And the award for best day of paintball ever....

[elTwitcho]

For those who I havent already bored out of their skulls reminding them that I will be attending skyball, this is your chance to catch up to speed. I will be attending skyball. Well, have been attending rather. Today was day 1 of the competition, and I can honestly say that it was by far the best day of paintball I've ever played in my life. Most importantly I think, is that my marker functioned flawlessly, which is good in itself. Everyone around me was having a hell of a time with their guns, and I even saw a few cockers and angels chronying with a difference of 20 fps between the 3 shots ( +-10 fps for you stat people ), myself I was getting +-3, so I cant complain at all. Next great thing, was the fields. Absolutely perfect. In the middle of the field we were on for the day, there was a large ZAP logo bunker ( an inflatable "Z" "A" "P") Pitcutre these letters lined up, and imagine all the holes between them, and at the bottom of the A, between the Z and the A, etc. Today it was a bad day to be the fastest on the team I suppose, because almost every team sent their fastest man to this bunker, and since it was dead center, both front men would arrive at the same time. These poor souls would then have to duke it out from a range of about 1 and a half feet, poking in and out of the letters. Lucky for me, I'm slow :) Today was a change for me though, as luck would have it, we had 3 back players, and that just wouldnt do, so I was told "You're a tape player now". Despite my apprehensions, I thought I did fairly well, my old habits showing through at times with me pinning down the opposing teams back players when they should have been pinning me. Which isnt to say I did great either, you must understand of course, that I'm a back player not a front player, but I still held my own pretty well. I think what made the game the most fun, was the sheer firepower and skill we were up against. True, it may seem fun to eliminate 5 newbies every game, nothing compares to trading paint, against some of the best novice players in north america, both of you shooting 13+ bps. Or the roar of paintballs slamming into sup'air bunkers, fired from 10 electropnuematic markers. One game, we were up against 5 Dark LCDs, and unfortunately for us, their strategy was to take very little ground, and have all five guns firing off the buzzer. With a field that is only 150 feet long, and firing from one end to another was comonplace, it was FUBAR for me and the other front guy. Somehow, I just had the sense to dive, and when I did, 7 paintballs bounced off my back while I was in mid air. Had I been upright a second longer, that would have been 7 breaks on my chest. My team didnt get so lucky, and after losing 3 guys off the break, i was bunker bait. Right now, we've won 2 games, and lost 3, so we're slightly under the middle of the pack, hopefully we can have ourselves a miracle tomorow, and make it to the finals. All my hits were goggle hits, so it was a painfree day, which is a bonus. Well not entirely pain free, I did crack my thumbnail in half, when i was inserting my barrel plug and a careless member of a team for the next game bumped my trigger. Never saw blood come from underneat a finger nail, eck. Games were all surprisingly quick, due to the tight design of the field, and 90% of all players never got through a hopper a game (our back player with shoker never shot more than a hopper). Games were decided within 30 seconds, just like they should be :) Air was free, and that was definately a bonus. And for anyone considering going to a tourney, here's a pic to give you an idea of exactly how much crap you have to lug around (it's good to have a backup of everything)

http://www.pbreview.com/fpics/elTwitcho030901192330twitchoscrap.jpg

And, what would a tourney be without buying stuff, so I've already picked up some 32 degrees gloves (the really nice suede ones, with the rubber pads on the trigger fingers:) ) and tomorow I'm looking at picking up some WDP gel covers for my nitro tank (they're the same covers on the angel air, really soft gel, and comes in a nice blue to match my timmy). Anyhow, wish me luck for tomorow, and I'll give you all an update :)

[elTwitcho]

Crapity crap crap, I gotta leave my house at 5am tomorow, which means I should be sleepin now... SHOULD be

[Richy_C]

good luck dude! and my best day will be when my team enters the tourny at the splatter park which is my boys at CO paintball, we should suck but hey, it's sup air inftale a bunker!

[TLplus84]

good luck man..sounds like one hell of a tourney.

[elTwitcho]

Here's a pic of the fields. The red one was the one we played at all day. If you look on the left tape, you'll see a U bunker, and a dorito in front of it, that's where I was pretty much all day, some ugly stuff on that tape, let me tell you :)

http://www.pbreview.com/fpics/elTwitcho030901225652IM000032.jpg

[TLplus84]

those are all small small small courts..they look fun as hell to play on tough..HEY shouldn't you be in bed~!? :eek: :D

[Intimidator]

Damn that looks fun!

[PBSouLjAh]

omg i can never imagine playin in a field that small........man...i dunno...i guess its cuz im used to playin rec ball in da woods and etc

[Not Too Shabby]

How much does that stadium fill up with during the day?

[SpyderBoy]

Where is tourney going down??

