PSP Chicago: Saturday

As often as the weather forecast changed leading up to this event Saturday remained the one "good" day, a promise of mostly blue skies and sunshine. And there was some blue sky and sunshine but there was also a lot of dense grey clouds, pummeling rain, thunder (not just the Seattle kind) and lightning that slowed the day's match schedule and saw the final games of the day played in a downpour. The aftermath left the fields virtual swamps as the surviving teams prepare to compete on Sunday.
The Sunday forecast is for intermittent afternoon thundershowers. I guess we'll see. Regardless the games will go on and the action will begin at 8 am with the Champions relegation avoidance matches. Despite winning both their matches today X-Factor will square off against Vicious in one relegation avoidance match and the other will see Shock fight it out against Upton 187. At the top of the Champions brackets Damage outlasted Dynasty to earn a semi-final berth as did Heat in their group. In the other bracket a strong Ironmen showing put them into the semi-finals along with Impact. A credible effort from the Russian Legion sees them remain in the Champions bracket for the Cali event.
In the Challengers half both Infamous and Art Chaos stumbled slightly which left an undefeated VCK atop the bracket as the one seed going into Sunday's semi-final match-ups. It also means that Infamous will play Art Chaos in one semi-final which will leave the loser in Challengers for the next event. VCK will take on Red Storm in the other semi despite the fact Storm dropped both their matches today. Infamous dropped a match to Top Gun and Art Chaos lost to VCK in the last match of the day. Newcomer Revo acquitted themselves well going 2-2 and even though Boom went 1-3 on the scoreboard it wasn't indicative of their solid play as they gave all their opponents a strong effort.
And despite being acknowledged as a "fast" layout teams are managing to find ways to slow the action down, sometimes to a crawl and it isn't because of the weather. Across the divisions there have been more games to time than I think anyone expected. (I'll break the layout down next week and explain how and why teams played the way they did.) In the meantime I'm trying to dry out nearly everything I brought with me to Chicago and hoping it will stay dry tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

PSP Chicago: Thursday & Friday

On the plus side no real rain the last two days. Unfortunately it poured both Wednesday and Thursday nights leaving the mud muddier and standing puddles here and there--although mostly not on the playing fields. All things considered the fields have held up pretty well though the Champions field has a low spot on one dorito wire that would be ideal for some mud wrestling. Hey if Living Legends can have a bikini contest why can't the PSP have some bikini mud wrestling? Include that as the midday entertainment between morning and afternoon sessions on the webcast and that $10 or $15 bucks begins to look like money well spent. Just saying. Otherwise the weather was overcast early with some late afternoon sunshine with relatively mild temps for Illinois in the summer. The forecast continues to look iffy but Saturday is supposed to be the best day of the weekend for paintball.
There were a few surprises but nothing too drastic. Pro play went mostly to expectations--at least in terms of how the field is playing. Points are fast when bodies drop OTB or a wire gets cleared. For the most part the center has been left alone--particularly off the break with some movement into the center late on close outs. Over in Challengers Infamous crushed and struggled more to keep their game on point than they did with their competition. Art Chaos also went 2-0 but let Thunder into their match with a surfeit of penalties. Revo got their first pro match win by swamping Thunder 7-0 after dropping their first match versus VCK. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day in Challengers was Red Storm winning both of their matches after being the season cellar dweller so far. Seems the faster pace suits their game.
On the Champions field it was a bit of a surprise to see how successful the teams were OTB shooting some inside lanes along with the more traditional wide lanes. While all the spots could be made, including the snake, players were as likely to be eliminated bumping the Cans as attacking the corners. (Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration but still a little unexpected. Could be a sign teams were wary of strong center moves too and prepared to counter them quickly.)
On the scoreboard Tampa and Dynasty won both their matches today but have yet to play each other. X-Factor lost a couple of tough tight matches while Heat split and 187 struggled with the pace. In the other half Vicious lost both their matches today while Shock, Impact and the Legion split with only the Ironmen going undefeated as they handed Impact a loss. As usual nothing is settled yet and won't be until the last match on Saturday is completed. Here's hoping tomorrow bright and sunny and filled with world class paintball. Until then.

