Reverse animal count tiebreaker

[jmoore]

This rule has never made sense to me.
Say two people have a 39. One missed a Pig, the other a Turkey. (Or some variation thereof.)
Seems to me it penalizes the shooter that went longer without missing.

What's the rationale?

[high standard 40]

Plus,in your specific example, a turkey is arguably the hardest target to hit. It has a smaller effective target area relative to distance. So who is a better shot? Someone who misses a turkey, or someone who misses a pig? The reverse count is probably just an arbitrary system that's easy to apply. But my understanding is that it can be the Match Director's decision to use reverse animal count or not. At my matches, all ties are decided in shoot-offs. If neither shooter wants to have a shoot-off, we don't declare a winner, I just post the scores.

[JACKIE40X40]

This rule has never made sense to me.
Say two people have a 39. One missed a Pig, the other a Turkey. (Or some variation thereof.)
Seems to me it penalizes the shooter that went longer without missing.

What's the rationale?

In the early years of IHMSA we use reverse ram count,he who had the most rams was the winner.
And the reason for it,we were shooting from daylight to dark,many times we gave out trophies with our trucks headlights.
In the mid 80’s,the entries slowed some ,we shoot offs all ties.
At OKCGC regular month matches we shoot off all forties with 10 shot preliminary,because there’s many 40’s,that weeds out the ones with less than 10.
Then we have a 5 shot shoot off after the match, for the category winner.
At the State & regional we use the International shoot off procedure.

[WA_SHTR+44M]

I have debated this rule with a few of my colleagues and match directors to really understand the concept of how the rule was developed being as though the sport is challenging one to extend the reach of ones ability to knock down the furthest / more difficult target.

What is hard for me to understand is if a competitor ends up with a 39 and has missed one Chicken which happens to be the closest target during a regular relay and another competitor ends up with a 39 and has missed one Ram which is the furthest distance, the person that missed the chicken happens to be the winner by reverse animal count -- IS this Correct ??

Both competitors are shooting the same discipline at the match and lets just say for basic reasons that they are both in the same rank standings -- IMO the person that missed the Chicken had the "Least" amount of difficulty (not that it is easy by any means) in knocking over the target at the closest distance and the other person managed to acquire all of the targets leading up the more challenging further distance Ram target.

If the tie breaker is used then is it correct that the person who missed the Chicken the winner over the person who missed the Ram ?

However -- I think it would be more rewarding to the person that made it all the way through the relay and unfortunately ended up missing the one Ram be the winner in such a tie breaker scenario.

Steve 7771

[JACKIE40X40]

I have debated this rule with a few of my colleagues and match directors to really understand the concept of how the rule was developed being as though the sport is challenging one to extend the reach of ones ability to knock down the furthest / more difficult target.

What is hard for me to understand is if a competitor ends up with a 39 and has missed one Chicken which happens to be the closest target during a regular relay and another competitor ends up with a 39 and has missed one Ram which is the furthest distance, the person that missed the chicken happens to be the winner by reverse animal count -- IS this Correct ??

Both competitors are shooting the same discipline at the match and lets just say for basic reasons that they are both in the same rank standings -- IMO the person that missed the Chicken had the "Least" amount of difficulty (not that it is easy by any means) in knocking over the target at the closest distance and the other person managed to acquire all of the targets leading up the more challenging further distance Ram target.

If the tie breaker is used then is it correct that the person who missed the Chicken the winner over the person who missed the Ram ?

However -- I think it would be more rewarding to the person that made it all the way through the relay and unfortunately ended up missing the one Ram be the winner in such a tie breaker scenario.

Steve 7771

The missed chicken is the winner.
I think Jim Fields at OKCGC was the first in Oklahoma to use all ties to be shot off,and the rest of us followed soon after.
Jim has always had the shooters back,it got the ones who rarely got to be in a shoot off envoled,instead of watching others..

