That doesn't really work either when there is only two or three in a class, but you could do it with all Piston classes and all PCP classes being combined to those sub groups when not enough competitors.
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AAFTA GP course optimization
- Thread starter Scotchmo
- Start date
Remember, the best way to "game the system" is *to shoot well*. Be successful on all your shots.
Gaming the system before the recent change was as simple as:
The GP point accumulation system changed, not the game.
Now, in this new system, you just get rewarded if it's harder. You get rewarded on your merits, not as a fraction of others that day. That's the bigger picture of the GP system as a whole. Don't get me wrong, having the barometer of others to set the curve has its advantages, but be mindful that it was gaming the system as well.
We shouldn't succumb to reactive devaluation biases. Just because something differs from what was done before doesn't mean it's wrong.
Gaming the system before the recent change was as simple as:
- Having a nice and small GP that there weren't many good shooters attending in the class that you were competing in and scoring higher than all other classes and hoping that you, as the best shooter that day, didn't have much competition at that match.
- Then make the course as easy as possible. Boom 100% or pretty darn close. And still, if you didn't win, the easy course gave you an advantage because you were probably not too far behind the best shooter percentage-wise.
- If you attended big GPs, with many good shooters in classes other than your own, you were at a significant disadvantage. God forbid if you were a springer.
- Essentially have a minimum-attended GPs with all newbies and rookies, especially in other classes. Then shoot better than them in your class.
The GP point accumulation system changed, not the game.
Now, in this new system, you just get rewarded if it's harder. You get rewarded on your merits, not as a fraction of others that day. That's the bigger picture of the GP system as a whole. Don't get me wrong, having the barometer of others to set the curve has its advantages, but be mindful that it was gaming the system as well.
We shouldn't succumb to reactive devaluation biases. Just because something differs from what was done before doesn't mean it's wrong.
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In this new system, you get rewarded for a high Troyer average., not for being “harder”.
Course A has a 30T average with lots of 20T and 40T targets.
Course B has a 36T average with lots of 34T and 38T targets.
Which course is harder?
Doesn’t really matter at this point. We have a new system, so we deal with it.
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It looks like this issue bubbled to the surface because of the Sonoran GP. The match report says the course was 33.8T before environmental conditions, but ended up as 41.46T after only factoring in wind. I ran a couple of simulations and the only way to get that large of an increase is if you add wind to every or nearly every target. The match report also says that they had "pretty consistent winds ranging from 4-6 mph and gusting to about 10 mph". No way that 4-6 mph consistent wind deserves to be added to targets under 30 yards. Applied appropriately, the course should have been in the 37-38 T range which would bring their "bonus" points down out of the stratosphere. Obviously a very flawed formula that appears may have to been manipulated and/or exploited at this match. In my opinion, it completely invalidates the awards for this year and they should go down in the books with a big asterisk next to it.
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I would disagree. A 12fpe rifle and a 33.8T 3/8” target (12.7yds) only needs a 4mph wind before a partial split starts. Unless the wind is accounted for, a 10mph gust is a complete miss. Since there is no way of knowing who had to deal with the gusts and who didn’t, the multiplier for wind difficulty should be applied for all.
I’m not defending the new scoring method, just stating that if we are going to use the new method, any wind should always be accounted for when submitting results.
“…Obviously a very flawed formula…”
I agree with you there.
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Again "exploit" is not the right term.
THERE ARE NO RULES FOR WHEN TO CHECK OR NOT CHECK WIND OR ELEVATION
There needs to be some kind of a sliding scale if the new system is used for next year.
Actually a 3/4" kill zone at 20-30 yards has to be at least hedged, if not held on the edge of with a 4mph cross wind. So, any match director could easily check the box if holding for wind was required at all. Especially if there are no hard and fast rules of where wind should be checked.
At the Sonoran GP the wind was cross at times and switched a lot to quartering a lot as well. It was difficult to decide whether to hedge or not on less than 30 shots. There was even 1/2" at 22 yards you had to hold off for, and you for sure had to be out of the KZ for 35 and out unless the wind switched and caught you holding off. The wind made almost all targets a challenge in my opinion.
You are right that there is a point on all targets where hedging is so little as to not matter in most wind, but not all winds..
AND, unfortunately, the wind usually changes hour to hour and competitors ALL do not have to shoot in the same wind at different times of day... at some point you take the luck of the draw and do your best. The Grand Prix project was all about getting competitors to travel and test themselves at different courses. I know I was on that committee. For sure, the BOG and hopefully, now the clubs will work out something better than this effort and keep trying to score the competitors as fair as possible with the main goal in tact of getting folks to travel, meet each other and have fun competing.
