October 2023 casual competition 3 vs 3

 Keeping it Local!

The small local events of around 15-20 players are some of the most satisfying things to create, attendance is small enough to see and talk to everyone, but there are enough bodies around to make it feel like a good turnout, at least... its more than just practice.

In October of 2023, we hosted a mix and match 3 vs 3 competition, which was attended by 21 players from across the south. A mixture of both ICON teammates and visiting players from other clubs or the local scene.

The Setup

As with the spring practice, it takes time to fill out the teams for these events, people wait to see if it will be busy enough to bother... people wait to see if they have the cash at the time etc. etc. In reality, the later people book into something, the less time organisers have to actually make it good. There is no point in spending hours preparing some little extra, when there might be no budget, or the event might not even go ahead anyway.. so why spend the time and money on the cool stuff? 

I found a great free scheduler tool online: https://tournamentscheduler.net/#instructions
This meant that with the help of my phone, I could simply call out the team numbers and pop the scores into the generated schedule.

Selling Out

18 Player spaces were advertised, and brilliantly the local scene booked in filling us up 2 or 3 weeks before the event was set to happen. I can't thank the community enough for doing that, as it mean't we were good to go and everyone was guaranteed plenty of paintball!

In the mean time, I had been chatting to some great people in paintball:

The superb Ed Muggleton from Anodising Services: https://www.facebook.com/anodisingservices Who supplied some great custom anodised bottle openers which are simply a glimpse into the fantastic work he does on custom markers. I'll pop an image below this section from the Facebook page.

Also, I had been in touch (as always) with the team at Super5ives: https://shop.super5ives.com/ who went all out to help support the event. Chris and I have always been great friends through University, to his tenure over the Super5ives competition in Southampton, even into the modern era of the Paintball / Airsoft shop.

It was really mind-blowing having him ask me to come visit the shop and being presented with the prize package that truly made the event worthwhile.

A Very Generous Prize Pool

Paintball South, the Field of Dreams

So players signed up, prizes got organised (Thanks also to Bart from Virst but I'll talk more about him later), the day was ready to go.

With the cosy field we have locally at Paintball South I had some ideas on what I wanted to create:

    It needed to allow for movement, but not have completely free opportunities to walk up the middle. 

    It needed to force people to leave the start gate, but not punish those that were not as athletic.

    It needed to reward aggression, but not offer one spot the freedom to win the entire game if that                  players lane opponent was eliminated (NO SNAKE!).

With all of these things in mind, the snake beams and big bricks were removed. The wedges were stood tall and made for the 40 line bunkers on what would normally be the "dorito" side, and plenty of large doritos, temples and cans were put on the field.

The Players

We had a great mix of players as I said, from across the south.. some from ICON, some from South Coast Reapers, from YTB, Brotherhood, Immortal Outlaws, players from the local walk-on scene etc. etc.

They were designated a number from 1 to 7, and then sent off to find their matching numbered teammates.

Results!

Scores were settled as 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss and each team played 12 matches in a double round robin format. Massive congratulations to our winning team of Dayle Frankin, Jordan Chin and Andrew Small

Final Thanks

For me one of the things that allowed this to be a success, was the fixed cost to play.. players booked in, paid their entry fees and that covered the paint too.

As a team / club, we are incredibly fortunate to work so closely with Virst and Bart, that he took on the responsibility of keeping a steady flow of filled pods ready to be collected by players as they dropped off their used ones on the way back to the pits. His enthusiasm for good times at paintball is second to none and for the work he puts in to allow us as a club to thrive I am hugely grateful.

The Virst MOVO (Move of the day) went to Dayle, a textbook execution of wrap and go paintball on the dorito side of the field helped push his team to overall victory a truly valuable MVP.

Photo dump