Bud Houston's Blog

Gamblers is a game of timing and strategy and an opportunity to demonstrate a dog’s willingness to work reliably at a distance from his handler. This game is a fundamental to a number of agility venues including the USDAA and the TDAA.

Briefing

This is the traditional USDAA gamblers game, nested for Novice, Advanced and Masters. The game begins with a point accumulation period of 30 seconds. The scoring system is 1-3-5-7. Jumps are 1 point; tunnels, tire and weave poles are 3 points; the dogwalk is 5 points; the A-frame is 7 points. 21 points are required in the opening period to qualify at any level.

15 seconds are allowed for completion of the gamble (the dog must get to the finish line before the 45 second whistle blows.) The dog is not allowed to do any two obstacles in the gamble of choice in sequence. The handler may choose which gamble to be performed at the end of the point accumulation period. A fault during the gamble will invalidate the gamble. Time stops when the dog crosses the finish line.

For the purposes of league play no specific gamble will be required. We’ll let players choose their own poison with the knowledge that each gamble has a different point value, increasing comparable to the technical risk of the gamble,

• Novice gamble 10 points – blue squares, tire tunnel and jump.
• Advanced gamble 15 points – light red circles, four jumps in the pinwheel.
• Masters gamble 25 points – dark green circles, jump A-frame and two jumps.

Note that each for each gamble the course-map shows a handler-containment line of the same color as the gamble numbers.

Scoring

The Gamblers class is scored points then time. The dog that scores the most points wins. Time is a tie-breaker only.

Qualification Criteria

To earn a qualifying score the dog and handler team will have to earn more bonuses than penalties and perform the entire sequence in less than the allotted time.

• Games I / Novice ~ 21 accumulated points and successful completion of the Novice Gamble.
• Games II / Advanced ~ 21 accumulated points and successful completion of the Advanced Gamble.
• Games III / Masters ~ 21 accumulated points and successful completion of the Masters Gamble.

What Do You Make of This?

Okay, here’s the deal. Find in this set of the floor an interesting training exercise. Send it to me at BudHouston@hughes.net. The best answer will get the next issue of the Go The Distance Notebook for free. I’ll email it to you!

The best response will include permission for me to publish the exercise, and will be well documented and illustrated.

Notes on Publishing CRCD Code

You know, I’ve tried over time to include CRCD code in my weblog posts. But the results are usually not satisfying. That is, CRCD rejects the code, presumably because there is formatting that the software doesn’t like. What I have found, however, is that straight-text in a “Reply” copies over the Course Designer quite well. Just to test this premise I’ll write a Reply including the code for the “What do you make of this?” game for the week.

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Questions comments & impassioned speeches to Bud Houston: BudHouston@hughes.net. And Check out my latest publication the Go the Distance ~ Dog Agility Distance Training Notebook – Jan 2010 available on the Country Dream Web Store: http://countrydream.wordpress.com/web-store/

This entry was posted on January 12, 2010 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Course and Sequence Design, Distance Training, Dog Agility Training, Games and Courses, Go the Distance, Handler Training, Obstacle Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.