And asterisk IS in order for this years GP scores, I totally agree with that. But, for a different reason.
ALL the match directors were not informed before the season, how important a high troyer course set where or when environmental factors were present was to the success for the competitors attending in the Grand Prix scoring system this year.
And that was not intentional by the BOG, there is no conspiracy in my humble opinion. I think the BOG just didn't have the time to really test out the new system and assumed it would work. On paper it probably made sense, just not real life across the country as it turns out..
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Looking back at my statements, I agree that exploit and manipulation were overly harsh choice of words. I'm sure the volunteers running that event were doing what they felt was right with no ill intent. Though I still hold the opinion that they were heavy handed in the application of wind to every target (I'm sure there had to have been at least half a dozen that were 20-25 yards and under that could have and likely should have been spared from the Troyer adjustment. And as you alluded to, the opinion on wind, darkness, and angle are very subjective and most likely interpreted differently across the country, from MD to MD. Another reason I feel that there has to be a better formula that doesn't rely on such subjective observations. Even if a MD based those on what they experienced on a lane, that doesn't mean someone earlier or later had vastly different conditions. Probably why I shy away from applying any of those factors. I do feel that the Troyer rating before environmental conditions, though not perfect, better represents the difficulty without the presence of extremes.
I also agree that the formula wasn't designed with a conspiracy in mind, it just was flawed and rushed into existence without proper testing.
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The ONLY added factors I added to any lanes at the Sherwood AAFTA GP were extreme angles that were measured. No wind, lighting factors that in my opinion are VERY subjective and vary from lane to lane at different times during a match. Obviously the GP points would have been extremely different if I added those factors into every lane. I have a big problem adding subjective factors into a Troyer scale just to make your course appear harder so participants get more GP points. It appears that game is being played now days.
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I think I spent enough time covering how to optimize a course for GP points under the current rules.
I came up with the GP points method that was used for the prior eight years. Not perfect, but good, simple, elegant, with a built in feedback loop. More akin to an autopilot. In contrast, the new system needs instruction, and then vigilance by the match directors to insure any kind of equality of available GP points.
I don’t know who to thank (blame?) for suggesting the current version. Bill Day maybe? Maybe whoever will own up to it.
The Troyer does not have the “granularity” to correctly weight the environmental factors. And the average is a poor measure of what targets are missed. It’s the few hardest targets that cause most misses, not the average targets. Sorry, it’s just not a good way to do it.
Seems that some did not like the prior version because they didn’t like being compared to other classes. Well, you weren’t. The top shooter’s hit rate was used to gage the difficulty of the course, that’s it. Your scores are only compared against others in your class.
Don’t like a system using the top score to set the standard? Then they could have revised the GP points system to use the second place shooter, or average of the top three shooters, or top five shooters, or top 50% of shooters. It doesn’t really matter. Any of those baselines are better than using the Troyer average. I’m not biased, I’m right.
I came up with the GP points method that was used for the prior eight years. Not perfect, but good, simple, elegant, with a built in feedback loop. More akin to an autopilot. In contrast, the new system needs instruction, and then vigilance by the match directors to insure any kind of equality of available GP points.
I don’t know who to thank (blame?) for suggesting the current version. Bill Day maybe? Maybe whoever will own up to it.
The Troyer does not have the “granularity” to correctly weight the environmental factors. And the average is a poor measure of what targets are missed. It’s the few hardest targets that cause most misses, not the average targets. Sorry, it’s just not a good way to do it.
Seems that some did not like the prior version because they didn’t like being compared to other classes. Well, you weren’t. The top shooter’s hit rate was used to gage the difficulty of the course, that’s it. Your scores are only compared against others in your class.
Don’t like a system using the top score to set the standard? Then they could have revised the GP points system to use the second place shooter, or average of the top three shooters, or top five shooters, or top 50% of shooters. It doesn’t really matter. Any of those baselines are better than using the Troyer average. I’m not biased, I’m right.
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You are absolutely right. It accomplished adjusting for course difficulty without any subjective decisions by the MDs. The only reason I can see for complaints is when someone recently scored 300 points (top score or tie for top score in 3 matches), the other classes (most likely piston) realized they could never attain a 300 under that system, so they felt that was unfair and complained. The problem is in the previous system the actual score was never meant to be important or compared to other classes, it was just a way to fairly measure who performed the best and automatically adjusted for difficulty. Is there some other reason for complaining that I'm missing?
