re-shoot when he had blatanly missed targets in an earlier match. The club does not shoot classifiers regularly. I've let it go in my head, because I don't have experience to make a judgement, and I'd rather shoot my game, but what are the opinions out there???

You don't have to shoot disappearing targets.........

Being new its probably hard to understand.........but to play this game and be successful you have to figure out how to get the highest hit factor. That is points divided by time. That does not mean you have to shoot every target. I know at a recent match I did not shoot at 3 disappearing targets because it saved me 4-5 seconds. I lost 30 pts on the targets but the time I saved I ended up with a better score than if I would have shot all the targets.

Another example is on a recent stage theres was a mandatory reload after the first shot but before the last. It was figured out that instead of doing the reload, if executed properly the best way was to skip the reload all together and take the penalty.

Look at it like this...........Baseball

Your team is up by 1 run, 1 person on first base, 2 outs. The best hitter in the league is up.......what do you do.......???????? This guy has the most homeruns in the league, he had went 3 for 4 against you already tonight. Your coach tells the next batter up strikes out or pops up 9 out of 10 times.....The catcher stands outside the strike zone and the you throw 4 balls. You walk him.......OMG you just gamed.......You go on and strike out the next batter and win the game.

Is this cheating???? Gaming????

If the targets shows more than 1 time its not disappearing???? I thought it was no longer the case.

I thought if at rest half of the Azone had to be showing or it was dispearring. If it eventually stops then it is considered a at rest target??

Not sure, anyone clarify this more??

Flyin40

Edited September 12, 2006 by Flyin40

[BSeevers]

Bill,

The 2 appearances may be an old rule. From the book:

9.9.1 Moving targets which present at least a portion of the highest

scoring area when at rest, or which continuously appear and disappear,

will always incur failure to shoot at and/or miss penalties

(exception see Rule 9.2.4.5).

9.9.2 Moving targets, which do not comply with the above criteria,

will not incur failure to shoot at or miss penalties except where

Rule 9.9.3 applies.

9.9.3 Moving targets will always incur failure to shoot at and miss

penalties if a competitor fails to activate the mechanism, which

initiates the target movement.

for completeness:

9.2.4.5 Fixed Time courses of fire do not incur failure to shoot at or

miss penalties.

Later,

Chuck

You know we discussed this with RM but he said it appeared 3 times since it did a bounce at the end and that meant the definition of "continuous" If memory serves I don't think any of the targets were left exposed and if they were it was a 15+yard partial upper a/b shot. I remember going Hmm but never pulled the rule book.

This could be a spinoff thread

As John said leaving targets/not reloading is good stragedy at times and not cheating.

Edited September 13, 2006 by BSeevers

[XD Niner]

I haven't observed any cheating. Now inadvertent scoring errors, gaming, fantastic excuses, whining and bed wetting, those are a different story!

Edited September 13, 2006 by XD Niner

[shred]

You know we discussed this with RM but he said it appeared 3 times since it did a bounce at the end and that meant the definition of "continuous" If memory serves I don't think any of the targets were left exposed and if they were it was a 15+yard partial upper a/b shot. I remember going Hmm but never pulled the rule book.

I think that RM might be a rulebook behind.. if, at rest, you can't see A's, it's disappearing. I hated the crop some people would pull with disappeating movers-- put a target stick or NS in the middle of it's run and say "see, it appears twice, you have to shoot it".

[Azone41]

This month there was a stage with a cooper tunnel. At the stage brief everybody was told it was a 20% penality for going around the tunnel after watching a few shooters take 3-5 seconds to go through the tunnel I decided to go around. The average time to shoot the stage was 14- 16 sec. I did it in 12+ and would have won the stage if it wasn't for the 3 mikes I got. As it was I was 33rd in the stage. Somtimes taking the penality can give you a better hit factor if you shoot it good.

[Crusher]

You know we discussed this with RM but he said it appeared 3 times since it did a bounce at the end and that meant the definition of "continuous" If memory serves I don't think any of the targets were left exposed and if they were it was a 15+yard partial upper a/b shot. I remember going Hmm but never pulled the rule book.

con·tin·u·ous

adj

1. unchanged or uninterrupted: continuing without changing, stopping, or being interrupted in space or time

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Three times does not meet the critera for "continuous" so the RM was incorrect, if it stops it becomes "changed or itterrupted".

This month there was a stage with a cooper tunnel. At the stage brief everybody was told it was a 20% penality for going around the tunnel after watching a few shooters take 3-5 seconds to go through the tunnel I decided to go around

10.2.11.1 If the request is approved by the Range Master, a minimum

of one procedural penalty, up to a maximum penalty of 20%

of the competitor’s points “as shot” (rounded up to the

nearest whole number), will be deducted from the competitor’s

score. For example, if 100 points are available in the

course of fire and the competitor actually scores 90 points,

the special penalty is a deduction of 18 points.

Litte Known and even less used penalty assessment but boy when you get NAILED with one it HURTS.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Crusher