What is USDAA DAM Team and how is it scored?
From BayTeam
For the official USDAA rules see-- uh-- I have no idea. Need link here: _____.
What is DAM team?
USDAA has a tournament game (any level can enter) called Dog Agility Masters (DAM) Team, often referred to as just Team. The performance (similar to AKC preferred) version of team is called Performance Versatility Pairs (PVP), often just called Performance Team.
Team is a game in which you team up with teammates (three to a team in championship, two to a team in performance) and compete across 5 classes in which your team accumulates points. Highest point score after 5 classes wins. It's a kick to team up with friends old and new, root for your teammates, strategize together, celebrate! The five team classes look a lot like regular titling classes:
- "standard" except no table
- "gamblers" except the gamble is sometimes not a simple distance challenge but instead a time challenge,
- "snooker",
- "jumpers", except has weaves
- The heaviest-weighted class at the end is the relay (3-dog for championship, performance is 2-dog much like regular titling pairs).
Given Bay Team's present pricing scheme, the $50 (or $55 we're talking about for our December Santa Rosa) for the 5 classes is a steal compared to the $12/$13 per regular titling class. We're talking cheap ring time here. Find teammates with similar goals to yours (practice time in the ring or going for the win) and you can't go wrong.
How is Team scored?
Nonmasters people entered in team might think this is kind of a gotcha: all team classes are scored using "masters rules". Masters rules say that refusals/runouts count, and an off course is an elimination, and three refusals/runouts incurred in a single run is converted into an elimination.
An elimination can cost between 100 and 150 points (per dog) deducted from your team's score which is kind of a big dang deal. You'll often hear people say "Just don't E!" because, while a team can usually qualify with just one E across all the teammates across all the classes, more than one E almost certainly drops the team out of qualifying range. It makes for interesting strategizing when making handling decisions - if one choice means you might drop a bar or get an R, as opposed to the other choice which has an off-course risk - take the "R" choice! "R"'s and dropped bars just mean a few points dropped from your score, as opposed to a hundred!
"But auntie Karey, what is qualifying range?" I'm glad you asked, grasshopper (ach, now I KNOW I'm an old fart!). A "team Q" is earned if the team's score is within 25% of the average of the top three placing teams. Exactly like how a steeplechase round 1 qualifier is calculated. So you care how far ahead the top teams are from everyone else (if you care about the Q).]
Scoring of individual team classes
Who wants to know details about the individual class scoring, what does time plus faults mean, which class besides relay is the most weighted, .....
alright, you asked for it!
What is "time plus faults" scoring?
It means that your score for the class is your time (in seconds) plus your faults (e.g. plus 5 for a dropped bar). Lower scores are good; higher scores are bad (e.g. plus 100 points for an E). This scoring basis is why it is far better to just drop a bar or incur an "R", than it is to "E"! Regular titling pairs is scored this way (perhaps you've noticed you can earn a Q in pairs even if you knock a bar, just so long as your total time-plus-faults score is lower than the minimum qualifying score for the course (known, misnomerly, as the course's SCT "standard course time"). Team Standard, Team Jumpers, Team Relay, and Steeplechase are also scored this way.
What is "Faults THEN Time" scoring?
These are the classes for which you must have ZERO faults in order to Q, and, amongst dogs with equivalent scores, time is used as the tie-breaker. Regular titling standard, regular titling jumpers, and regular Grand Prix are scored this way. The ONLY "good" score for these classes is a zero. And by the way if you run one of these classes "clean" (incuring zero faults), you also must still run faster than the minimum SCT for the course - any seconds you have over the SCT are counted as faults which are just as damning as dropped bars.
What is "Points" scoring?
These are the strategy classes for which you want to earn as many points as you can in the time allowed. These classes include Gamblers and Snooker, Team Gamblers and Team Snooker. For these classes, higher scores (more points) are good, low scores are bad (everyone has a story obout their "zero point snooker run" which is as bad as it can get, although maybe not as bad as the urban legend about someone earning MINUS snooker points because they first accidently ran the zero point snooker course and then said a cuss word). You know how to run a zero point snooker course: first your dog knocks the first Red he goes over, and then shoots into a tunnel positioned immediately after the dropped Red. Judges do that on purpose, you know!
Summary of each class's scoring basis
Note: "faults" includes course and time faults.
- Regular titling standard - faults THEN time. To Q: must have ZERO faults. To win: lowest faults (usually zero), then fastest time.
- Regular titling gamblers - points. To Q, must have minimum opening points and must perform the gamble under the maximum time. To win: must have more total points than anyone (time is a tiebreaker)--the only class where a non-Qing dog can place higher than a Qing dog! (For example, if opening requires 21 pts and gamble is 20 pts, a Qing dog has 41 points at least; some dogs can earn 45 points in the opening and still miss the gamble.)
- Regular titling snooker - points. To Q, must earn at least 37 points combined from the opening and closing sequences. To win: must have more points than anyone (time is a tie breaker so don't lollygag getting the clock stopped).
- Regular titling jumpers- faults THEN time. To Q: must have ZERO faults. To win: lowest faults (usually zero), then fastest time.
- Regular titling pairs - time PLUS faults. To Q: score (time plus faults) under SCT. To win: lowest score.
