I made two discoveries this week:  How points work (CFA), and Cosmo’s rank.

Calculating Annual Points

Calculating points, particularly because Cosmo is a kitten, has been confusing to me. My issue is that I was confusing National/Regional points with Championship/Premiership points. They are two separate beasts, and Championship/Premiership points are *not* kept for kittens. This post applies only to CFA. We are not currently showing in TICA, but may at some point in the future.

Let’s discuss calculating National/Regional points in CFA (Premiership points will be kept after he turns 8 months in January, 2015). At the show, you will need to listen to the announcement of the unofficial count, which will likely be different from the pre-show count that is published in the catalog (edited to add that sometime the clerk won’t make the announcement, so you can simply go to his table and look at the count list that he has prepared – that’s what I had to do at the American Gothic show). At Mo-Kan, the count announcement was made in the mid-afternoon, and management also posted the count near the announcer for those who were not in the show hall to hear the counts. For the Mo-Kan show last month, the counts were as follows:

LH Kittens: 12

SH Kittens: 16

Total Kittens: 28

LH Championship Cats: 26

SH Championship Cats: 25

Total Championship Cats: 51

LH Champions: 18

SH Champions: 18

Total Champions: 36

LH Premiership Cats: 15

SH Premiership Cats: 17

Total Premiership Cats: 32

LH Premiers: 7

SH Premiers: 8

Total Premiers: 15

Because he is in the kitten class, the only points that apply to Cosmo are the National/Regional (Annual) “Kitten” points. Also note that the formula for calculating Champion/Premier points is slightly different than the formula for calculating annual points.

Above, you will note that there were 28 total kittens at this show. This show also had six judging rings. Out of the six, Cosmo was called back to finals twice (that means that two of the judges placed him in their Top Ten). For these two rings, he placed 6th and 8th. National (also called Annual) points are based on the count for the cat’s category. Take the total kitten count (28) and subtract one, which represents Cosmo, because he can’t beat himself. Thus, the most points possible is 27, which are earned by the first place kitten for each ring. The second place kitten in each ring earned 95% of 27 (26.65), the third place kitten earned 90% of 27 (24.30), etc. For his first final, Cosmo placed 6th, which is 75% of the 27 max. points, or 20.25 points. His second final earned him 8th place, which is 65% of the 27 points, or 17.55.  So for the Mo-Kain show, Cosmo earned 37.8 National/Regional points from the two finals.

Figuring Out Rank

I figured out Cosmo’s rank by accident, actually. I knew he had 37.8 points, but I had no idea what that meant.  How many points do other cats have? How many does Cosmo need to place in the top 25?

I had heard of CFA’s E-points, but could not figure out how to access them. The only online point system I knew of was Herman (through CFA), which did not tell me any information relevant to Cosmo (Herman can tell you your Championship/Premiership points, and end-of-season annual points). I had already registered a user account for CFA from when I registered the cattery name, Moscato. I logged in at the “Secure CFA” hyperlink, and noticed that there was a link for enrolling in the Almanac. It cost $59, so I had not done that previously. This time, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase access, not really knowing what I was paying for.

Once you register, look for a link that says “Link to Online Almanac.” From there, you click on “EPOINTS,” where you will see a table of various reports. Look for “National,” Regional,” and “Breed” reports (you have an option to view either .pdf or .txt files). Because I knew how many points Cosmo earned, I went to the kitten section of the National Report, and scrolled down to his point range. I saw his name right there, indicating that as of August 10, 2014, Cosmo ranked 619 nationally out of 968 kittens. Not bad, considering that the season started in May, and he only had one show under his belt! For the Midwest Region #6, he is the #57 ranked kitten out of 85, and for his breed rank, he is the #5 Singapura kitten nationally (out of five Singapura kittens!).

I was pretty excited to find this information, and access to the Almanac is well worth the $59, especially if you plan to show more than once or twice.