FrankD wrote:
As i said, it was and is possible to shoot a 600 and the shooter was able to do this because of his skills, but it will never possible to shoot a 654.
Except it was never a contest of who can shoot a perfec score. It's a contest of who can shoot the highest score. This hasn't changed with the decimal scoring system.
Like I said, some people are thinking way too much about how they are getting screwed by the new system. That's a sure way of not doing well under it.
bluetentacle has it right. It is about the highest score in the match. The lucky 10.9 works for you and the unlucky 9.7 works against you. In the end the accuracy deviation works against a shooter just as much as it works in his favor. Yep, some get a few lucky 10.9s but at the end of the day the better shooter (that day) will win.
I will admit that decimal scoring may change the definition of who the BETTER shooter is. Now, the person who can most consistently shoot deep 10s is the better shooter.
Just today my daughter was shooting air rifle on a megalink target. Her first string was a 100 whole number / 102.4 decimal. Just not many deep 10s in that string. Her next string was a 103.8 or a 99. One less 10, but more deep 10s. So yes, maybe the woman who shoots a 397 / 412.6 gets beat by the one who shoots a 396 / 412.9. Who is the better shooter? previously the 397 shooter would be, now the 412.9 shooter would be. Different? Yes, but who is to say who is the better shooter?
The answer to that question is..... Drum roll please..... The shooter who scores the highest under the current rules. PERIOD.
One thing that's been left out of this discussion. Low scoring 9's. A 9.1 used to cost you the same as a 9.9. Under dec scoring a 9.1 is like a beating!! And it should be.
As I said before, at the national level dec scoring has made the bell shape curve wider..How can that be a bad thing?
Interesting topic
In Paralympic Shooting SH-2 prone (air rifle) in major competitions there usually were many 600's scored, before shoot-offs you coiuld shoot a 600 and not even get a medal (x's being the tie breaker).
Then came shoot-offs where the qualification score was added to the finals score and there were less "ties". Here you still needed to shoot 600 to get into the finals., but the tenth scoring usually made for some really tight matches, but less "ties". (a tenth usually deciding the outcome).
With the new system, you could shoot a 9 (9.9, 9.8, etc) and have the rest of the shots scoring high 10's (10.9, 10.8, etc.) and still make the finals.
Now is you could shoot a 9 (9.9), shoot the rest of the shots really good and still make the finals over a shooter who scored all 10's but at a lesser value (10;4,10;3, etc)
Is the shooter who shot the 9 (599) a better shooter than one who shot all 10's (600),
In the new finals format where qualification scores are irrevelant (as long as you made the finals). In the shoot-off process if you shoot a 9.9 you probably are history.
Look at how many finals are now won by the 6th, 7th or 8th place qualifier who may have been many points behind at the end of qualification (non Para) and still win. Did they get "lucky" during the finals? Isn't the best shooter the one who is able to keep it together in qualification AND the finals to win over a series of 60-70+ shots.
That being said it sure makes the new finals interesting to say the least. the 8th qualifier is no longer out of it due to the qualification score gap. They all start from "0"
I'm not American so don't really have an axe to grind in the original discussion on how the change in the rules affects any scheme of Ranking shooters. The changes to the rules will have a significant affect on how any ranking/classification system might work. The point that several shooters have been trying to put across, at least if I follow the arguments is that under the old scoring system if a shooter made no mistakes in technique etc then they would score the maximum score. That makes judging performance from competition to competition for a shooter quite easy, and an average of the maximum score available is a very good way of doing that. Certainly if you are disregarding the final. This is always applicable where the scoring steps are bigger than the level of uncertainty in the performance of the ammunition. Yes there will always be that bit of luck controlling the difference between the highest possible score and the next step down, but you made an error to put the area of uncertainty near enough to the line to chance losing a shot. Also the competition is over a large number of shots, certainly enough to statistically get to over 99% confidence of the maximum group size for any batch of ammunition.I have seen figures that suggest you reach in excess of 98% confidence in the group size at 20 shots fired. It is that fact that effectively removes the luck element for those who truly release all of their shots within the 10 ring. This situation is good for statisticians who are trying to work out who is long term the best shot. Taking the score forwards into the final means that you would truly have to be unlucky to be beaten by the just not quite so go shooter who occasionally ends up to close the the 10.0/9.9 divide in the match proper.
