Is cheating part of the game?

[Jones the Paint Magnet]

Steve - absolutely right, mate. I suppose it's down to ballers to define how they want the game played. We could follow the "business" approach and equate the means with the end, but if that trend continues (and it's been going strong for at least 15 years), there's at least one person here who's going to take all the "pro advice" with a pinch of salt.

 

[Mikey D]

at a tournament i played yesterday, i was fortunate enough to get a lift to and from the event from a pro player, jim frensham. dunno if you know of him, but to me hes like a paintball god, because i havent had long in the game and someone this experienced, and good, i look up to them.
anyway, in the pub after the event, you start hearing all the tricks ppl use. whether you call it cheating or not, is up to you, and the marshalls to decide. but the kinda things he was tellin me, they arent blatent cheatin, more depending on the quality of the marshalling.
Jim came up with many examples where he, and many others, will make the marshall make a tough call. One example was when hes running at an opponent, if you feel a shot, he and most ppl, wont stop, check for paint, and be eliminated, they would keep going at the guy he was trying to eliminate. now would you call this cheating? I dont think it is, only way it would be cheatinbg would be if he KNEW he had been shot, like right smack in the goggles.
whether you think this is cheating, bending the rules or what, i think that there are many things the player can get away with, and its all down to the marshalls to make the decision, whether its correct or not, is down to their quality as a marshall.
if this sorta thing has already been said, ignore this, as i havent read all of the thread

 

[Wadidiz]

Originally posted by mike from brum
at a tournament i played yesterday, i was fortunate enough to get a lift to and from the event from a pro player, jim frensham. dunno if you know of him, but to me hes like a paintball god, because i havent had long in the game and someone this experienced, and good, i look up to them.
anyway, in the pub after the event, you start hearing all the tricks ppl use. whether you call it cheating or not, is up to you, and the marshalls to decide. but the kinda things he was tellin me, they arent blatent cheatin, more depending on the quality of the marshalling.
Jim came up with many examples where he, and many others, will make the marshall make a tough call. One example was when hes running at an opponent, if you feel a shot, he and most ppl, wont stop, check for paint, and be eliminated, they would keep going at the guy he was trying to eliminate. now would you call this cheating? I dont think it is, only way it would be cheatinbg would be if he KNEW he had been shot, like right smack in the goggles.
whether you think this is cheating, bending the rules or what, i think that there are many things the player can get away with, and its all down to the marshalls to make the decision, whether its correct or not, is down to their quality as a marshall.
if this sorta thing has already been said, ignore this, as i havent read all of the thread

Good points of discussion. This is the most difficult aspect of the paintball game. This is where most of the arguments, debates about cheating, about bad judging and about favoritism come up.
Let's analyze the "daring move to mug" situation:

1. This is often done as a game-changing situation.

2. The player who succeeds with such a move is often given praise, even a "moment of glory".

3. The chances of getting caught for playing on are small.

4. The penalties for getting caught aren't really very severe: 1-4-1 usually. In my experience 2-4-1s are almost never applied.

4. The player who stops because of bounces might be regarded as an idiot.

So, of course the top-level players are going to put playing on into a system. Behavior that is rewarded becomes behavior that is repeated.

Since this is the situation, I have suggested ways to change things to get a handle on this in other threads (e.g. "Enforcing the rules...").

First we have to create a whole new milieu around judging vis-à-vis training, commitment to enforcing the rules consistently and organizing how to work the fields to prevent or catch cheating.

Then we have to make the penalties tougher for the ones we catch playing on. I suggest that any player that gets caught for any offense 3 times during the same tournament should get pulled from said tournament. You can read the details on the mentioned thread.

Getting pulled from a tournament or suspended would, IMO, have the desired effect of making a player think twice before continuing to pull the trigger after feeling impacts that most likely are hits.

I'm not saying any of this is simple or easy.

Steve

 

[Collier]

Steve,

In this instance what would you of done?

Team 'A' (up and coming nov team) is playing team 'B' (ex pro team, recently dropped down to AM) The game comes down to a 2 on 2.
A player from team 'B' comes down the field and eliminates one of team 'A', he then goes in for the mug on the last 'A' player, the 'A' player pop's out shoots him in the chest then turns his attention to the other live 'B' player, the shot 'B' player carries on round with the mug, he lunges his barrel into the guys collar bone (physical contact), shoots him then stands over him drilling him. about 9 shots in all.

Paul.

 

[Wadidiz]

Originally posted by Paul_collier
Steve,

In this instance what would you of done?

Team 'A' (up and coming nov team) is playing team 'B' (ex pro team, recently dropped down to AM) The game comes down to a 2 on 2.
A player from 'B' comes down the field and eliminates one of tame 'A', he then goes in for the mug on the last 'A' player, the 'A' player pop's out shoots him in the chest then turns his attention to the other live 'B' player, the shot 'B' player carries on round with the mug, he lunges his barrel into the guys collar bone (physical contact), shoots him then stands over him drilling him. about 9 shots in all.

Paul.

This is scary for me since I only have your description. Sound like to me it would be an automatic flag hang for team A. The guy team B player who made the physical contact and did the bonus balling should at least get pulled from the tournament and his team play with one less player. Maybe even suspended from the series for another tournament or two.

I'm very interested in this type of situation. I'll study the rules and get back to it.