PSP Chicago: The Pre-Event

It's Wednesday. The competition begins tomorrow with divisional play but the tournament has been in the works for weeks. Weeks ago some of the crew were on site leveling ground and planting grass. More recently besides setting up the infrastructure of the event the operations crew has extended a gravel road and prepped an area for overflow parking--just in case it's needed. In our little corner of the boneyard all our gear, including all the scoreboards is tucked away. The day before an event is final set-up. For our part it's erecting the field scoreboards and the pit scoreboards, prep for the scorekeeper and wire everything together (including the horn) and then testing it all to make sure it's all working. While that's going on back at the boneyard referee field kits are organized by field for the refs to pick-up in the morning and includes everything they need to do their jobs. Radios and chronographs are counted and checked. Packed with fresh batteries. Ref jerseys (that have been washed) are arranged by size and field assignment and ready to deliver as the refs check-in and collect their assignments. Individually none of the details are a big deal but the accumulation of elements and keeping them organized can become a daunting proposition in no time. For example, the pack for setting up the scoreboards has six sets of cables, connecting dongles, a power strip, the air horn, zip ties, straps, stands (the big one needs to be assembled and broken down each event)--and I'm sure I forgot something--plus an extension cord, two pit scoreboards and a main board. And there's lots of consumables that need to be replaced--like batteries, paper towels and water. I almost forgot--ref lunches need to be arranged, collected daily and distributed too.

And that's just our tiny corner of the event. Multiple that effort a couple dozen times or so. Each of the vendors has a similar routine and equally long list of tedious to-do details in order to be ready when the players show up. And operations is busy with a lot more than simply setting up fields with netting. Here the guys are making a new parking lot--along with being responsible for delivering power to the vendors and each field, setting up the bleachers and the superstructure used on the Champions field and every table, chair and nearly every other odd and end that the event requires.

The checklist of to-do's to run a national tournament is amazingly long. I thought I had a good idea of what it took to make an event happen. I didn't know--or at least think about--the half of it.  

Happy Father's Day, Dads!

Just a friendly VFTD reminder. Get the kids started early. Splatmaster is ideal. Show 'em how to switch hands. Get them their own goggles. Take them to the field. Let 'em eat some paint. And make sure they know that Daddy expects them to play paintball as soon as they are old enough.

Best Player Ever

VFTD is looking for nominees for the upcoming Best (Paintball) Player Ever poll which will post early next week sometime. Include as many or as few as you like. VFTD will take the top 15 or so (as determined by number of nominations submitted) to narrow the list for the final poll that will determine who y'all think is the greatest player ever. (After the poll I'll let you know if you got it right or not.) So what are you waiting for? Get cracking. And, you know, post up your nominations in the comments.
It should also be interesting to see what the demographic of the participating readership is by the players nominated too. Sic transit gloria mundi. 