The new rules with decimal scoring in the main match will not I think change who ends up qualifying for the finals, but it may effect which position they qualify in. This is simply due to the fact that the scoring rings are now so close together that around the top five rings are now within the area of uncertainty provided by the statistical dispersion of the ammunition which the shooter cannot control at all. So now if we err on the cautious side and say that any shot 10.6 or greater is outside the control of any shooter then any score over 636 is down to luck, or an ammunition manufacturer/rifle manufacturer combination that can reduce the current dispersion factor significantly. I think that what I am saying is that when raking a shooter the statistician should be comparing the score achieved against the 636 points that is the level achievable by a good shooter not making any mistakes and taking the dispersion out of the equation. From a statistical point of view that works for everyone, even the less good shooters. I would also allow shooters to have a result of over 100% to allow for the really lucky, or a shooter who really did have a much better rifle/ammo combination, and who made no mistakes.
Statistically the shooter who is very good but occasionally has a shot drop out because he is not quite able to release a dead perfect shot every time so looses a 9.9/9.8 occasionally is likely to have a small advantage over the perfect shooter who is not getting lots very deep tens.
The other issue facing the statistician/ranker is the new competition that has been introduced. This is really a new competition thanks to the scores starting from zero. The biggest problem from a raking point of view is that only the first and second placed shooter actually fire the full number of competition shots. The only answer that I can think of is to award points based on the position the shooter finishes in. This will have to be modified by applying a factor based on the number of starts in the qualifying event. I think that factoring based on the number of qualifying matches started rather than the number of finals matches shot is fairer than basing it on the number of finals that have been started.
When it comes to the new finals match I think that if we have to have this knock out system then at least the three medal positions should be based on the three shooters firing the same number of rounds in the match. At the least then the scores for the medal places will seem credible. At the moment the first two shooters are generally very close, with the third place shooter around 9 points behind. The fact that they fired one less shot worth 10.9 is not going to be known to non shooters seeing the results in a round up for a major event like the Olympics.
The rankings don't mean to much in usa, pride maybe. Our system seems to be a handful of matches that are "must shoot well today" matches...if you shoot at the top you make the team; jr, or national.
I don't think any of us are grinding an axe about the rankings...the old way is broken and a new one hasn't been figured out yet...
BigAl wrote:The other issue facing the statistician/ranker is the new competition that has been introduced. This is really a new competition thanks to the scores starting from zero. The biggest problem from a raking point of view is that only the first and second placed shooter actually fire the full number of competition shots.
A really interesting post Alan.
I obviously cannot speak for all ranking systems but here in the UK the British Shooting rankings are based on averages of the qualification scores, not the finals scores.
SFZ will not therefore have any impact on rankings.
"any shot 10.6 or greater is outside the control of any shooter then any score over 636 is down to luck, or an ammunition manufacturer/rifle manufacturer combination that can reduce the current dispersion factor significantly."
Out of interest, what sort of centre-to-centre or overall diameter group would be considered good on a match quality .22lr rifle; not outstanding but good.
I personally wouldn't consider anything shooting groups much over 13mm consistently terribly competitive, and anything less gets valuable very quickly the further down you go.
BigAl wrote:The other issue facing the statistician/ranker is the new competition that has been introduced. This is really a new competition thanks to the scores starting from zero. The biggest problem from a raking point of view is that only the first and second placed shooter actually fire the full number of competition shots.
A really interesting post Alan.
I obviously cannot speak for all ranking systems but here in the UK the British Shooting rankings are based on averages of the qualification scores, not the finals scores.
SFZ will not therefore have any impact on rankings.
David at the moment domestically here in the UK I think we have bigger problems to worry about. The fact is that currently we cannot run any major competition to the new scoring rules. The targets at the LRC are not set up to provide results as decimal scores, although they seem to be able to record them, even during match mode. I think the new 50m range in Wales can do decimals, but it only has 4 firing points. I have not been directly involved in an AR shoot at Sophia Gardens, I think they have some electronics there, but what they can do scoring wise I do not know. As for the other home countries I have no idea what they have in the way of ranges set up with electronics. Lets face it for 50m matches there are very few ranges set up with target changers to allow shooting to the old ISSF rules on paper targets.
So for a good while yet I don't think we will have to change our ranking system.