[JACKIE40X40]

I have debated this rule with a few of my colleagues and match directors to really understand the concept of how the rule was developed being as though the sport is challenging one to extend the reach of ones ability to knock down the furthest / more difficult target.

What is hard for me to understand is if a competitor ends up with a 39 and has missed one Chicken which happens to be the closest target during a regular relay and another competitor ends up with a 39 and has missed one Ram which is the furthest distance, the person that missed the chicken happens to be the winner by reverse animal count -- IS this Correct ??

Both competitors are shooting the same discipline at the match and lets just say for basic reasons that they are both in the same rank standings -- IMO the person that missed the Chicken had the "Least" amount of difficulty (not that it is easy by any means) in knocking over the target at the closest distance and the other person managed to acquire all of the targets leading up the more challenging further distance Ram target.

If the tie breaker is used then is it correct that the person who missed the Chicken the winner over the person who missed the Ram ?

However -- I think it would be more rewarding to the person that made it all the way through the relay and unfortunately ended up missing the one Ram be the winner in such a tie breaker scenario.

Steve 7771

The missed chicken is the winner. I called them a strong 39.
I think Jim Fields at OKCGC was the first in Oklahoma to use all ties to be shot off,and the rest of us followed soon after.
Jim has always had the shooters back,it got the ones who rarely got to be in a shoot off envoled,instead of watching others..

[Misstachicken]

I will NEVER UNDERSTAND what a reverse animal count does for the sport. I know, way back in the day when I started in 1987, say, 10 or more people shot 40's in UAS that it was the EASY WAY OUT. More than once, in a Championship match I lost when I missed the first shootoff, and then ran off 9 straight to lose to someone who made the first one and MISSED all the rest, and once, never shot the rest and said yay I win, one to nothing! What the .....! I thought the object of the game is to knock down more than the other guy! It is penalizing, not supporting the sport. Let's save the expensive ammo and just go to a "shoulder to shoulder" sudden death and be done. I've wanted to quit more than once over this stupidity.

[braud357]

I will NEVER UNDERSTAND what a reverse animal count does for the sport. I know, way back in the day when I started in 1987, say, 10 or more people shot 40's in UAS that it was the EASY WAY OUT. More than once, in a Championship match I lost when I missed the first shootoff, and then ran off 9 straight to lose to someone who made the first one and MISSED all the rest, and once, never shot the rest and said yay I win, one to nothing! What the .....! I thought the object of the game is to knock down more than the other guy! It is penalizing, not supporting the sport. Let's save the expensive ammo and just go to a "shoulder to shoulder" sudden death and be done. I've wanted to quit more than once over this stupidity.

If I am reading this correctly, you are describing a "sudden-death" shoot-off, which is not allowed ! We have always shot off all ties at our matches at Ascension Silhouette !

[aggshooter]

I don't think reverse animal count was ever intended to apply to shootoffs. Shootoff targets have always been the discretion of the match director. If you shot matches with that style shootoff, that was a MD decision, not based on the rulebook.

Reverse animal count obviously doesn't apply to perfect scores. As I understand it, the rule allows quick and consistent tie breaker to imperfect scores.

Example: Two guys have 29x40 in P-AA. One guy has 8 rams, the other has 5. 8 rams wins, he persevered as the match neared its conclusion. It means that in large matches, you don't have to have endless shootoffs with 6 people tied for 5th place. Frankly, when Tusco stopped having shootoffs for lesser places and went to the current system with "golf scoring" I was thrilled.

Another benefit of reverse animal count is that it reduced the temptation to sandbag your score. In the early days, matches would have cash payouts in each class, sometimes to 3rd place. If it was late in the day, and a shooter thought he could get a cash payout without gaining a leg into the next class, he could shoot a score good enough to win a few bucks by tanking his final shots. But if another shooter had a 29-8R (previous example), you stood little chance of beating him without getting a leg up or moving into AAA.

Anyhow, that's the logic that was given to me in 1983.