IN THE SUBJECT OF FIGHTING

Initial thoughts on .50 Caliber Paintball.

Let's just keep splitting paintball in two until we get a small, thermo-nuclear explosion.

I'll have popcorn and sparklers. Come on by!

Then, paintball will have come full circle, and the meaning of this 30 year ride will reveal itself when a lone Park Ranger truck pulls on to an empty country road. The truck pulls to the side and the ranger gets out of his truck, pulls a shiny Lasoya ST-Ripper from the back of the truck... loads up the Rotor, and begins marking trees.

That is what we leave upon this world. This is our legacy. Improving the gear used by cattlemen and rangers.

Or... something less apocalyptic.

Why Paintball May Be Banned in Germany (Continued)

This report came to me as an email on the current report on Germanys ban on paintball by Lars Herzig

Geschäftsführer / Managing Director
http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_single_mediaplayer/0,,4255121_start_436_end_791_type_video_struct_3217_contentId_4246809,00.htm

Paintball is a modern way to play cops and robbers, only here the guns used to eliminate opponents fire paint pellets. People who play paintball, also known as gotcha, say it's a harmless sport. However, a working group composed of experts from Germany's state and federal interior ministries say paintball is dehumanizing and encourages violence. They want politicians to draw consequences from the school massacre in Winnenden and ban games like paintball.

MAO Heard 'Round the World!

So, I am a week removed from the PSP's Mid Atlantic Open, and I figure it's time I wrote about it. I'm still waiting for Lambertson to finish his post about the UWL a few weeks ago, so I can write my impression and tell everybody how much he's lying about everything. So, in the meantime, here's my report:

It was great!

Thanks! And I'll see you guys next week.

Ok, so maybe there's more I can write. First of all, I hope everybody that is reading this blog tuned in. We need the support of the entire sport. Everybody. Even you camo-nerds who play in the woods and have goatees and mullets and think speedball guys are just a bunch of cheaters. (Do any of them read this blog?) With big numbers we can make a stab at some good advertising, and some good advertising means we can do even more to make a good show.

As it stands right now, it already is a great show. And not just because of the money the PSP has spent on our gear. For this event, we rolled out our first step towards making paintball statistics a living, breathing thing. We unveiled a widget that keeps track of up-to-the-minute stats, who is playing each point, when they get eliminated, and even includes a link to a bio of each player. Of course, that's if everything is working properly and we are perfectly in tune with the stat-keepers and we have all of those bio pages built. But, we did take our first step with the widget by making it live, including the stats up through the day before, and by putting a green check mark in a box next to a player's name if we see them enter the game to start a point. And, with just using that small part of the widget, it seemed to help the viewer keep track of who was playing well so far, who you were likely to see on your screen, and was a mimic of the information Matty had to disseminate. With the delay of the video, and the immediacy of the widget, it seemed that starting lineups were getting cleared in the middle of a point, and that is something we need to work on, but all in all I think it was a great step forward.


Right here I'd like to take a detour to my soapbox for a minute. If any of you who are reading are on or are associated with a professional PSP team, please pass this along: FIX YOUR JERSEYS TO THE RULES, PLEASE. Do you know how difficult it is, right now, to see who is who with the fast pace of this format? It was difficult to see who was heading out for each point, impossible to see who was eliminated on each point, and some teams just have no stats taken for the simple fact that their jersey numbers are IMPOSSIBLE to see (I'm looking at you, Impact, but to be fair, every team had something about their jerseys that made it tough). The numbers are either too small, have no contrast with the background pattern, or both. I really don't care how you think it looks or how much you want to hide your identity from the refs when penalties are called, if you want stats kept for yourself or your team, you'll fix your jerseys. For players, it's a no-brainer: everybody is fighting for their spot on the team and for recognition from the paintball world in general. How are you going to accomplish that by playing in anonymity? Coaches/owners... don't you want to know who is performing on your squad? Heading in to Sunday, Yosh Rau had a 76% in the Points Won stat. That means, 76% of the time he is on the field, Dynasty wins the point. Kinda makes you think twice about sitting him, doesn't it? Guys like Zack Wake from Aftermath and Justin Schwartz from Dynasty had confirmed G's within a couple of digits of points played. For almost everybody else in the tournament, the G count was in the neighborhood of half the number of points played. That's information that's good to have about your squad, isn't it? That helps you put the best 5 guys on the field at any given time, right? It helps you win! If the pro teams show up to Chicago with Jerseys anything like what you had in Rock Hill, that tells me you have no desire to win and are just wasting your sponsor's money.