Brave New (Limited Paint) World

The last post, 'Peak Performance', spurred some "the game's gotta get cheaper" comments and as should be plain to even the average paintballer that means restricted paint usage, perhaps heavily restricted. (I prefer "restricted" to "limited" because all paint usage in a competitive or recreational setting is already limited and what is really being debated is restricting the amount of paint a player or team may use on a per point basis.) The other costs associated with playing and even competing are available at a variety of prices and are purely discretionary--for the most part (some safety equipment notwithstanding) and allow balling on a budget for those so inclined. While paint usage isn't mandatory it is necessary to compete and in a similar volume to your competitors. And while I am sympathetic to the desire to reduce the cost of participating I remain unconvinced that radically altering the game we play at present is the best (or only) alternative. While competition costs are high the costs that are onerous and impact a team's development and ability to compete are practice costs. And these can be reduced in two ways; one easy and one (admittedly) kinda time-consuming. First, event layouts aren't released in advance of being set-up for an event. This removes the easy practice option of simply scrimmaging the layout endlessly--or as long as your dollars allow--and begins to force teams to rethink how they approach preparing for competition. Secondly, fill the educational void created denying teams the opportunity to scrimmage the event layout in advance. In other words, teach them how to effectively prepare a team to compete without knowing the layout in advance. Without the layout serious teams will be highly motivated to find other ways to get better and the-once-a-season-just-for-fun-hope-we-do-good teams won't be compelled to spend heavily trying to get ready.
Now is that the answer? Probably not but it would be a reasonable incremental step to take and see what happens. It could reduce costs to teams by varying degrees but in all likelihood would probably just shift expenses--and by that I mean teams would likely still spend the same amount but instead of having practice absorb a large portion of their resources perhaps as a team they attend additional event(s) instead.
But if the movement to restrict paint gains momentum there are some easily foreseen ramifications nobody has mentioned (at least that I've heard.) If you've been around for more than a blink or two you should recall that in the last decade a number of paint-making companies have either gone under or been bought out leaving an ever dwindling number of paintball manufacturers. And also keep in mind that in today's marketplace the paint manufacturers are working on smaller profit margins by (hopefully) selling volume. [Although year-to-year sales have been down of late and rumors of the squeeze beginning to seriously pinch have been repeated for a while now. What the major manufacturers need right now is a way to raise prices but they've put themselves between a rock and a hard place with past practices.] So if we all start suddenly shooting (and buying) a fraction of the paint what's gonna happen? Manufacturers who survive the transition re-purpose their tooling and ultimately produce less paint. But in order for the new "normal" volume of production to be profitable the price is going to go up. How much is an open question. Do we see the return of $100 cases? If we use enough less paint shot than today in a restricted paint future we could still be saving some money but if anyone expects vastly less paint to be shot without prices rising they are deluding themselves.
Okay. Maybe. But there's lots of other sorts of paintball out there being played. And if tourney ball really is a tiny fraction of the whole then the paint tourney shoots--even as extravagant as it is--is not that much in the grand scheme of things. Which may be true but won't matter. A quick review of the majority of successful fields and typical scenario games, etc. should demonstrate that paint prices in those environments is already higher than tourney paint, sometimes much higher. In which case tourney paint prices would simply be catching up with the rest of the market. (Which begs a very serious question: Are wholesale prices the same across the board? In which case the retailers are making the bulk of the profits from paint and the volume sold directly for tourney use is largely irrelevant.)
Under those circumstances the next question might be: Do current prices in the rec environment inhibit the growth of the game? In trying to solve a tourney problem we may be missing a larger problem and in any case, the sorts of fields that cater to the low volume low intensity brand of paintball aren't conducive to growing the sport side of paintball any more than Airsoft or laser tag are gateways to hardcore paintball.
It's easy to offer solutions. A little more more difficult to calculate the unintended consequences of decisions made.

Peak Performance

This post is not going to be what you think. It is not related to recent past posts at all. I have *hint hint* danced around this subject before but since it offends so many sectors of the competitive paintball community it never gets much traction. (Or argument for that matter.) Will this time be different? Let's find out.
The peak in 'Peak Performance' isn't about maximizing performance--it's about reaching an outer limit and discovering that there is, in fact, a finite limit to performance. In current parlance it usually refers to the latest doomsday scenario. Like peak oil. (Which lasted as long as it took to find a few billion more barrels of oil under some god-forsaken tundra somewhere hard to find.) But I'm not suggesting that the present crop of top players is playing the game as well as it could ever conceivably be played--hence peak performance--largely because I don't believe that for an instant. Our training and player development efforts are still so crude and haphazard that the room for improvement is almost endless. (It's not really endless but that still leaves an enormous undiscovered territory yet to be explored.)
No, what I'm concerned with is maintaining the current standard of excellence of the top teams in Champions. Because the reality is when the current crop of elite players retire there isn't a next generation ready to replace them--and they aren't getting any younger. The youngest team currently in Champions is, wait for it, Vicious, averaging nearly 24 years old. The oldest is Dynasty at 28.5 years old. Everybody else is 25+. (The same average ages hold true for Challengers as well--or did last season--I haven't checked the new kids on the block--which is a strong indicator they are unlikely to get substantially better without significant changes.)
Unlike the lower divisions there is no place for the Champions to go (except down.) They are the standard bearers. When the elite players of today are no longer playing (or capable of competing at the same level) the new standard will be a diminished standard. What is needed is an influx of pro caliber young talent--but I've yet to see any evidence it exists--or is playing competitive paintball anyway. Or, barring that a dominant young team able to challenge the best before they aren't the best anymore. (And those guys have yet to appear as well.) Because when the Champions standard begins to decline (and there are indications it's already begun) it will impact the rest of the competitive game as well. When the peak becomes accessible to the pack it won't be because the pack suddenly got better. Mediocrity is coming--and I don't think there's anything we can do now to stave it off.

