Recognizing Speed stage or points stage?

[shooterbenedetto]

When walking in on a stage, do you ask your self to do

point stage or speed stage? Give me feed back.

How about BIG MATCHES? Point match or speed match? how do you recognize it?

[Catfish]

Typically, if it's 15 rounds or less - points 16 or more - speed.

However, if all of the targets are covered up in hard cover and no shoots, then I'm shooting points....

It's all a balance, and it just takes some time/experience for you to discover what suits you the best.

[Supermoto]

It depends on how the stage is layed out. how much movement, transistions, hard cover NS etc.

If I have a bunch of targets close together, no movement, its going to come down to speed, A fast draw and fast transisitons, I won't mind dropping some C's inorder to hose the stage.

Add NS to the same stage and I will aim away from the NS into C zone to keep the speed up. I'll take a hit on Points to prevent a NS but keep the speed high to force other to shoot at the same pace and risk a NS while trying for A's

Anything over a HF of 12. the emphasis will be on speed. Most stand a hose stages, some classifiers, almost never a field stages

Now if there is some movement. even with open targets, (the movement will eat into the HF), points are huge, especially since you know the other guy will get a A's.

I'm going to try to make up time on movement, but still keep my A's

If I see a NS that has been hit alot, then I will definately back off the speed to prevent hitting it, the HF savings (time is would cost) on not hitting a NS is huge

See how fast other shooters are going, how fast you think you are going to go. If you still can't tell what kind of stage it is, shoot all A's as fast as you can

[Ramas]

When I am walking on a stage I can guess what time it will be in about +/- 1-2 seconds, then I can figure out HF, plus I am watching few commpetitors of my level prior that stage to confirm my HF calculations.

[steel1212]

shoot all A's as fast as you can

I bet that would work....

[HoMiE]

Everytime I approach a stage as a speed stage...I crash and burn. At the local level, sometimes it doesn't hurt that much. At a big match, it HURTS a lot. You can only shoot as fast as the skill level your at, so trust your speed and shoot As as quick as you know you shot an A. At big matches, it's more about consistency, there are stages that sometimes you just want to survive and walk away to the next stage, live to fight another day so to speak.

[Flexmoney]

Great post, Homie !!

[G-ManBart]

They're ALL points stages

Even stages with a high hit factor are going to be won by someone shooting a very high percentage of the available points.

[HoMiE]

Great post, Homie !!

I got most of that from the wanna-be-speedy topics, so I can't take credit for it.

[smokshwn]

A pretty sharp guy who happens to be a "decent" shooter told me that regardless of stage setup shoot at least 95% A's as fast as you are able or within your skill level.

I have managed to do this twice at big matches and both times won my class by a good margin and shot out of my class in the overall standings.

When I do this at local matches, my finish is very good as well.

Thanks Manny

[VegasOPM]

It is a cliche, but darnit- it works... Get "A's" as fast as you can. I keep trying to hose through, but my best stages are when I just shoot for "A's".

[Holshot]

Ditto on the A's as fast as you can. But something to remember. There are NO easy shots. If they're wide open and 3 feet away you should have lightning fast splits and transitions, all called, all A's. And that's not easy. It's always the "easy" shot we miss in a big match. I don't want to remember how many points I've dropped on a gimme while smoking the "hard" shots.

Good Luck

[R.Elliott]

Great question!

I feel that there are no stages where it is acceptable to throw away points if favor of speed. The hard-won lesson I try to keep top of mind is the the 95% rule. When I forget that rule and just try and hose the close and dirty stuff I pretty much always crash and burn. So always shoot for points, but get out of your own way and let your visual feed-back tell you how fast you can acquire them on any given shot.

[eerw]

all stages should be shot with max points as the priority..at the speed you are calling shots..

on long stages it is possible to make up stage/match points by running a faster time at the sacrifice of a few points on paper..

but equally on short stages you can give a LOT of match points away. ( on a 60 point stage.. stay in the pack..you may give up only 1 or 2 stage points..but you shoot 3 Ds and 4 Cs and fast time..you might end up giving away 10-15 stage points )

shoot points..shoot smooth..shoot assertive

[Ramas]

Good thread. Points is everything. It is easy 12HF factor stage turn into 7HF stage by crappy points.

[badchad]

A pretty sharp guy who happens to be a "decent" shooter told me that regardless of stage setup shoot at least 95% A's as fast as you are able or within your skill level.

95% of the available points or 95% Alphas? I think shooting 95% Alphas would slow you down too much to be competitive.

[smokshwn]

A pretty sharp guy who happens to be a "decent" shooter told me that regardless of stage setup shoot at least 95% A's as fast as you are able or within your skill level.

95% of the available points or 95% Alphas? I think shooting 95% Alphas would slow you down too much to be competitive.

The way I took and have applied it is 95% alphas.... yes there are going to be a few targets where you purposefully shoot a c/d on a partial but those targets should go in your 5%. I think the key factor is that if the Alpha is presented (open target) then many will drop points "trying" to be faster on it taking the time to see the A and call the shot. Kind of the same concept of those draws where you try to be fast and are slow vs. those draws where you simply draw and wind up surprising yourself with the time.

I remember during the class when we discussed the concept thinking that it would slow you down too much, however like I said everytime I have achieved it, the match result has spoken for itself.

Personally at times I can feel myself shooting at a pace that I perceive is slower than I am capable of, however on looking at some video and looking at results I can see that I am actually shooting at a pace where I am making far fewer mistakes and/or compensating for a less than ideal shooting platform far fewer times than trying to be fast. All in all I think the result is as Stuart said above, you shoot more smoothly and therefor the results speak for themselves.

[Rocket35]

I approach every stage with the goal of shooting 90+% of the stage points. Most speed on a stage generally come from the "non-shooting" stuff anyways.

[badchad]

The way I took and have applied it is 95% alphas.... yes there are going to be a few targets where you purposefully shoot a c/d on a partial but those targets should go in your 5%.

I think 95% of alphas is just unrealistic. If you look at the what wins Nationals or the World Shoot, nobody is shooting 95% alphas and nobody is even very close. You mentioned Manny, and if your referring to Bragg, I had a private lesson with him earlier this year (which was awesome BTW) and when he's talking about 95% I'm all but certain he's talking about points not Alphas. We talked about this at length and I took detailed notes.

[edwin garcia]

The way I took and have applied it is 95% alphas.... yes there are going to be a few targets where you purposefully shoot a c/d on a partial but those targets should go in your 5%.

I think 95% of alphas is just unrealistic. If you look at the what wins Nationals or the World Shoot, nobody is shooting 95% alphas and nobody is even very close. You mentioned Manny, and if your referring to Bragg, I had a private lesson with him earlier this year (which was awesome BTW) and when he's talking about 95% I'm all but certain he's talking about points not Alphas. We talked about this at length and I took detailed notes.

+1

Eric G. shot 87.6% (483 / 551) Alphas ,but shot 96% of available points at the last WS.

IPSC is scored points AND time for a reason.

Edited March 26, 2009 by edwin garcia