recent challenges

I challenged Goran recently.  Chris Lee is coming into town and Goran is top 10.  I’ve done well against him lately and our last challenge went 7 sets. I thought it was pretty legitimate and it’s been pretty common for someone to have to defend after a nice little jump in the rankings.  We played at Goran’s with Billy, Q, and Mike reffing.  We’ve all been playing a lot lately, and Goran’s experience just won out the day.  He played very smart – didn’t do too much chase bullshit and we both just played really well.  In between sets, I asked Billy if he had any advice – and he had next to nothing.  This means I was playing very well.  Actually, we both played very well.  Goran won this one… and we both elevated our defenses to levels we’ve never seen.  I know there was one game I was down 6-3 – and came back to win.  Tons of fun and it was a great experience.

Must’ve been something in the air because Mike challenged Q.  They played last night and Q just beat the ever living shit out of him.  It was gross.  Mike just had nothing… couldn’t adjust on defense and his only response was to hit the puck harder -which just caused the puck to fly off the table.  It was grim as Q beat him 16-1.  I actually felt a little sorry for Mike… there was just nothing he could do.  We looked up the stats and discovered that Billy beat Accrocco by an even worse margin.  I can’t even imagine someone beating a top 10 player by that much.

The match was over so quickly that we played a couple games of press your luck (I suck at this game… never been good at it).  Mike won one of the games, though he may have had a little help.  Then we played a little round robin tourney… where I lost to both Q and Mike.  Q made a surprising win over Billy.  All of the matches were 2 of 3.  Nick looked really sharp after he got warmed up.  God, it would be great to have these guys come out once a week again.

I really thought Mike had turned his appearance around.  After I humiliated him at the Blackhawk tourney (the DJ asked me how I’d do against him on the air – and I said a lot of off color shit about him… calling him a child who can’t dress himself was probably the nicest thing I said) I thought Mike had gotten his act together.  He stopped playing air hockey – and I think this was his big mistake.  He got “too busy” after he turned 21 and got a job working at a bar.  His pictures on facebook made it look like he’d learned to ditch the messy long hair, the dark goth-cartoony t-shirts and the super baggy jeans that hang around his ass.  He was sporting a new look at the bar.  Spiky, but clean cut mohawk, clothes that fit and didn’t project an image that he cuts himself in the dark of his self-created depression.  It looked like he could actually land a girl… and here he is again… playing air hockey – and he’d slipped back to his old ways.  I suppose it didn’t help that he’s working as a mechanic and can’t be bothered to wear nice clothes (understandable, because he’s covered in fucking grease the last couple times I’ve seen him), but he let his hair grow out and it doesn’t look like it’s seen a comb or a shower in weeks.  And the pants.  fuck.  the pants.  Dude wears jeans that are 10 sizes too big and what gets me is that he wears a belt with it… but he’s still having to pull them up because they sag to mid-ass.

Goddamn it Mike, get yr shit together.  Go ahead and get freaky hair – but put some effort into it. I don’t care what you do, just make it look intentional.  And go ahead and wear the hole-y jeans… but make them fit.  That baggy shit makes you look like a child.  You can do any weird shit you want so long as you make it look like you put some thought into it.  That’s what we liked about the mohawk.

Goddamn it Mike, we’re going to miss you if you make it to Florida like you keep threatening.  I hope you’re full of shit.

 

Motivation

I like to think I’m a good influence on people.  For the most part, I encourage people’s vices and readily celebrate them – which, by most accounts would count as a bad influence.  In 2011, it was the year of self-improvement for ‘ol Dan.  I went on a diet, which wasn’t even my idea.  I just stuck with it more than my friends who put me up to it.  I started the year at over 250, and now hover around 210.  I want to lose more.  Last year, I started doing yoga.  It took my wife some convincing for me to join her – and her last ditch effort to get me to go was to tell me about the gender imbalance in class and the fact that there are a lot of tight pants and hot girls in whatever class I would take.  I was sold.  Turns out, it’s a great workout and it’s definitely contributed to my weight loss and my desire to have a photographic memory.  After losing a bunch of weight, Q and Billy wanted in.  They have different approaches to motivating themselves.  For them – it’s about competition.  I could probably get these two clowns to do just about anything if I made it into a competition.

 

All of us lost tons of weight… and we’re all better for it.  I think Billy lost something like 40 pounds (in about a third of the time it took me to drop the same amount of weight), and Q almost as much. 

