"I play tournaments" It seems to be a statement that paintballers make to each other, to prove how "good" they are. The fact of the matter is though, it seems that very few people who play tournaments are that great, and even if they are are they tournament players like we want to think of them as?
There is a difference to me between teams like Russian Legion, Dynasty, Strange, and most tournament teams. These are long term teams dedicated to practice. Now granted most of us can't practice a schedule like theres, but around here I see very few teams that get together and run drills, run practices, and run organized sessions. Most of the times its scrimagging against other teams if they practice at all together. When tournaments roll around there is a large pool of players willing to play, some "friends" stick together in groups of two or three, and some patterns emerge but its basically thrown together teams out of these pools of people who practice together. This large pool of players seems to encompass players of nearly every level. I play with one person, who generally ends up captaining a team, and we even carry the same team name tournament to tournament, but I do not define our team as a tournament team - we are a bunch of guys, thrown together, who play tournaments not to win but to have fun. We are not serious about teams there is no "voting on or off" there is little team sponsorship, instead deferred to individual players in the large pool.
To me, the term recreational player and tournament player are in no way mutually exclusive. I have seen some VERY good teams put together that are more of a throw together "recreational" style team. They play tournaments, but they are not a "tournament team". I'm hoping that what I am trying to say is clear, I realize a lot of it seems contradictory. Thoughts?
There is a difference to me between teams like Russian Legion, Dynasty, Strange, and most tournament teams. These are long term teams dedicated to practice. Now granted most of us can't practice a schedule like theres, but around here I see very few teams that get together and run drills, run practices, and run organized sessions. Most of the times its scrimagging against other teams if they practice at all together. When tournaments roll around there is a large pool of players willing to play, some "friends" stick together in groups of two or three, and some patterns emerge but its basically thrown together teams out of these pools of people who practice together. This large pool of players seems to encompass players of nearly every level. I play with one person, who generally ends up captaining a team, and we even carry the same team name tournament to tournament, but I do not define our team as a tournament team - we are a bunch of guys, thrown together, who play tournaments not to win but to have fun. We are not serious about teams there is no "voting on or off" there is little team sponsorship, instead deferred to individual players in the large pool.
To me, the term recreational player and tournament player are in no way mutually exclusive. I have seen some VERY good teams put together that are more of a throw together "recreational" style team. They play tournaments, but they are not a "tournament team". I'm hoping that what I am trying to say is clear, I realize a lot of it seems contradictory. Thoughts?
Stock BKO (so far)
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