Getting Over The Hump

Or, why can't we get a win when event after event we're right there? The cold harsh truth is winning takes more than ability. There are loads of great players in every professional sport. By definition the pros are the best of the best. The differences in measurable talent isn't substantial but even so winners emerge from even the most elite groups. Why? Part of the answer is what football coaches call the intangibles. Recognizable but hard to quantify qualities that players have in different measures. Like work ethic. Or in paintball, heart. But these are qualities that separate players, not teams. (Certainly better players make teams better but there is a limit. Despite countless accolades Peyton Manning never won a national championship in college, but Tennessee did--the year after Manning graduated with a quarterback named Tee Martin.)
There can be any number of reasons why some good teams don't win but it all boils down to being able to perform at your best when the pressure to perform is at its peak. Can you bring your A-game when everything is on the line? The reason some pro teams draft proven winners from lower levels of competition is because they believe those players have shown the ability to perform at a high level in the most stressful situations. A large part of the value in working your way up the divisional ladder in paintball is learning to win. Because regardless of division winning is winning and needs to be experienced. Only in the doing does a team demonstrate it has what it takes to be winners.
Even so, there are things teams can do to lessen the pressure/stress that builds up. (The pressure to perform is a self-imposed response to the stress of the situation. Feeling stress is also an internal response to the elevated importance of the moment for both player and team.) While it would be nice to press the easy button and not feel the stress anymore that probably won't work in most cases. Instead there are routines and ways of thinking about playing the game that both lessen and can transform the negativity of the stress (and pressure) into something productive.
Establish a routine that the team follows every match. External order promotes internal order.
In competition the only point that matters is the next point. Not the last point or the winning point. Only the next point. The team must stay focused on what it can control and not get distracted with what it can't. (And the arguments and recriminations that usually follow.)
Keep the players' focus on doing their job. (This begins in practice and carries through to competition.) No one is responsible for winning or losing. Each player does their job to the best of their ability and that is all that can be asked of anyone. And when we do that good things follow.
It may sound stupid but stay positive. Even in critiquing prior matches keep the focus on improving, not assigning blame. Make every match an opportunity, not a hurdle to be overcome.
Set goals. Practice goals and competition goals. Both achievable goals and grander goals that need to be strived for. The purpose is to create a pattern of successes and to have ways of showing improvement. Success breeds success and turns obstacles into opportunities.

Keep in mind not all teams are alike. A team's chemistry is a unique property. Some teams thrive on pressure and this advice isn't necessarily for them. Some succeed in the midst of conflict. The bottom line is winning and however a team does it is all that matters. That said the above advice will serve most teams well but isn't a one size fits all proposition.

How Much Is Too Much?

In response to the last post a question came up about the lower divisions. The gist of the question was: Isn't it too much to expect from the lower divisions (attempting to train full field preparation) when they're still working on mastering even more basic elements of play? The answer of course is no. The real issue is how you go about it and what expectations you bring to the process. That doesn't mean there isn't any limit to what you can expect your team to learn--only that you don't intentionally leave important stuff out or assume some element of the game is beyond your players to at least understand. Both understanding and mastery are perpetual goals.
At a practical level however there are some easy do's and don'ts. Regardless of the game phase you're working through never overwhelm players with theory. The baseline is to tell them what they need to do. (As individuals focus on technique and as a team focus on objectives.) If (when) somebody asks why then explain in as simple and rudimentary a fashion as possible and move on. Core fundamentals are learned by repetition. (Always making certain those reps accurately simulate game play as closely as possible.) At some point the question of why will come again because you're first answer wasn't responsive enough for the more cerebral of your players. (For those willing to simply do and those willing to do with a basic explanation they know what they need to--for now.) Here is the time and place for a fuller explanation of theory--but note it's provided only to those otherwise unsatisfied with the information already given. In most situations the majority don't require--and aren't helped by--information overload.
The other difficulty that arises is the time and resource cost and how many times they must be divided in order to cover all the training territory desired. It is a real and unavoidable problem for nearly every team at every level but I am of the opinion that in the long run everyone benefits from a more (rather than a less) ambitious and fully realized practice regime even if less time and resources are committed to some aspects of the training. It's like training a boxer how to punch but failing to teach him how to defend himself. Of course the offense is critical but his results will certainly vary until he learns the rest of the pugilistic art. So too with paintball. Cover the full scope of a long term training scheme into place from Day 1 and the players and team will grow into a fully rounded team that much sooner.
Keeping in mind too that the guiding conception doesn't preclude periods of more or less intensity in various aspects of that training.

