It looks like the points matches this year have been changed from your best 3 event placings to just the 3 largest matches. In effect, this is the way that it always has been. With the way that the points are awarded based on the number of competitors that place behind you, you could pick up as many points at the Cactus, Nationals or Super Shoot with a poor finish as you could if you had won the other smaller attended events. Of course, a poor finish won't get you on the team. The SS because of it's sheer number of competitors is a must attend event if you want a hope of being on the world team the way that the points are currently awarded.
The only way that the best 3 out of 5 or 6 events would have worked would have been for all events to have somewhere near the same attendance of shooters or for each of the events to have the same amount of total points available. My personal preference would be to have 5 or 6 qualifying matches with equal points of say 100 points available for winning each event even the SS. Those smaller matches would not stay small for long especially if shooters considered that some of them were easy pickings to pick up world team qualifying points. The qualifying matches for the World Team are all NBRSA sponsored matches and always have been. The points matches in 2006 were the Cactus, Hog Roast, Super Shoot, East/West Show Me Shootout, NBRSA nationals and the NBRSA Eastern Regionals. I don't have the match reports any longer for those but the attendance from memory for the Cactus was around 175, Hog Roast 100, SS 350, E/W 100, Nat 200, Eastern Reg 140. All numbers can be plus or minus on attendance. As you can see a 75th finish at the Cactus would have given you the same amount of points as winning the Hog Roast. I'm sure that's the reason that the events for this year have been reduced to three. I'd like to see all events the same size and more qualifying matches. Equal points at each would do this. It wouldn't hurt the attendance at the SS after all it was the Super Shoot before it was a qualifying match. Equal points would grow each qualifying event to become mega matches. This is just my opinion and have no effect on anything concerned with the world team selection process. I shot all the qualifying matches in 2006 and enjoyed every one of them even if I didn't wind up qualifying. The best shooters certainly did qualify as evidenced by their performance at the world team match in 2007.
