Proposed new Sporting clays classification system

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Will Hewland

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Sep 13, 2011
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Right, I have put this down on paper and for those of you who are really bored, here it is.  :sleep:    Its not a fully comprehensive proposal, but it is long enough to cover the main elements i hope. I conceived it about 7 years ago and have not seen anything to change my mind since. Just my opinion of course!    :cool:

Background:

The present CPSA system has evolved to cater for the mass market of competition shooters. So, I take it as established that the class system is here to stay and (while you can never please everybody) it works well enough and encourages newcomers and the less intensive shooters to participate meaningfully. The crux of the matter is how best to place shooters in each class ACCURATELY, so that when shooters from all regions meet up for a major event for example, they are correctly classified against true ability. Two main elements need dealing with in my opinion:

Variation in shoot difficulty.  By far the biggest issue. This causes little effect for shooters who enter a wide variety of events at different grounds, but for those who do not travel far, or do few events, the average of their scores can be a poor representation of their true ability. It is of course possible to stick to a ground or grounds that tends to produce higher scores (either for most shooters attending, or indeed solely for one shooter who knows the ground well and is comfortable there). The opposite is true, where a shooter may only test themselves on a few tough events. The two examples above can easily place a “morally” A class shooter into either AA or B class respectively.

Knowledge of the grading cut off points. Anybody concerned with their classification grade will know the approximate cut-off points for their class. (They are unknown and vary each period, but only by less than 1 clay usually). This information is displayed on the CPSA website as indeed is a full account of all shooters current and past scores and classifications. A shooter is able to hold back their score, perhaps by just one kill, so as not to cross the grade line, if they are so disposed. This can also be a way of deliberately producing a dropped-score. (More than 10% below average).

Simple solution; stop using score (number of clays hit) as the defining element!

The present system uses the 12 months’ worth of scores at the end of each period. The system then calculates the averages and lists all the shooters in one total list before slicing it up into classes. The Top 5% (AAA), the next 10% (AA), the next 30% (A), the next 30% ( B ) and the lowest 25% ( C ). So, the final classifications are all about finishing order in the countries total results list. And this is fine I feel.

My idea is that each shoot be judged as above, with all emphasis on the finishing order, regardless of number of clays hit. For simplicity, imagine a shoot with 100 total entries. The highest score would be awarded “100%”. The lowest score, last place, would be awarded “0%”. The 50th shooter would be awarded “50%” and every shooter awarded their percentage of how high up the full list they finished. (Its simple maths to convert this to an entry of say 258 entries of course; it’s just percentage.. if you finished 129th, you are awarded 50%). Example: If you enter three shoots, your results may be 72%, 65% and 68%. This averages at 68.3%.

Immediately, the difficulty level of the shoot is irrelevant. A shoot could be won on 99 or 79. It doesn’t matter as the finishing order is everything. In a motor race, they don’t grade a driver by how fast he completed the race, but merely by whether he won, or finished 3rd, or last. They award winners of a running race medals for finishing order, not time taken to complete the event. I propose the same for sporting shooting.

At the period end, the CPSA would barely even have results to process. The AAA shooters would simply have an average of over 85%, while the C class would have one below 25%.

As for manipulation of averages; while shooting, nobody would know what the cut-off point for their class would be that day -in terms of clays hit - because it will move with the shoot difficulty, by as much as 20 clays for the lower classes. Talk of fine sand-bagging is solved.

I would propose that the 10% below your raw average system remain and this is simple to keep. I would also propose that averages would be done every 6 months but not look back 1 year, it is too much, especially with rising stars in lower classes. Remember, under this system it would not matter if a shoot was easy or hard, so there is less concern about a shooters scores being unrepresentative due to selecting just a few preferred events. He or she will still have to beat people, not numbers, to gain a high class.

William Hewland 

 
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Bloody Bravo Will.

Great idea.

Points from high gun.....just like I said

 
I would completely support/endorse this metholodogy - makes complete sense.

One way to demonstrate it would be to get it running, with some data from shoots. 

I would be happy to implement it, publish it and run it - if I could get a ground(s) to commit to sending me raw data. 

 
I would completely support/endorse this metholodogy - makes complete sense.

One way to demonstrate it would be to get it running, with some data from shoots. 