- Grand Prix - faults then time, just like standard. To Q: zero faults. To win: lowest faults (usually zero), then fastest time.
- Steeplechase - time PLUS faults, just like pairs. To Q: must be within 15% of the average of the top three dogs in your jump height. To win: lowest combination of time plus faults.
- Team standard and Team jumpers and Team Relay - time PLUS faults - don't give up after you've dropped a bar because you could still earn a great score!
- Team Gamblers, Team Snooker - points.
Another way to list it:
- faults THEN time (requires zero faults to Q): standard, jumpers, grand prix. Any non team individual class that starts with a "number one" cone.
- points (requires lots of points to Q): gamblers, snooker, Team Gamblers, Team Snooker. Any class where you make up your own course.
- time PLUS faults (requires time plus faults be lower than SCT): Pairs, Steeplechase, Team Standard, Team Jumpers, Team Relay.
Can I earn a Q in the individual team classes?
Starting in 2009, bless USDAA's heart, YES. In a manner of speaking. In addition to the overall TEAM Q you can earn if your whole team qualifies overall, your individual dog can now earn a Q in each individual team class. This Q "only" counts towards the dog's lifetime total, which is important if you are working towards earning a lifetime achievement award. This Q does not count towards any other title.
You earn a Q in an individual team class if your score is within 15% of the average of the top three dogs in your jump height in the class. The way you find out if you earned the Q is to go directly to the class's ERB (Event Results Booklet) which officially reports the Q's to USDAA. These often obscure Q's are sometimes not noted on the class accumulator sheets.
Also: Read Taj MuttHall's post on this topic.
Where do the team score numbers come from?
The easiest way to think about it:
- Team Standard: Each dog starts with 130 points (so a total of 390 for a 3-dog team). If the dog eliminates, the dog loses all 130 points. Otherwise, the dog's time and faults are subtracted from 130.
- Team Jumpers: Each dog starts with 100 points (team total of 300). If the dog eliminates, the dog loses all 100 points. Otherwise, the dog's time and faults are subtracted from 100. For example, a fast, clean dog might take 25 seconds to run the course--that dog is left with 75 points.
- Team Snooker: Each dog starts with 0 points. The dog's earned points are then multiplied by a weighting factor to try to make the top scores roughly equivalent to the other classes' best scores. (E.g., if snooker highest score possible is 51, then to make it roughly equivalent to the best jumpers scores, the factor is 1.5.)
- Team Gamblers: Each dog starts with 0 points. Same concept with weighting factor as for Snooker-- The weighting factor is "1.5" if the gamblers points system is 1-2-3-5, and "1.25" if the points system is 1-3-5-7.
- Team Relay: Each dog starts with 150 points (so a total of 450 for a 3-dog team). If a dog eliminates, the team loses 150 points. Otherwise, each non-Eing dog's faults are subtracted, and the team's TOTAL running time is subtracted (from when first dog starts till last dog finishes). Note it gets worse if two dogs "E" - they lose 300 points! and if all THREE E then that's 450 points lost! (for a remaining total of 0). So don't give up if one of your teammates E's, here!
Add all those points together. That's the team's final score. The team with the most points wins.
How is the team's score calculated from the individual scores?
Example: Team Standard--slightly different way of putting the same numbers together:
- Take each teammate's individual scores (which is time plus faults, as you know). For example:
- Dog 1's score is 35.45 (time of 35.45, zero faults, nice run). Dog 2 is 48.20 (time of 38.20, two dropped bars at 5 faults ea). Dog 3 is 65.34 (time of 50.34, two dropped bars at 5 faults ea, one missed contact for 5 fault). Total of individual scores for this team, in team standard:
- 35.45 + 48.20 + 65.34 = 148.99.
- The TEAM score for this class is the sum of the individuals subtracted from the total available points of 130 points per dog (390 for 3-dog team). So this team's TEAM score is 390 - 148.99 = 241.01 which is a very nice score.
Compare this to what this team's score would look like if Dog 3 had "E"'d, in which case Dog 3's score would be a flat 130 (regardless of time or other faults). Now the sum of the team's individual scores is
35.45 + 48.20 + 130 = 212.65, and the TEAM score for this class is now 390 - 212.65 = 177.35 which is not so good.
Which team class counts the most towards your final team overall score?
- Relay
- Standard
- Snooker
- Gamblers (possibly equal in weight to Snooker but never exceeds)
- Jumpers (meaning if you have to E in one thing, this may be the least damaging)
more questions
...why is our team computer scoring different from the rest of the country,
because we haven't outgrown yet the original system we started using a million years ago, although we're fast headed that way as more and more rules are added! Can you say "metastasizing database"?
how many more performance teams at labor day squeaked into the Q range as a result of the first place performance team incurring an E in the relay? :-) maybe I'll take that to private email, maybe this REALLY is more than you wanted to know now!
I wanted to find out the answer to this just because there had to be some good come out of that unfortunate E! answer: one additional team squeaked in.
What about DAM team shirts?
Some people like to have matching shirts when they compete in Team. Some can be quite creative. Nowadays, you see matching shirts mostly at Nationals, although they still occur at other Team events.
See DAM team shirts for some of ours historically.
Much material from Karey K emails, Sept 17, 2009; thanks, Karey!