Failure Begins Where Preparation Ends

Ponder that for a moment or two. Let it sink in. Now review for yourself where your preparation (as a player and part of a team) to compete begins and ends. Are you missing something? Don't lie. Of course you are. I already know it's true and if you refuse to admit it there won't be anything you can do to fix it.
(Did you really ponder it or did you just read over it and keep going? If you didn't ponder the title before do it now.)
Okay. Let's begin. There are a few essential axioms of competitive paintball. The title of this post is one. Another is--Practice like you intend to play. These two axioms alone are sufficient to guide your training if ruthlessly applied to every decision.
The most that most teams do to prepare is find some lanes to shoot OTB, vaguely discuss likely primaries and if they feel like putting in a full day's work may toss in a few ideas about secondary options. With all that tedious field-walking done they can then get down to the business of scrimmaging for as everyone knows--it is after all the conventional wisdom--that's where teams really learn and improve. (Yes, the sarcasm was intentional.)
How often have you seen teams pull defeat from the jaws of victory? It's lots, isn't it? (How often has your team managed it? Too often, yes?) What happens is simple. Positively predictable even and yet almost no one acts to forestall this inevitability.
Your breakout goes like clockwork. Everyone makes their primaries. Guns are rolling. Snakeside lead makes a successful bump. The team has achieved its prepared goals and at this point it should be mostly down hill and yet ... somehow the team loses a body, then another and before you know it what looked like an easy win turns into a difficult to understand loss and brings with it the concomitant frustration, confusion and doubt (which kills teams.) So how does it happen?
It happens because teams fail to properly and completely prepare to compete. That simple. Take a moment and think how most points play out. By the late mid-game, unless the point is a complete blowout, both sides are down bodies with one team carrying either a numbers or a positional advantage, and sometimes both, as the point transitions into the end-game. More often than not who is still alive? Inserts and back guys. And if they've done their jobs correctly they've taken ground and moved upfield as opportunity permitted. But did they ever walk that portion of the field? Did they ever take the time to find the angles and shots upfield? Have they played those props in practice? How many close outs did they simulate in practice to get ready for the real thing?
The usual answer is none--or if they want to expand the meaning of "prepare" they might suggest they played some of those spots in various scrimmage points. But odds are that at no time during their preparation did they make a concerted and conscious effort either as an individual or a team to learn about that portion of the field and play it sufficiently to get comfortable and confident being in that position.
And the failure to include every phase of a point in your preparation is how players turn victory into defeat over and over again.
Don't get me wrong. It's not a panacea. There are no guarantees. Sometimes the other guys are just better but one of our goals in practice is to be in control of as much of the game as we can and if we routinely fail to fully prepare before competing we aren't doing everything we can to succeed.
Ponder that for a while.

Trainspotting in London

Truthfully I was less interested in the trains than the signs for the trains. All told I think I've got around 70 different station signs from around the greater London area--but I'm getting ahead of myself. I know I said no more travelogues but I've got nothing better to do (now that I've answered all my mail) as I sit in Toronto awaiting the final leg of my journey home--and nobody to edit the content of VFTD except me.

Tuesday morning Ainsley kindly drove me to the train station in Stafford. (I still haven't gotten used to not being the driver sitting in the left hand front seat. It takes great self-control not to try and shift, brake and steer the car but fortunately I'm constantly being distracted by everyone driving on the wrong side of the road and traffic signs an Egyptologist couldn't decipher with the Rosetta Stone. What is it with the crooked white lines that look like they've been in an accident?)

Back to London's Euston Station. I arrived a bit before 1pm. I've planned my route via underground to the station I think is closest to my hotel. The cost is more than half what a day pass would be so I buy a day pass. The weather is chilly and getting colder and the sometime drizzle periodically turns into lazy sprinkles that occasionally work themselves into raindrops. By the time I get to my hotel there won't be a lot of time left for sight-seeing or sights to be seen through the blanket of gray the city is shrouded in. But I want to do something and the day pass has given me an idea. After checking in I'm gonna go ride the tube and take pictures of every station sign I see. (Hey, it seemed like fun at the time.) And it started out brilliantly. I had a station map and organized a rough plan and figured to spend maybe four hours or so and see how many stations I could pass through. First ninety minutes worked out as planned and I've been through maybe 25 or 30 tube stations but in the next half hour the trains went from half full to standing room only packed like sardines in a can. I try switching lines to ones I think might be less heavily traveled for rush hour. I head into the city. I hop off packed trains and wait for later ones and before too long it becomes apparent this unremitting tide of humanity in a hurry isn't going to stop anytime soon. Of course by that time I was one of the sardines being dragged along by the waves of sweaty blank-faced people and by the time I finally reached Paddington Station I'd past through twice as many stops as I'd managed to take pictures of. So maybe it wasn't such a good idea and as it turns out most of the signs look pretty much alike.

