My tourney in Snowflake

[a_system]

Well, I live in Lakeside, AZ during the summer. So I haven't gotten to play lately as there are no major fields and I don't know any paintball players here. Well one day I went down to the store in town and they mentioned that there was a tourney going on soon in the next month. I hadn't played in a while and was thirsting for a game so I decided to go see what was going on with paintball in a small rural area. After a 30 minute car ride I was there.
It was a three man tourney and I went with my Dad, but we lacked a third player. When we went to the desk she said that a guy who wasn't expected to come on one of the teams came, so they had an extra player. So we had our team, we picked the name "Instant Winners" just because we had no better name in such short notice, and we were kind of a spontaneous team. So the teams were all set and the brackets ready for a double elimination tournament on two courses, a speedball elimination bracket and a woodsball flag game. One odd rule was that it was a two hit rule, so you have to be hit twice to be gone.
The first game we were up to play was woodsball, it was a single flag game, one team defends, the others attack. How fitting that my team got to attack first on grounds that none of us had played before. To make a long story short, we were beatin badly, it was my first ever woodsball game, same with my dad, and our other player was new to the field. The game ended up timing out, and my Dad got shot.
After that game we moved on to our first speedball game. Again, we were beatin, but this time it was a little more interesting. I hadn't walked the field before hand, so the bunker I picked was terrible, a huge gaping crack got me shot. I had gotten a hit on one guy though, and when I went out, there was an enemy player who soon joined me. The game went on for a long time, and then the ref came over and asked my Dad, who was the backplayer if he was out of paint, he had been tricking the other guy into thinking he wasn't, but as soon as the ref asked the other guy broke out and bunkered our last armed playe. It sucked.
Our next woodsball game was much better, this time we were defending and we had every one stationed to protect the flag. I was put in a bad spot and got shot early, but the rest of the game was boring, and no one moved 'till it was too late. THe game ended by time, and we won by default.
The next game was another speedball game. This time we had a new stradegy and I picked a better bunker. I was able to get off a lot of shots and got a hit or two on the other guys before I was nailed twice. The rest of me team carried on well because I had weakened the strong side, and my team flanked the last two guys with ease.
Our last speedball game was aggainst the team that our third player came from. They had been doing good and were playing very well, a tough match that we lost. I started off by trying for the front center bunker, and got shot right off the bat, that bunker is always a gamble, you either make it and have great position or you die. The rest of the game was a slaughter, without the front position they moved up on the other two and within a few minutes the rest of my team had been effectively flanked.
Our last woodsball game was definitely a case of bad stradegy on our teams part. To start we had no plan of attack and for the first 7 minures the game was a pure deadlock. My Dad tried a death charge, but it didn't help anything, he quickly was shot and only got one hit on the enemy, who stayed alive because of the two hit rule. My other team mate and I moved on them in the last 3 minutes to try to get the flag quickly, we knew where two people were, and the last guy we had lost, but he didn't seem to be a threat. After my team mate mysteriously got shot I decided to do what I could in my last minutes. So I just jumped out of cover and did a 2 on 1 fire fight with the two guys I could find. It was a great way to go out, I gogged one guy, and the other was much less threatening without his counter part. I was just about to make a run for the flank so I could come up behind and get the flag, when I got hit in the back of the head. It seems the guy we had lost in the brush had moved behind us, and since his gun had jammed, he wasn't doing anything. The one shot he had hit me, dead on.
After the tourney was over for my team we got some player names and decided to get together for a game next week. A fun time was had by all, even though we ended 2:4 we still felt we did well. We weren't the first to be eliminated in either bracket, those were the teams that we beat. One interesting thing is how I realized that all paintball players are very similar, everyone is just there for a good time, and every one is very nice. I can't wait till next week. One odd thing is that almost EVERYONE there had spyders. It was spyders as far as the eye could see...not really, there were only like 6 teams, and only 3 guns that weren't Spyders, one guy had a matrix, I had my cocker, and my Dad had his tippy. I guess it's just because the only store up here only sells spyders. Everyone played well though, the tourney was very interesting.
My final thoughts are these: the tourney was fun, the people were nice, and woodsball is very interesting. I think I had a very rewarding time even in a rural area, and I can get to play paintball up here again.