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Again, the simple answer looks to me to be that we count two high scores at each Grand Prix. High combined PCP score for all PCP competitors = 100%, and High combined Piston score for all Piston competitors = 100%.
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It was a Hunter PCP shooter that did not like a WFTF shooter setting the difficulty baseline. That was a likely prelude to the new system.
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OK, but that really doesn't compute when one looks at how Hunter class, Open class and WFTF class alternate in capturing the high overall score at the GPs of the last years since the 16x scope allowance was introduced. The classes have been equalized in their chance to get that overall high PCP score..
Hopefully that idea has been proven false if the facts are really looked at.... and we can move on to a more realistic approach.
I would also hope that Hunter PCP shooter now understands that their replacement system has failed.
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This is where it seems to have these open discussions with actual boots on the ground might help prevent further issues in changing anything rule based. Kind of like a voting system of the people, or democracy? Get the feedback and then go from there. Don't rush anything. There's no money on the line here, its field target lol. I like the idea of testing theories and such before making them a permanent change. Especially with all the different clubs involved, there has to be different views on each thing that maybe someone didn't consider.
Maybe this new change from the BOG of asking for the clubs opinion on a few rules is the step in the right direction and will continue so every club can voice its opinion. We will see! Until then, try not to get the mob and pitch forks for the BOG lol.
Maybe this new change from the BOG of asking for the clubs opinion on a few rules is the step in the right direction and will continue so every club can voice its opinion. We will see! Until then, try not to get the mob and pitch forks for the BOG lol.
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The current GP points calculation may have been "tested" against prior season's data, but what wasn't tested was the unintended consequences of using this system, a Cobra Effect of sorts.
If 36T becomes the new norm (or must have) difficulty for GP courses, then a downstream effect is clubs wanting to set 36T courses to practice for upcoming GP events. This unintentionally will make club matches uninviting to new shooters that may feel they can't play this game and have fun without the latest and greatest PCP tech.
- We now know there is no reason any GP should have a course that's less than a 36T difficulty because it is necessary for competitors to get their max GP points. There is no other way to score a 120 from an event unless it's a 36T+. And, if someone manages to score a 120, there is no possibility to catchup at a non-36T event. Competitors awarded more for the difficulty of event attended rather than from what they achieved at that event.
- Any GP not running a 36T course may be poorly attended in the future.
- We saw the calculation can be exploited by including subjective variables to increase the difficulty number such that it is higher than 36T, which can also result in obtaining a GP score of greater than 120 (the perceived maximum).
- There is a general understanding that course designers should be creating reasonable courses, which might mean for a GP a difficulty between 29 and 32.
- We need to understand that keeping average difficulty in check is a way to encourage new shooters to continue to participate. We may consider club matches have between 28 and 30 difficulty to maintain a reasonable balance between ease and difficulty to be both challenging to seasoned shooters and not overly difficult for new shooters.
If 36T becomes the new norm (or must have) difficulty for GP courses, then a downstream effect is clubs wanting to set 36T courses to practice for upcoming GP events. This unintentionally will make club matches uninviting to new shooters that may feel they can't play this game and have fun without the latest and greatest PCP tech.
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So, i have been reading this with interest and there seems to be a big flaw if I am reading this correctly. Lets say I shoot against shooter X all year long at a local club for single day events, not a GP and I beat shooter X at every match. Now I only go to 1 GP during that year and I beat Shooter X at that match, and off to the Nationals where I beat Shooter X again and lets say I win high score at the nationals. BUT....Shooter X has gone to multiple GP's during the year and has accumulated the GP points.............do I understand the rules as they are now, that Shooter X can be declared the national champ over me because of GP points EVEN THOUGH HE NEVER BEAT ME IN HEAD TO HEAD COMPETITION ALL YEAR LONG AND EVEN IN THE NATIONALS ? IF THIS IS THE CASE THEN THE SYSTEM IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED. ESPECIALLY IF THE CURRENT SYSTEM SAYS THAT SHOOTER X COULD BE DECLARED NATIONAL CHAMP WITHOUT ATTENDING THE NATIONALS STRICTLY DUE TO HIS ACCUMULATION OF GP POINTS.
On another note - fir everybody, it's not like there are hundreds of FT shooters that attend these events. There seems to be a limited amount of people who go to these events with the number of shooters in the 35-50 range in the big competitions, if this gets to ridiculous with value of points as opposed to shooting ability I think that we, as a group, will start to lose shooters and that will be a loss for all of us.