But that didn't stop me. The next two days every chance I got I took a picture of underground signs and stations all over the city—in the course of doing other things, hence the 70 or so I've ended up with.

Hotels

When isn't the first floor the first floor. When you're in a European hotel. I wasn't going to get into this but it's madness I say, madness. My hotel in the Midlands was, once upon a time, the mews of some obscure landed country gentry and they couldn't even keep the first floor on the same floor. (Maybe not but it could have been.) My room, ostensibly 121, was down a short hall and past a fire door (an ordinary swinging door but they were keen to call it a fire door) and then down another short stretch of hall to a door that opened onto a landing. (Another fire door.) Down the stairs, turn right and through another fire door, a short stretch of hall, another fire door and some more hall was stall 17, er, room 121. On the whole however it was a large comfortable room with the exception of limited hot anything including water.

In London the room was about half the size—as was the bed—and the TV was coin operated and had a distinctly institutional feel. (Okay the TV wasn't actually coin-operated but they required a deposit to use a remote control which says something for the sort of clientele they cater to I suppose.) And my room, 226 was also on the first floor but required I take the lift up one floor to get there even though the other rooms on the first floor were in fact on the first floor. (There's a ground floor in there somewhere too but frankly I didn't care. Still don't.)

I also figured out why every room has a prominently displayed hair dryer. It's not because the Euros are obsessed with their coifs it's because those dryers are the only things that generate any heat. And of course they keep them out of the bathrooms to avoid accidental suicides when some pitifully shivering patron drops one into a tepid bathtub.

American hotel rooms may be generic but at least they're big, come with cable TV, wifi, hot & cold running water, air-conditioning and heating depending on the season—although if you want to put on the air-conditioner in the winter then by God you can!--and they change the linens and the towels every damn day instead of pretending to be environmentally sensitive and leaving you to go days with dirty towels and used sheets.

Some of the best European hotels I've stayed--for a reasonable rate of course--are members of a global U.S. chain--as you're far more likely to get something similar to what you're used to. (There's a Best Western affiliate in Florence--I know!--that's just terrific. Brilliant even. Who'da thought?)  

Missed the damned canal boats campground, missed the picture opportunity that is, I saw it just fine at about 50 miles an hour and then I blinked but now I want to vacay on a canal boat and just float at my leisure along the canals of England. Of course I'll need wifi. (This won't make any sense at all if you haven't been keeping up both here and on Facebook.)

Food

Unlike Mikey I won't eat anything but I am willing to try the occasional local cuisine sparingly. This time I had an excellent meal of pork belly braised in cider with roasted new potatoes and red cabbage—though the cabbage would have been equally at home on a dinner plate in Bavaria. (More on that in a second.) The first course was a tomato and spinach bisque that was very good and dessert was an almond tart with fresh raspberries and cream but apparently they were out of raspberries and so it came with strawberries instead. Either way the fruit was fine, the tart okay and I'll never understand what the English see in cream. On another evening out with Ainsley and Twizz I had the carvery which was nicely done and again, red cabbage on the side. This time however it was limp and bland so I'm not sure which was the real English cabbage (but at a guess I'd go for the boring one. Sorry.) While in the city I had fish & chips from a hole in the wall joint that seemed authentic to me if that's possible with two Indians and a black guy cooking. Whatever, I liked it. (They wrapped it up in paper and everything.) And I had a steak pie with mash drowned in parsley gravy which I was assured was the way locals prefer it--and have since at least the time of Alfred the Great. It wasn't bad but it was kinda bland and a wee bit thin on the steak part or meat of any sort for that matter. The same applied to the cherries in the cherry pie but it was still pretty good--without any cream.

English

Would it hurt anyone's feelings if I said I liked Paris better? And the language hardly matters as I can't understand what passes for English from most of the locals the first time around. Might as well be French. Perhaps it's because the city is undergoing such expansive changes and when I was here before it seemed like a city steeped in its own history and traditions and now, with all the massive modern construction--much of it of questionable design and taste--the city seems to be losing it's uniqueness. Or it could just be me. I hate change. 