Just as a fer instance, do you know the rules governing jerseys in the other major sports? How large the lettering and numbers have to be, no (and I mean NO) logos, writing, designs are allowed, no matter how much your sponsors are spending. AZ Cardinals players were fined for writing Pat Tillman's number on their jerseys after he was killed in Afghanistan! Do you think it's simply so the league offices of those sports can be busybodies and have power? No. Because stat-keeping is an integral part of those sports and you have to give the stat-keepers every opportunity to get it right. Do we need more bodies at more locations around the field to keep better stats? Yes we do, but that costs money, and in the meantime make it easier on the few guys who are giving of their time for this.

OK, off the soapbox and back to the task at hand...


Oh... I guess that's it. I mean, the event was within a few teams of the Phoenix team count, but down just a little bit. The vendor area was a bit smaller, mostly because it was a small event and not within driving distance of SoCal, where most of the vendors seem to live these days. But Dye's big truck was there, Luxe had their manor set up, and there were a few others there showing their wares. If you want to know what the action was like, watch the webcast On Demand when it comes online in the next week or so. We are starting to get the coverage down to a science. There were a few very fast points where Patrick had to switch to a camera before checking to make sure the camera was on the right shot... and it was. Patrick is learning his job better, the camera guys are learning their jobs better, and they're more and more in synch now. Having all the best, whizz-bang toys is one thing... having a staff that anticipates each others' moves and works like a team is everything. And that's saying something when our 4 camera operators live all over the place and can only get work in at 4 events this year. And by all over the place, I mean only 2 live in California, and no where near each other. The other two are in Washington and Tennessee. None of them get paid for their work, and they work their butts off... standing in the sun, getting hit all day, then at night cleaning all the paint off the rental gear and offloading footage to computers to get ready for the next day. They're also the set-up and tear-down crew and have to clean and wind all of the cables and pack all of the gear for the trip home. None of us get any sleep at these events, the director and camera guys least of all. There: my homage to the crew of the webcast. These guys are the heart and soul of the coverage and Matty and Patrick get all of the credit. And, in case you're wondering: I don't do much of anything, so it's OK that I get none of the credit. But I always get first pick of the lunch!

Fix the Reffing, Fix the Game

This is the blog post that gets me in to trouble. Before we dive all the way in, let me spell out some caveats and things that should go without saying. First, my personal tournament playing experience is very limited. My experience reffing tournaments outstrips it, but that's not really saying much. I'm coming at this not from a player's stand point, and not from a ref's stand point; but in the only way I'm qualified: as a spectator and fan/student of all sports.

Second, nothing I write is intended as an indictment of any individual ref, nor am I making light of the difficult job they have to do and how little they get compensated for it. Yes, we all know that it's a tough thing being 100% mentally acute after standing in the hot sun for 12 hours, and I'm not dick enough to respond by saying "suck it up, that's the job you signed up for." I know reffing is hard, and if you read through my thoughts, I believe it will be plain that I don't think the refs are to blame for the level of reffing we currently see in this sport. So there, I'm not hating on refs when I'm hating on reffing. Some of you won't see past your own defensiveness to get the distinction. That's fine, just tell your friends how lame I am and post many many comments! And then buy a Contract Killer shirt from RazaLife.com. Come for the debate, stay for the pie!

The 3rd thing you should know about me is that I have a very scientific way of looking at the world. No, I'm not a scientist, but when I approach problems of philosophy or in trying to come up with solutions to issues I try to stick to that which evidence makes most probable, and I rarely (if ever) come to full-on conclusions to things. If I do come to a conclusion, that conclusion is provisional based upon further evidence. In other words: I don't pretend to know the answers, but when forced to, I will make my best guess based on the best available knowledge, and will always be willing to admit I was wrong when my guess turns out to have been mistaken, either from faulty logic or new data. I love learning and that means I'm wrong a lot. I'm used to it.

Lastly, we're going to be honest here and assume the players aren't going to help the refs out by stopping when they are shot. The honor system? Never heard of it. Oh yeah, and for ease of understanding, the PSP game is called Xball in this piece. Race2 is going to get replaced once they wake up to how lame it sounds.