On another note - fir everybody, it's not like there are hundreds of FT shooters that attend these events. There seems to be a limited amount of people who go to these events with the number of shooters in the 35-50 range in the big competitions, if this gets to ridiculous with value of points as opposed to shooting ability I think that we, as a group, will start to lose shooters and that will be a loss for all of us.
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You do not need to attend nationals to be awarded the GP champ. Winning the nationals event is a different title than winning the GP champ.
Nationals can count for one of your GP scores, if it's high enough.
Your top 3 GP scores for the season make up your GP seasonal points. So, you must attend 3 GP events to be considered for the GP champ award for a division/class.
So, yes, it doesn't matter how often you defeat someone in head to head competition if that person attended and scored more GP points than you across their top 3 GP events in the season compared to your top 3 GP event scores in the season.
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Scotty-D,
For those unfamiliar:
AAFTA National Match, Sonoran GP, Cajun Classic, Pyramyd Air Cup, etc. are all matches in the AAFTA GP series. The National Match is unique in that it uses venues in different parts of the country each year, while the other matches typically stay in the same location, or same region. Each is supposed to carry equal weight as far as the GP series is concerned.
For those unfamiliar:
AAFTA National Match, Sonoran GP, Cajun Classic, Pyramyd Air Cup, etc. are all matches in the AAFTA GP series. The National Match is unique in that it uses venues in different parts of the country each year, while the other matches typically stay in the same location, or same region. Each is supposed to carry equal weight as far as the GP series is concerned.
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Here’s how this works:
You go to a match. You have hard targets and you have easy targets. The match gets averaged. Consideration and points are earned for things that make it harder. And you get points for that. Simple.
At the end of the year, every point matters at each match to help you win the GP series.
If you hit X targets at an overall more difficult course average, you get more points.
Again, simple.
If it's an easier course average, and you got more hits on that course than the harder course, it can still work to your benefit. Because you'll probably get more hits because it's easier targets and conditions.
In the end, top three best performances (points earned) of all your GP matches get applied.
Top earner of points wins.
simple.
Now as described earlier about shooting against people you always beat head to head ... if they go to a GP that's hard, and you don't. They get "hard points" and you don't.
simple.
One consideration I may argue is if the difficulty points are more than the possibility of missing the target. However, on the flip side if you are good enough to negotiate the difficulty, shouldn't you earn those points? Earning points vs ability to shoot is the same thing. If you are able to shoot well, you earn the points.
Folks, the system isn't flawed. It's a different system.
The old system had it's flaws, although great for its time. Your points were based on what the person next to you shot. Even if they shot with different power or different assistive devices, it effected your score. The one and only person it didn't effect was the highest overall score of that match of all classes combined.
The AAFTA rules changed many years back where one competitor could not be declared "overall match winner". The old system essentially awarded that. The new system does not.
Now, it's you against the course.
simple.
You go to a match. You have hard targets and you have easy targets. The match gets averaged. Consideration and points are earned for things that make it harder. And you get points for that. Simple.
At the end of the year, every point matters at each match to help you win the GP series.
If you hit X targets at an overall more difficult course average, you get more points.
Again, simple.
If it's an easier course average, and you got more hits on that course than the harder course, it can still work to your benefit. Because you'll probably get more hits because it's easier targets and conditions.
In the end, top three best performances (points earned) of all your GP matches get applied.
Top earner of points wins.
simple.
Now as described earlier about shooting against people you always beat head to head ... if they go to a GP that's hard, and you don't. They get "hard points" and you don't.
simple.
One consideration I may argue is if the difficulty points are more than the possibility of missing the target. However, on the flip side if you are good enough to negotiate the difficulty, shouldn't you earn those points? Earning points vs ability to shoot is the same thing. If you are able to shoot well, you earn the points.
Folks, the system isn't flawed. It's a different system.
The old system had it's flaws, although great for its time. Your points were based on what the person next to you shot. Even if they shot with different power or different assistive devices, it effected your score. The one and only person it didn't effect was the highest overall score of that match of all classes combined.
The AAFTA rules changed many years back where one competitor could not be declared "overall match winner". The old system essentially awarded that. The new system does not.
Now, it's you against the course.
simple.
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Thanks you all for your reply's. The uninformed is now informed. I did not realize that the National Champion and the Grand Prix Champion were two different things,,,, thought they were connected in some way.
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