The Bank Holiday

I very nearly survived the weekend. I had high hopes but that and a fiver will get you something Grande at Starbucks. With a bank holiday today--Memorial Day in the U.S.--it created the three day weekend that allowed us to schedule 3 day clinics from Saturday through today. And by us I mean Mark (Twizz) Dale of the Tigers, Tim Burnett of Shoreline and Ainsley Baddeley of the Lucky 15s and the CPPS. Honestly I just showed up, did my little song & dance, had an evening out and called it a day--times three. I've enjoyed every minute of it--except for those extra rainy ones--and can't thank everyone enough for both making this weekend possible and to all those who attended one day or another. It was a pleasure to spend time with all of you and I appreciate the hospitality and warm welcome. (It's been the only thing that's been warm however.)
For any of y'all mildly interested in what we actually did it was a bit different each day but at the core of each day were paintball fundamentals both explained and put into practical application with drills and game segment simulations toward the purpose of providing a--hopefully--more expansive and productive conception of how to play this silly game.
The Lucky 15s are a solid group of ballers and a reminder of how this game brings like-minded people together all around the world. Despite the funny accents--I of course don't have one--they're just like any close knit team anywhere and it was good fun spending a day with them. And I look forward to keeping an eye open to their future results and wishing them all the best.
Tomorrow, after I attempt to recuperate this evening, it's off to London for a few days of sightseeing and culture. It's Stafford to Euston Station then the Victoria line to Green Park then a transfer and with a bit of luck I'll end up somewhere near my hotel. First on my agenda once in the city is the National Gallery of Art, the Tate and the British Museum. And hopefully a picture of the canal boat campground. (Culture will only take you so far after all.)
I'm already looking forward to my next UK visit and the new turf field coming to CPPS. Playing in style that is. This by the way ends the VFTD travelogue for now. Next time we'll talk about how and where teams fail to properly prepare to compete.

If It's Wet & Gray It Must Be Saturday

Today was the *real* UK experience; wet, gray and a tad chilly but honestly not that bad. It could have rained harder and been colder. Tim Barnett of Shoreline hosted today's activities with a group of Valken-sponsored teams in attendance including some of the Disruption guys--who are one of my favorite Euro teams to watch as they are a hard-charging in your face team. I won't bore y'all with details--just think half a dozen of my most tedious How-To posts--and you get the idea. Generously everyone seemed kindly disposed and at least pretended to be attentive which I appreciated quite a bit.They did, as it turned out, have a sneaky plan to get even over dinner.
The evening began innocently enough at a Chinese buffet but before I knew it everyone was offering me alcohol in one form or another and though I manfully resisted chugging beer at the British rate of consumption--I couldn't possibly have hoped to keep up anyway--elves or faeries or something keep putting these drinks in front of me--Did someone say Jaeger-bomb?--and it would have been rude to refuse so before I knew it I'd had at least 4, maybe more, of those and the quality of the conversation improved considerably. Fortunately I didn't do anything too embarrassing, at least not so I remember and as I sit here composing this post my liver isn't howling its indignation so I must be alright. Of course at 11:30 pm when the buffet tossed us out the bulk of the crew were off to the pub but I begged off with the excuse I had a clinic to run on Sunday. (They bought in right away.) Of course there's still tomorrow and Monday night but so far I've remained upright and mostly functional. Fingers crossed.
Tomorrow we begin again with Mark (Twizz) Dale doing double duty as he has Team GB trials tomorrow and I get the undivided attention of the CPL's London Tigers with Twizz stepping in when he can. Should be a great day of paintball with a promise of snippets of blue sky and sunshine. Honestly I will be happy with no rain and about 5 degrees warmer. (Is it too much to ask?) Many thanks to Ainsley and Dylan (Did I spell that right?) for making their CPPS venue available. It's a cool place to play paintball. (And thank God I don't have to find my own way about. I think I'd kill myself and some poor unlucky bastard if I had to try and drive in this country. We're in the relative boondocks and it's still a nightmare. Wrong side of the road. Roundabouts everywhere you look. Yellows before the traffic lights turn green.) Of course yesterday on the train I was thinking with a bit of sunshine it would also be lovely country to see by motorcycle.
Another report soon but no pictures. Camera? Check. Battery charger? Check. Cable for downloading my pictures to my laptop? Nope, like an idiot I left that at home. May try and find one in London next week but that doesn't help today, does it?

Can Any Webcast Survive If Spectators Are Paying To Watch Boring Games?