 

But something else was motivating these two.  For Billy, it was obvious.  In the Vegas tourney, Billy lost to both Danny and Ehab.  The loss to Ehab was particularly tough since the first 5 games were all 7-6 games.  He didn’t have to wait long for a rematch.  He lost again to Ehab in the winner’s bracket 4-1 (and Ehab beat him by an average of over 2 points per game, which is dominating).  He then had to face Ehab again in the loser’s bracket and lost the set in game 7… another 7-6 nailbiter where the last point was scored on a flubbed in goal.

 

The weight loss challenge had begun, and to add to that, he had the motivation to try to gain an edge on Ehab.  He also had another giant piece of the puzzle:  a great sparring partner in Q.  And just as importantly,  both of them had understanding ladies at home.  Since the beginning of October, the two played constantly.  Every day.  To put this in perspective, when I started – I only played once a week and it didn’t take me long before I was beating some of the regulars.  It was a very large uptick in practice.  They even developed a very involved warm-up routine.  Snagging pucks was something Billy noted he was lagging recently and was determined to fix that… as well as drills designed to improve puck control.  But mostly, practice consisted of playing… over and over again.  I believe Q’s motivation is to finally beat Billy in a set – to beat one of the all-time greats and this was his chance.  From the time of this writing, they’ve played over 80 recorded sets since October.  And that may not even be half the sets they’ve played… and only 4 of those times did Q force a game 7.  No one comes close to the amount of recorded sets played.  I think I would be 3^rd in the number of recorded sets played during that time – and most of them would be against Billy and Q.

 

In November, Q and Billy went to Houston.  Billy having lost tons of weight and looking like a completely different person.  Q was gunning for 3 different people: August, Syed, and Brian Accrocco.  Q’s main motivation seemed to be just gaining experience against the couple people he felt he was in league with… and if he could jump up in the ranks – all the better.  Playing 3 challenge matches in 3 days is pretty killer.  It’s not something that’s typically done.  He took the #5 spot in the world when he beat August 4 sets to 0… but then lost the remaining sets to Syed and Brian.  And speaking of Brian – he was planning on coming to Chicago to challenge Billy… but with Billy’s trip to Houston, Billy agreed to play him on Brian’s home turf.  Billy’s performance was like an omen.  Brian… who has more top 10 finishes than I care to look up got beat 4 sets to 0… and more impressively, won 1 game out of 17.  Billy then faced Ehab and got his revenge.  It was no cakewalk, however.  Billy got up early – taking the 1^st set, and after Billy won the first game of the 2^nd set – Ehab got on a roll… winning the next 6 games (and the 2^nd set) – and it really didn’t look good for Billy.  When Ehab went on that streak – Billy didn’t score more than 4 points in any of the games.  Billy then turned the tides and then *he* won the next 6 games (and the 3^rd set)… and was up 2 sets to 1.  The last set was competitive, but Billy won it 4-2.

 

Instead of running home with their new ranks and calling it a job well done – they didn’t stop.  Billy immediately challenged Danny Hynes for the #1 spot… and Q, putting up a pretty poor showing against Brian, issued a re-challenge.

 

Suffice to say – they didn’t stop practicing.

 

A little more than a week ago, they revisited Houston and brought Goran along.  Goran had his sights set to Syed.  Goran had been helping Billy practice and got into decent shape himself.  Goran didn’t drop a set to Syed and became the new #7 (August has some voodoo against Syed as he topped him again – only to lose his #5 to Pete Lippincott).  Q, again didn’t have any luck against Brian.

 

Danny v. Billy was quite the contest.  Heading into the match nobody was sure if Billy’s practice and recent success could carry through and beat, who, without any arguing – is the best air hockey player of the past decade (and can be argued, best of all time).  Danny’s recent tournament success is unparalleled.  Danny, however, hasn’t had quite the success in challenge matches as he’s had in tournaments… of course, saying this – is only the tiniest chink in his armor.. and he’s only lost challenge sets to Nizzi and Davis in recent years.  Danny is the best, plain and simple.  Predictions ranged all over the place… but one thing that couldn’t be argued was the physical condition of both.  Danny is a large man and his style of play is incredibly physical.  Billy had dropped tons of weight and looks prepared to run a marathon.  The comparison was stark – but this is air hockey.  Typically, how in-shape you are doesn’t really have much effect on the table.