I would be happy to implement it, publish it and run it - if I could get a ground(s) to commit to sending me raw data. 
I did do some "what if" work on my own scores using this system about two years ago. It placed me EXACTLY where I was anyway, but I am somebody who shoots a lot and at varied grounds, so that is to be expected. Its all about the less usual cases, which I feel my system would sweep up and place correctly.

Also, this system would allow ground owners to be more experimental in their course setting, because scores per se would not be a cause of stress to the wider client base.

 
I did do some "what if" work on my own scores using this system about two years ago. It placed me EXACTLY where I was anyway, but I am somebody who shoots a lot and at varied grounds, so that is to be expected. Its all about the less usual cases, which I feel my system would sweep up and place correctly.

Also, this system would allow ground owners to be more experimental in their course setting, because scores per se would not be a cause of stress to the wider client base.
Easy to do it on one person/one shoot - but as an idea, it would real 'live' if we could do it on a lump of data containing a core of shooters from across (the current) classes. 

To pilot/prove (and socialise) - it would be good to run it for three months on a dataset that contains people from across the classes.

 
I'm sorry I need help understanding just one thing - if you have a group who all score the same, say 80% or multiple groups getting the same scores as you do, what happens? would it be like when placing winners you may have 2 who come first and so the next in line is 3rd rather than 2nd?  Sorry.

 
Easy to do it on one person/one shoot - but as an idea, it would real 'live' if we could do it on a lump of data containing a core of shooters from across (the current) classes. 

To pilot/prove (and socialise) - it would be good to run it for three months on a dataset that contains people from across the classes.
Its so simple, just look at any scores report on CPSA. Count the total entry number and the qualifying cut off points for each class at that event are evident in seconds. But I take your point about running it for a while to prove it has no issues etc.

 
I'm sorry I need help understanding just one thing - if you have a group who all score the same, say 80% or multiple groups getting the same scores as you do, what happens? would it be like when placing winners you may have 2 who come first and so the next in line is 3rd rather than 2nd?  Sorry.
Yes they would all score 80%, then the next person down would be 72% or whatever. In the same way you have three people tied on third place, then the next person is 6th.

 
Interesting looking at the scores from a very firm EJC last time; taking the percentage bands: A score of 64 would give a scrape into A class contribution to your average. Chris Childerhouse on 79 would still be contributing toward AA, while my 74 was just shy of a AA score (exactly as it felt with a few odd misses with new gun). Any concerns about a tough course banished.

 
Very interesting concept if Matt could get this going.....and if grounds play.

Fair representation of skills on the day at the various shoots and in the various weather conditions. It would not then matter where you shot as it would all relate down from the high gun score.

Brilliant. Where do we sign up?

#copyrightitbeforetheideaisnicked

#owntheprogram

#notlikelasttime

#laughoutloud

 
thanks Will..all makes (common) sense to me .I have advocated a % of high gun score , however as you say a finishing order , rather than number of target kills, seems to be very logical, it appears to get rid of a number of problems in one go !.,it would be good of Matt to run an `alternative` score sheet and see what happens!.

 
As said, looks great. Q: could the determined bagger still pop for 'low' scores at a few shoots then turn up to a championship and blow away the class or would this system still be used at them ? maybe I've answered my own question :nyam:

 
As said, looks great. Q: could the determined bagger still pop for 'low' scores at a few shoots then turn up to a championship and blow away the class or would this system still be used at them ? maybe I've answered my own question :nyam:
My interpretation is that scores of 10% worse than the shooters existing average get ignored as at present.

 
Fantastic Will. I like it a lot (not as much as no classes at all but I like it) much better than the current system (which is stupid) and is very similar if not the same but worded better (arguably) as some of our suggestions of countback system as used in trap selections.

So all we need is a show of hands that this system is way better than the current one and someone eloquent enough to put it to the CPSA.

PS

The main benefit of this or similar countback system is that a low score in bad weather (or presumably in sporting a hard course) is taken into account rather than the current stupid system were your averages are by no fault of your own ripped to bits from one bad score.

 
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Or we could set up another classifying set up here with Matt and see which the shooters prefer.

Why talk to a brick wall when you can build and trial new alternatives. More choices opening for shooters rather than the same old same old monopoly

 
I just need a tame ground, with regular score outputs that they would share... so that it could be tested in the wild. 

I already have shootclayscores.com ready to go (nothing there yet - but ready)

 
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