I wanted to call this post, 'Hello Pants.' And open with, 'Find Gary Busey!' but decided that was probably too confusing--so I sorta did it anyway. Just because I find it terribly amusing. Otherwise this is a Baca's Mailbag sorta post. From the cheap seats of blog comments: Baca, I'd love to read your thoughts on the layout in Bitburg. I recently used the webcast to go to sleep as the games were so long and drawn out. Are we going to see major changes to the layouts (both Millennium and PSP)? Paint sponsors cannot be happy with field layouts that cause all 5 players to shot over 7+ pods a game. And it just seems that the games are really boring spectators. How can it be corrected if at all? Good teams will find a way on most layouts to lock up lanes and just wait, but what if the field layouts actually gave a reason to move up? Watching the Bitburg event, it seemed like there was no advantage to moving to even the 50 snake as you still didn't have many shots available. Can any webcast (think PBAccess) survive when spectators are now paying to watch boring games?

That's a lot to chew on so let's get started. I'ma answer the questions posed in order.
Re: Bitburg layout. This year's kit added some more lane blocking type bunkers but seems to have lost some utility props in the process which may be limiting what can be done design-wise a little bit. It also seems to me that the M, regardless of configuration, is generally less playable than the A but I honestly haven't paid much attention this year.
I can't speak to what the MS will do but I expect the PSP to make an effort to try and keep things exciting. Of the layouts I sent Damien recently I tried to retain some balance but made sure certain elements were present that should provide more entertaining paintball. The question of course is how do you do that, if it's even possible, without becoming too one dimensional. The layout can (and often does) have a dramatic effect on the game play.
Paint sponsors are also paint sellers so it's a mixed bag. Do they want to give away as little paint as possible? Sure, but they are also selling considerably more in those situations as well. I don't know which side of that equation they come down on.
'Corrected' is kind of a loaded term but I think there are ways to encourage movement and more aggressive play. Ideally I'd like to see layouts that are relatively neutral so teams can play their style and compete. Unfortunately since the tendency in recent years is to tailor style to layout there are some elements that need to be avoided in creating a design.
Giving teams a reason to move up is half the answer but I suspect it will also be necessary to limit a team's ability to effectively deny their opponent's movement as well. That doesn't mean no lane control or lockdown opportunities but it will mean limiting their effectiveness so that between the enticement of superior position it also becomes somewhat easier to accomplish. And of course it will need to be nearly impossible to live playing defense alone.
The factors I focused on were: making the 50s (or near 50s) effective killing opportunities; making it harder to deny movement upfield; make the whole field playable; make a back line defense very difficult if not impossible. At the same time I tried to make some spots hard to play; retain gun-fighting situations and deliver lots of options for how a player or team choose to accomplish a winning strategy. None of this is a science however, it's an art.
On a PPV basis I think it will be very hard to sustain the webcast without exciting paintball to watch. There is already resistance to paying for what was free before and in order to overcome that hurdle the closer we get to must see paintball action the better. At the same time though I'm concerned about too much tailoring of the game simply to satisfy a webcast--even if it's the best in the business.
It's really uncharted territory and everyone is learning as we go.

F is for phoney?

Okay, VFTD has received a conflicting report regarding the gun (marker) confiscations at Bitburg this past weekend. See the post 'Bitburg and Beyond' if you missed it. The most recent report--from a normally impeccable source--says the story was blown all out of proportion and that no guns were taken, F stamped or not, but a warning or two was apparently issued to players openly carrying their guns off site. (It's a short walk from the venue to where most of the players stay during the event.)
Of course the original report was also from a reliable source and appeared elsewhere (on Facebook) the same day VFTD reported it.
So we have two sources and two very different stories. I'd love to hear from anyone at the event who may be able to shed some light on this business--and especially from anyone who had a marker confiscated--if indeed such a thing actually occurred.
Are we dealing with a benign story that as it was passed along from person to person became more menacing--and less and less accurate--until everyone had heard it but few knew the truth? Or is it something else? I sincerely doubt there was any malicious intent involved--certainly not on VFTD's part--but it's important now to try and get to bottom of this and see if the facts may be discovered.

UPDATE: Making some progress. Some solid info is coming in. So far it seems at least one marker was confiscated but that occurred at a road stop near Bitburg, not at the venue. There are also reports that local police were present and watching the competition on the CPL field. Additionally there were apparently some number of paintballers off site in full gear or nearly so and reports of road signs shot with paintball guns, etc. If true it's small wonder the local police took an interest in some knuckleheads doing stupid stuff. More as it comes in.