 

The first set was pretty grim for the visitors.  Danny came out strong and won a couple very close games and looked every bit the champion he is.  Billy came out and tried to establish his cut/rwu attack – one he is not known for.  It wasn’t really going to work against Danny.  However, Billy responded and the second set was tighter… and Billy got all the breaks.. squeaking out a close 7 game set.  Set 3 was another very evenly matched set that went a full 7 games.  There was a line call that seemed to bother Danny which ended with some of the hardest shots I’ve ever seen – which sank for the win.  Billy then gave up his right wall attack in favor of a left wall attack and Danny started to get visibly tired.  Danny wasn’t as active on offense and wasn’t snagging the pucks he won in the first couple sets.  Even so… set 4 went again to the full 7 games – and Billy was able to tie things up.  From here, the unthinkable happened.  Continuing from the last game he won in the 4^th set – he went on a winning spree the likes nobody had put on Danny… Billy then went on to win 9 games in a row… (12 out of the last 13).  It was  a dominating performance… and Billy became the new #1 in the world.

 

Right now, it seems Q and Billy are taking a break.. and by a break – going back to playing twice a week instead of every day.  Billy wants to win the next Nationals… but does he need Danny to be tired before he can overcome him?  Danny won the first 2 of 3 sets including the first set – which seems to be more important in winning a tournament than it does to win a challenge match.

 

I think it’ll come down to who is more motivated to win.  Right now, I know what Billy is capable of, but I don’t know about anyone else.

 

 

 

Singles – Houston, 2011

Ok – onto the singles.

I was very much looking forward to this tourney.  I’ve been steadily moving up in the rankings since I started playing this sport, and here I am – another chance to prove myself.  I had just finished 12^th, in a weaker field… if I could come close to that in this tourney – it would be a success in my book, I believe.  Just want to keep making progress.

I wish I had all of my matches on video – but we decided that setting up cameras for all of our matches is tedious and a distraction.  So, we just set up our two cameras to record the main two tables pretty much nonstop.  This was pretty cool because we get to film everyone – so if a great game happens, we’ll have it recorded.

Day 1.

Now that we have some videos up on the ‘ol vimeo page, I figured I’d start writing about the last big tourney.

Let’s start with my first set against Nathan Gibson.  Nathan is at most 10.  I do pretty well against the youngsters.  I won this set pretty handily even though I had that moment of “here we go… ugh” after the very first shot Nathan hit went in with a perfect right wall over.  After the set, I chatted with Travis, and he told me that Nathan had scouted me and thought he’d take me without problem noting that I “couldn’t block a right wall under”.  Oh kids.  Also, it should be noted that I didn’t let up on Nathan at all.  There was going to be some odd spinoff system where the lower brackets were going to be split in two based on how many points you scored against people.  It was understood to me that you should try to win every point even if you were playing a kid… but I’m not sure if everyone went out there and tried to destroy their opponent… even if they’re 10 years old.

After that set, I went right into the teeth of a champion… Albert Ortiz.  I did what I normally don’t do, and that’s start out slow.  Albert’s got a fancy style and takes most of his shots from the back half of his side.  His shots vary in speed… blistering unders or off-speed overs.  Very hard to tell where they’re coming from.  My defense really couldn’t stop him… and my offense faltered enough.  I caught a spark in game 3  with my cross that I hoped would be enough to get me going… but all great players are very good at adapting.  I just couldn’t keep up with him.  My inexperience against great and unique players is highlighted below.

I got sent to the loser’s bracket right off the bat.

After a long time waiting… I got to play in another set against Kevlyn Lunos.  Kevlyn moves the puck with great control and likes to hit crosses, which I tend to defend reasonably well unless the person has a great left wall under.  I just felt too confident against him.  After Albert, I felt like I could defend anyone better.  I worked my standard pump fake right wall under/cut attack, and even mixed in some cross/left wall shots.  Everything was working and humming along, and the scores proved it.  Kevlyn never got more than 3 points on me in any game.

Like I said, Kevlyn has great puck control, but I think he needs to work on hitting the puck harder.  He’s got the fundamentals in spades – but just doesn’t have the zip.  I felt like I could sit on any straight and know I had enough time to get back to block any banks… that and I could snag pucks much easier.  Adding more zip puts pressure on the defense – I’d much rather face someone who really knows how to play, but doesn’t have velocity than someone who just swings like a Wildman.