OK, so let's get in to this. I don't think 7-man is a viable format because I believe it is impossible to adequately ref.

Whoa... this is about 7-man and not about reffing? Well... kinda. In my internal quest to answer the question of where paintball is headed and if we should be headed there, I'm always comparing and contrasting the two most popular pro formats. Y'see, I believe we should have one way to play pro paintball. I think it makes me look ridiculous when I can't answer a question as simple as: How does one play paintball? I also think it's clear this sport just isn't generating the income for the major sponsors to have 10 events a year, so we really should pick one way to play it at the top levels.

One of the ways in which I gauge which one (Xball or 7-man) is better for the sport in the long term is in its ability to produce a fair and equitable match-up that truly shows us which was the better team. And I think 7-man has some inherent flaws that make it impossible to adjudicate close calls.

Let me explain. If, after the breakout (and regardless of format), the game consisted solely of guys gunfighting out of their spots or players making moves from one prop to another (with no bunkering moves), paintball would be easy to ref. What makes it tough are when guys run other people down, or worse, when there is so much movement you have guys running at each other. At that point, the game becomes un-reffable and the refs are forced to make their best guesses. If two guys basically joust each other up to the 50 bunkers, and both end up with hits, the action is too fast and too spread out for one ref to be able to determine who was shot first (and consequently, who played on and deserves a penalty). Now imagine if 4 guys do it, and you have the Joy Division/Dynasty Commander's Cup finale in Costa Mesa a few years ago.

In the case of Xball and 7-man, those calls usually end up about the same, at least from my experience. I've seen some bad calls and some great calls in both. The difference is in how those bad calls end up affecting the outcome, not only of that game but the whole tournament. In Xball, thanks to the format, the refs have time after the fact to assess any penalties without making a life or death decision over the entire game... just one point in the game. And even if it ends up being a missed call, the team on the short end of it has the chance to overcome it and still win the game. Now, all of those things are also true of 7-man, but with a much smaller (microscopic, by comparison) window for not only doing the work of making the call but also for the team that might have suffered a bad call to overcome and still prove they are the better team.

In 7-man, the decision has to be split second and the repercussions, comparatively, are much bigger and affect much more of the game. And, because of the much higher effort required by the referees to get it right, 11 more hours of such calls in the hot sun with teams and fans and parents all screaming for your head introduces more chances to get the calls wrong. It's true in my line of work and in most others: the faster you are forced to work and the more distractions you must deal with, the lower the quality of your output.

And 7-man, as long as I've been watching it, hasn't improved in its reffing. Now, there are many reasons for this, not the least of which is one set of fixes requires money and nobody ever has it or is willing to spend it on reffing. But, even just having experienced refs hasn't shown any kind of increment of improvement. Again, I'm not talking about individual refs, whom I'm sure have improved as they get more experience. I'm talking big picture, overall kind of stuff. Reffing of the pro's on the center court of 7-man paintball has seemed to have always been at about the same level.

And, as I'm trying to make clear: I don't think that's the fault of the refs. I think the system they are being put into sets them up for failure. The combination of promoters neglecting to get them food and water (which has happened often enough to be the trend and not the exception), a shift lasting 12+ hours, no consistent training and practice apparatus in place, and the very nature of 7-man and the demands it places on the refs all spell out, at least to me, an untenable situation. And the best proof I have that it can't be fixed is that, at any of those levels, it hasn't been fixed after 5+ years. And these aren't incompetent slackers, these refs. Not at all. And, thanks to my experience with Kristen Kleist and competing in or helping to ref her events, I feel familiar enough with these top level 7-man refs to say that. They care deeply about the sport, they care deeply about doing a good job, and they do strive to get it right, or at least make it better. While many point to the NXL/Pro Race2 refs as the best in the sport, it is hard for me to believe they are actually better refs than the 7-man regulars. More likely, it seems, they have a better system in which they ref.

Refs of the Old School Challenge

At this point, I'm more inclined to blame the system rather than the people in it. And, with inventing Xball, they made wholesale changes to how the game is played that makes it much easier to ref. As a consequence, I believe they have made a game where the best team does win each match. And isn't that the point of the tournament? To see who the best team is?

What I have written above, I fully expect to be controversial, and probably in many aspects wrong or too simplistic to be accurate. I welcome your comments and look forward to learning from them. Thanks for reading!