Steve

 

[Collier]

Originally posted by Wadidiz
This is scary for me since I only have your description. Sound like to me it would be an automatic flag hang for team A. The guy team B player who made the physical contact and did the bonus balling should at least get pulled from the tournament and his team play with one less player. Maybe even suspended from the series for another tournament or two.

I'm very interested in this type of situation. I'll study the rules and get back to it.

Steve

I understand its very hard to give an opinion on a situation that happened when you weren't there, alot of other people watched it, including Manike, (it'd be interesting to see your take on it as well)
What amazed me was the fact that NO penalties were given at all!
Not what you know but who!

Paul.

 

[Wadidiz]

Originally posted by Paul_collier
Steve,

In this instance what would you of done?

Team 'A' (up and coming nov team) is playing team 'B' (ex pro team, recently dropped down to AM) The game comes down to a 2 on 2.
A player from 'B' comes down the field and eliminates one of tame 'A', he then goes in for the mug on the last 'A' player, the 'A' player pop's out shoots him in the chest then turns his attention to the other live 'B' player, the shot 'B' player carries on round with the mug, he lunges his barrel into the guys collar bone (physical contact), shoots him then stands over him drilling him. about 9 shots in all.

Paul.

I just scanned the Millennium and NPPL rules and I can't find anything in the rules about suspensions for unsportsmanlike conduct (apart from game-fixing), physical contact or overshooting. So I was wrong about a suspension it seems.

First off, the player from team B that played on should, of course, be eliminated and the other player on her/his team should be pulled as one of a 2-4-1 penalty for playing on. Then the remaining player on team A should then be wiped and put back in the game so that he/she could then hang the flag. Then team A should be given credit for an two additional eliminations when the points are tallied, one for the playing on (because there was only one player left for the 2-4-1) and another as a penalty for the physical contact/bonus balling.

Imagine being able to know all of that in a split-second! That's why we (including myself when I ref again) have got to concentrate on better training and knowing the rules backwards and forwards. Damned complicated to be a marshall.

Steve

 

[Jones the Paint Magnet]

Here's a thought - get a copy of the rules into a PDA format, and have the ultimate or chief marshall for each field equipped with it to solve things in a hurry.

Maybe a mrashall trainig course consisting of a lot of "what if" scenarios? Your other thread seemed very popular, and it's how I had three years of lifesaving drummed into my noggin . . .

 

[Collier]

Originally posted by Wadidiz
I just scanned the Millennium and NPPL rules and I can't find anything in the rules about suspensions for unsportsmanlike conduct (apart from game-fixing), physical contact or overshooting. So I was wrong about a suspension it seems.

First off, the player from team B that played on should, of course, be eliminated and the other player on her/his team should be pulled as one of a 2-4-1 penalty for playing on. Then the remaining player on team A should then be wiped and put back in the game so that he/she could then hang the flag. Then team A should be given credit for an two additional eliminations when the points are tallied, one for the playing on (because there was only one player left for the 2-4-1) and another as a penalty for the physical contact/bonus balling.

Imagine being able to know all of that in a split-second! That's why we (including myself when I ref again) have got to concentrate on better training and knowing the rules backwards and forwards. Damned complicated to be a marshall.

Steve

Whats the deffinition of physical contact cos I'd of thought 'bayoneting' him would of counted

Paul.


EDIT: Sorry I misread your post. I agree with your acount.

 

[your mom]

Originally posted by manike


When I played rugby (very seriously) anything I could get away with in the back row, short of throwing punches and stamping, I would try. In rugby it was very much a case of 'playing to the ref'. If I could leave the scrum early or make just a little late tackle on a fly half, so he would fluff it next time, then I would. I'd joke about it with the fly half at the time and it would be part of the game. If I got caught and penalised then I'd stop...

BUT for some strange reason I feel very differently when it comes to paintball.

Is it an honour thing? Maybe because we don't have refs that are up to scratch, I think the personal honour is more important?

Or should we just say that cheating IS part of the game? That we should try and get away with whatever we can. If we get caught we get penalised and take the penalty like people do in other sports?

Why is there such a stigma that goes along with cheating in paintball? There isn't so much in other sports until people really blow the rules apart that is...

I must admit from talking to many pro friends (and especially Americans) that they already feel this way... are we in Europe (UK?) maybe just a little behind in how we approach this Sport? Should we accept it to be part of the game and get on with it and be competitive?

My opinion is that at the moment we need the honour because the reffing is not good enough and thus we need to keep it fair (!?!?!), but Solonor is maybe 100% correct that if we had a decent level of reffing then anything should go (except safety and sport issues such as hot guns etc) and people just pay the price when caught... I'd advocate those prices being high... Maybe worth the risk... maybe not?
manike

cheating should never be part of any game, pro or rec, 'cos it's when people start cheating that it isn't worth, nor is it enjoyable, to play the game. you would think that the pro's would have this point of view, but, sadly, that's just life. i don't cheat, and i'm proud of that, and i hate cheaters there's no place in paintball for people that want to elevate a game played for fun into an underhanded cheat-a-thon.
maybe some pro's disagree with this, and i can understand that the yanks have 'accepted' cheating as part of the game, but no-one likes a cheater.

'times have changed, sonny. back in my day, if we caught you a' cheat'in, you'd be burn'n at the stake, u hear me? you young 'uns have it easy.'