[blinkpk11]

whats your backup gun on the right? Looks kinda like a spyder but im not sure. BTW, NICE timmy.

[MuckRaker]

Go Get 'em Twitcho ... Bring home the Gold.

[PetWoody]

i use the same kind of oil u do.
hehe

[elTwitcho]

Well, it's done. Looking back, it was the greatest weekend I can think of in recent memory. On day 2, our team just clicked, we worked out all our bugs, got everyone set up nicely, I've actually become a really good front player (didnt get eliminated all day), and we just plain rocked. Against one of the top ranked teams in our division, we beat them within 20 second of the buzzer, without losing a single player. Next we played Iron maidens Int. Bronze and swept them as well (I cussed Dave out for bunkering a girl, shame on him). Our performance on the second day, led me to beleive, that had we just gotten 1 day of practice in, we would have gotten to the finals easily, as we were only 1 flang hang out of making it :( Still, it was a great day of play. Between the end of the preliminaries, and the start of the finals, was about 2 or 3 hours for everyone to just sorta chill out and socialize. I got to try about every gun under the sun, and spent about 10 minutes talking with the ACI rep about the new Mayhem electro marker. Personally, I'm a little leery of that thing, until i get a chance to actually try one. Why?, well for one thing, it's an electro with no circuit board... That's right, 9 volt battery, to microswitch, directly to solenoid. Theoretically of course, this puts no limit whatsoever on your ROF, and you can shoot as fast as your finger will fire, or your feed system will feed, whatever comes first. I also got to shoot a whole ton of Angels, (nicest one being an old LED actually, with a real nice trigger job), e-matrix, impulse, planet shocker, sandridge cocker, e-mag, mini mag with bouya grips, e-matrix, freefrlow (very nice) and a shocktech matrix as well. Since air was free, I pretty much passed my timmy around and let anyone who asked dry fire it. The verdict was that everyone who tried it said they really liked it, and almost everyone commented on my trigger (I'd done some work, and drumming 3 fingers on the side will let you get an amazingly fast ROF), and a couple people were able to sweetspot it, and fire about 40 shots at 14 bps in semi, and they just sorta smiled. It's always reafirming for people to say how much they like your gun, I actually got one guy interested in buying one. OF the guns I tried, the freeflow was super nice, and the e-mag at the AGD booth was really easy to rip out some fast shots with. The trigger itself, almost doesnt feel like an electro, as the tension increases slightly before firing, kinda like a mechanical trigger. I still thought it was pretty cool, not to mention they just look real slick in person (Tom Kaye was shooting one with a warp feed at the tourney). Music was playing, and pretty much everyone was in a great mood. I also want to say, that the Iron Maidens are some of the nicest players in the whole world. Maybe it's a woman thing, but they were great, even after our game, there was just as much friendliness and joking around as before we played, and that's not often that you see that. I got to spend about an hour talking with our back player Dave, who actually had a big part in designing the e-matrix, about the gun, and some help on tweaking my intimidator. Nice guy hooked me up with a blue macro line kit, and he's going to be making me a delrin bolt in a few weeks. He also explained alot about the matrix, and how they will be fixing the efficiency problem (his dropped 400 psi in one game from 100 shots). I think in these past 2 days of play, the sheer level of skill in the players I was going up against really helped me. I think I'm honestly twice as good a player as I was going into the tourney, I've learnt alot, and beleive it or not, made the switch from back player to tape runner, which is very fun, and I'm excited to be trying something new :). Also, I impressed alot of people at the target shoot, knocking over 8 golf balls, at 70 feet, with only 50 balls. It may not seem like much, but the winner of that particular target shoot knocked over 10, so I wasnt too far off the pace for the best. Though we didnt win anything, or make the finals, I look back with nothing but good thoughts. I got to meet some of the greatest players I've ever seen, got to spend 2 days completely absorbed in the most high end paintball technology, got to play on the best field setup i've ever seen, and I never once had to go near that awful awful ZAP bunker :D. If anyone is interested, my team has decided that there is definite promise with us, and we're going to begin practicing for a tourney in august, that I think we have a good shot at winning. It's been an experience to remember, I've made alot of good friends, and you better beleive we're gonna be back with a vengeance next year.

[Richy_C]

awesome! which proteam took home the win? wuts ur team name?

[elTwitcho]

My team name was "Hell itself". I had nothing to do with picking that name, but who cares really, I decided whatever everyone else came up with was fine. Funny thing was, that at the tourney, nobody would own up to coming up with that name, it was always someone elses idea, lol. The am winning team was Rapid Fire I believe, Watched a few of their games and they really had their stuff together, though I was rooting for Scorpions Black myself, who I thought were gonna go all the way