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I remember on a story of a red tabby Persian. This is a true occurrence, not fictive.

A new exhibitor exhibited his red Persian proudly for the very first time, as classic red tabby = blotched tabby. People call this pattern also bull's eye pattern.
The cat received the CAC on the first day, the first "point" for the champion title, however, it was written in the judge's report, that the pattern is somewhat diffuse (not really clear).
On the second day the exhibitor faced a bad, completely unexpected surprise. His Persian cat suddenly was not tabby blotched any longer, thus it was transferred to "mackerel" by a well known all breed judge and consequently did not receive a CAC.
But the exhibitor was not annoyed and exhibited his Persian again. And the same story should happen once more again.
On the first day the cat received the CAC as red mackerel cat, given by the very same judge, who had given a CAC already to the cat as tabby blotched.
And on the second day a bad surprise again, completely unexpected the Persian was now transferred to tabby spotted and did not receive the CAC consequently.
The exhibitor was already annoyed, but he did not give up, and exhibited his cat again.
And - you do already suspect correctly - the same story repeated itself again. On the first day the cat received the CAC as tabby spotted. But until the second day the cat had changed its pattern surprisingly once more again. It was transferred to red self, stating that the cat would have prominent ghost markings. And - of course - the cat did not receive a CAC on the second day. 

Now the exhibitor thought, that all that is quite mysterious. His cat had now 3 CAC, but for 3 different patterns.
And the cat is a champion with 3 CAC?!

There are colours, where it is not so easy to see, whether the cat is a tabby cat or not. This is even more difficult, when the cat is longhaired, or with white, or with Siamese points, or when the cat even has a curled coat (is a Rex cat).

Ghost markings or tabby markings?

That is one of my chocolate tortie kittens.

But the cat is definitely mackerel!
No, it isn't!
WHY NOT?

Look closer to the cat:
Do you see also chocolate stripes?
No, you see only red mackerel stripes. And that is called ghost markings, markings, which may be very clear, but will disappear when maturing.
A true chocolate tortie mackerel cat has red and chocolate stripes, or stripes having both colours.

Very often, tortoise cats are erroneously registered as tortie tabby and exhibited as such, which are truly only tortoise cats having prominent ghost markings.
If the exhibitor is not fast enough to collect all titles with his cat, as long as the ghost markings can be seen clearly, this success series will have an abrupt end over sudden.
Such ghost markings can be seen mostly in cats with red or cream colour, and then these markings (pattern) will appear only in the red/cream coloured colour zones. 

ALSO:
A tabby pattern must be seen in all coloured areas.
That means, it is quite easy to distinguish between a tortoise and and a tortie tabby cat.

How can be recognized, if it is a tabby cat?

The pictures where taken, when the kittens just started to open their eyes.

Outer edge of the ears

The edge of the ears is almost white in tabby cats - always!, in non-tabby cats it is not.
The best view is looking from the back side on the ears.

Spectacles around the eyes

Tabby cats look like, as if they would carry (almost) white spectacles.

Rim of the nose leather

The nose leather is rimmed by the darker colour of the pattern in tabby cats.

Spotted whisker pads

Where the whiskers come out from the skin, you see dark spots in tabby cats.
The whisker pads are mostly almost white, at least they are very light.
You can see this already also in new born kittens, which have Siamese points, the colour of the whisker pads differs prominently from the colour of the face and you are almost blended by it, although the kittens with tabby points do not show any points yet.

And all the other features for tabby?

What about the "M" on the forehead?
What about the spirals on the cheeks = stripes, which run from the outer eye corner down the cheeks?

Forget about these markings, because cats with red/cream colour mostly have an "M" on the forehead and spirals on the cheeks.

How is it possible that cats, coloured with red, are transferred so often to another colour?

Let us return to the story of the red Persian.
Cats are judged, how they look like, and not, what they might be from their genetics.

But, however, there remains a bitter taste, otherwise this red Persian could not have been transferred 4 times to another colour class and could not have changed its patters 4 times over night.
There can be seen a clear difference in the pattern between a classic tabby and mackerel/spotted cat.
Whether the cat has only ghost markings or not, that cannot be decided so easily.

To look into the pedigree, is always good. Several patterns can be immediately excluded, because they are not possible from the genetics.

To consult a judge colleague, may sort out quite often several problems, which pattern a cat could have. May be the judge colleague breeds tabby cats and has more experience in judging tabby cats.

And not to forget, to speak with the exhibitor, who is quite often also the breeder, and to ask him, how the cat looked like between 0 and 4 weeks and what the breeder observed specifically. Or to ask the exhibitor, if he had already cats with a similar pattern, which are now grown up, and which pattern these adult cats now have, or if the pattern had become diffuse.

It is always better, not to transfer young cats to another colour class, as long as they do not compete for a title (are younger than 10 months),  and to leave the colour or pattern, as it is provided on the judge's report.
It is not a shame to tell the exhibitor, that he should present his cat once more, when it is 10 months old.

Exhibitors do value more, if the judge does not pretend to know everything, and afterwards it turns out, that the judge was wrong, because the so called "self" coloured cat had born black tabby kittens over sudden and has already received very high titles as self coloured cat.