PSP Chicago Open

[Baca Loco]

The venue looks great, kids. So do the fields. Maybe a little more walking than NPPL Chi-town but close enough to downtown to hit the nightlife--if you know where to go.

If you played Chicago, or visited the event or heard a good story about Chicago--let's have it. I won't get any good reports until later in the week earliest but if I hear it--you'll hear it--unless it's too good.

 

[pgi foto]

What if there are pictures to prove it?........

 

[Baca Loco]

All the better. And I'm expecting pgi foto guy updates, too.

 

[rieber]

re

team lights out didnt do so bad today. with the intense schedule starting at 8:24 am and ending at 11:48 we had 3 back to back games. right from the start, games fell behind. the 3 back to back games blew, we beat one team on x-ball field close to a minute while only allowing a pull from other rookie teams on evil games. so we played all our bad games on evil field, tore it up everywhere else except against doc raiders novice where they just tried bunkering us but we shot them, then they shot us out our bunkers, bla bla.

i liked today but i mean the 3 back to back games was so harsh. and refs had very little leeway. i mean we maxed 3 games almost i believe. ohh well hopefully next time we wont get stuck playing so many games on a field that is not so great for 5 man b/c it is really a 10 man field.

and nobody had gun problems best of all

 

[pgi foto]

The greatest one on one ever!!!!!!

Wait till you hear the one about the NY Extreme / Miami Effect game. Awesome ending.....

 

[Baca Loco]

Sorry, Aaron. 8 minutes of two guys dancing around is too much. Shoot somebody already!

And as for the rest of you out there--you're a bunch of selfish, no-account lazy *******s. There you are--participating in a primo event but you can't be bothered to share with the rest of us. Ya oughta be ashamed of yourselves.
Just for that I'm not gonna tell you any of the hot, hot rumors burning up the PB grapevine about secret backroom meetings, who has been calling who and what was supposed to have happened in Chi-town but didn't. Don't bother asking--a few bad apples have ruined it for everyone.

By most accounts PSP Chicago was an excellent event with a top notch venue at Maywood Park. As usual there has been some expressions of unhappiness with the reffing which just goes to highlight the difficulty the whole issue poses. If reputedly top teams can't or won't put in the effort to do the job right it leaves the promoters in a serious quandary.
Also heard the 10-man field layouts were not well liked, particularly the Dye field. Don't know how they played--if anyone would like to offer an opinion . . .?
It was also apparent that Div X-Ball can't tolerate last minute entries or odd numbers of teams. Or lost time. Unlike regular tourney games X-Ball matches don't leave potential room to make up for lost time and delays on Thursday carried through the weekend. The Div 1 schedule was a joke and there has to be a better arrangement than having teams end up playing each other twice in early rounds; Platinum and Legacy.
Still, far fewer complaints than was once the norm and it's plain PSP putting in the effort. It's just too bad nobody is willing to spend a minute or two and post the good and the bad for the rest of us. Also would like to hear about amenities at the venue, parking, walking distances, etc.

 

[knobbs]

Well, I'll post from a spectator's standpoint. Sorry, I didn't play it but was there 4 days watching.

Parking was more than adequeate. There was a small lot for paintballers right next to the place and then a huge public lot across the street. No problems finding a spot.

The venue layout was terrific. I *still* liked the NPPL layout better, but this wasn't far behind. The only thing I didn't like was that players still spent most of the time in the public areas and still had to wait in public areas before playing. I liked the NPPL's setup because when walking from the players tents to the fields, the players only went through about 10 feet of public space. I just didn't like seeing everyone pile gear up in a publicly accessible place while they were waiting for games. I also can't count how many fully loaded and aired up markers I saw where people had no barrel cover and alot of times had no barrel on the gun--I don't really get that. What possible reason did they all have to be walking around public areas with no barrel on the gun? But many, many people were doing so and noone said a word.

10 man field layout looked terrible. I don't know how playing them was, but I hated them, especially the DYE and Evil fields. Shocktech wasn't bad, but there were really no surprises on it. The X-Ball fields all looked good.

Seating was nice--they at least had some bleachers at each field. The stands were always full for NXL games, but I still never seemed to have a problem finding a seat. There were usually small groups of people standing, though.

Vendor area was excellent. Setting up on the track was really nice. The staging area looked kind of small to me, but apparently it worked out. They did have security, which was a plus.

Reffing (from a spectator view) was HORRIBLE, with the exception of the Maxim guys reffing on the Shockteck field. X-Ball refs were at least trying, and mostly got it right. The DYE and Evil fields were pathetic. No one would be on the back corners and I'd see a guy get hit, everyone would be yelling for the ref to check him, and the ref at the fifty would slowly saunter over after about 20 seconds of standing there, and then not aggressively check the player, but rather stand there and watch him. The guys on the Shocktech field didn't seem to take alot of crap, though.

X-Ball was a ton of fun. Some of the commentary was really really bad, but any time Cash Money got the mike, you didn't know what to expect. There were alot of laughs.

All in all it was a pretty nice event. I think it'd be perfect if we had the vendors and NXL from PSP, and NPPL took care of the actual game stuff. Oh yeah, and the WDP girls were thrown into the mix.

 

[Baca Loco]

Thanks, Knobbs. So what's the matter with the rest of ya?

 

[The123]

I played at the PSP Chicago Open and I have mixed feelings about the quality of the event. Let me first start by saying that the Venue was perfection. A large facility which had real bathrooms, a 3 bars, 3 places to get food, gambling, and protection from the elements. Parking was fine. The grass we played on was pristene and seating was adequate except for the x-ball fields. Vendors had all the space in the world and wern't all cramped together. Layout of the tournament was good except I heard there was a lack of space for players in the staging area(I played X-ball I had my own staging area). I pray that Maywood Park will allow paintball to return. Their biggest fear is how the field will look like when they race on TV in 2 weeks.(a grounds keepers nightmare!) The players party was the place to be, all the vendors chipped in and bought 8 kegs to drink at the party. After that was gone, the next 6 kegs were brought in 1 hour later and paid for by Shocktech. I think we drank it all because they kicked us out earlier than we all thought. That track also holds music events, maybe that could be part of next year's open(hint hint).
Enough of the good onto the bad. Schedualing was a nightmare, the 8am game on the blue X-Ball field started at about 9:30-10:00...Other fields were running behind, and I think people played until dark. Reffing on the field I played on was horrible, 1 for 1 calls were almost non-existant, guys played on without recourse. 1 ref told me to come out of the penalty box and another told me to go back in, who was right? I went back in the box and wasn't supposed to. That cost my team another point being down a player. There were no garbage cans in the x-ball staging area. We had no where to throw our garbage but on the ground. No water or food was allowed in the venue, only $2 water and $2 pop was available for spectators from Maywood Park.
BTW I watched a 10 man game on the shocktech field. One ref there had a team with 6 or so players live at the end fooled into thinking there was 1 player left in the back can, when really they had cleared the field by fake checking him and walking around staring at a empty bunker for an insane amount of time, around 2 min. he got a round of applause.

 

[Baca Loco]

Now we're making some progress. Glad you dropped by, The.