My next set was against Fernando Guillen.  It looks like he’s been playing a long time (going on 8 years), and still has his youth.  Steadily marching up the ranks, as it were.  I always have a goal of just trying to mow over anyone who gets in my way.. striking early and never letting up.  Fernando played well and seemed to adapt to my offense by the 4^th game – which he won 7-6.  The last game, I managed to put him out 7-6.  Had he won this game… it could have been a different story.  I managed to take him out – and Fernando absolutely destroyed his spinoffs… with his only close set with Hernandez.  It’s only one spot higher than where he finished last year, but I could tell he was much improved.  Usually when you win your spinoff, it means that you were taken out of the tourney too early.

Ok.. so I had won both of my loser’s bracket rounds… from here – all of my sets get very difficult.

My next match was against Goran Mitic.  I’d only beaten Goran once out of I think a million sets… and it was a 4-0 rout in his basement… and he was experimenting with some low-top mallet he’d glued finger inserts onto.  It was still enough for me to have at least a tiny bit of confidence.  I came out swinging.  Two things really helped me – I was getting Goran moving with my pump fakes, and then he’d instinctually cover his cut side if he felt a straight coming – but I was hitting a “power cross”… which is basically a cut motion straight, but to the right (or “cross”) side.  The other is that I could actually play defense against him.  Goran is a streaky player.  He can get behind by missing shots or by chasing the puck and committing an unforced turnover.  And then he can take such wild shots in transition that you can’t hope to block them – everything happens so quick, that you’re going to be out of position at least some of the time – or you’re just going to let Goran chase and not take advantage of potential turnovers.

So.. how did I do?  Well.. I started off incredibly well.  I won the first three games, 7-2, 7-3, and 7-3… completely on fire.  I had this set in the bag, right?  Goran starts tightening up his defense and starts getting just absolutely sick accurate with his shots.. and then *he* goes on a run.  7-5, 7-5, and 7-6… ugh.. close ones… and then heading into the final game – I managed to block nearly everything my way and win 7-2 (total points an impressive 44-31).  Goran went on to fight (and ultimately lose to) perennial master, Travis Luscombe in the spinoffs, even though Goran sent Travis initially to the loser’s bracket in the main draw… each set went the full 7 games.

Check it:

Of course.. playing one IL player is one thing… going down to Houston to play your doubles partner is another.  This time, Q.  This tourney was to be Q’s coming out party.  A mere 20 months ago – this guy came to our IL state tourney and got destroyed… he just couldn’t compete with the game he had.  Now.. he was facing me after very nearly beating a member of the “new guard” – Davis Lee… which would have been the biggest upset I’ve ever witnessed.. and possibly ever.  Q was on fire, and just because I faced him… he wasn’t going to let up.  I played sloppy, and Q was sharp.  It was not pretty.  Big congrats to Q, because after he beat me – he got tossed from the tourney by Tim Weissman, and then won his bracket beating a murderer’s row of tough players (August and Nick x3).  I know Q wanted to face Syed just to play everyone in the spins… but it wasn’t to be… anyway – Q finished 9^th, his first Master level finish.  20 months… and a master – his velocity up the ranks is undeniable… I have no idea where he’s going to top out.

So.. out of the tourney I go.  I’m guaranteed at least 16^th place, which isn’t too bad.. and I can finish as high as 13^th.  I have, what I think, is a pretty good draw for my spinoffs.  I don’t have to face Goran or Travis – and I think they really should be in this bracket instead of just below me.  My first opponent in the spins is Evan Seigworth.  I did *not* want to take him lightly.  I saw this guy beat Anthony Marino last year, which is something I would have a very hard time doing.  Evan is just a straight up solid player.  He’s got every shot, a good defense, nothing that he really relies on – he will shoot any shot at any time and does not make many mistakes at all.  I feel like I’m very streaky compared to him.  Our first game came down to the final point… and from there – I settled down and started to roll.  He never got more than 3 points after that.  I was playing at a *very* high level.  I was reading his shots, blocking well.. and my offense was still working well.  Felt good with a 4-0 win.  Actually.. it was the second day of the tournament and I felt great.  I’d been losing weight since the beginning of the year and I’ve been playing a lot.  My body was in great shape and even though I played a ton the day before… I was still feeling great.

So.. Evan, Tad Gibson, and Joe Cain were in my bracket.  I was worried most about Joe since he’d beaten me up pretty good in Vegas recently.  I never ran into him – a very surprising set happened when Tad beat him.  I remember reffing this match and it was really odd.  First off, Joe was complaining about hurting his finger… but beyond that – Tad plays by charging and trying to time when the offense is going to take a shot.  He takes chances that can work out well for him… and Joe made it easy for him.  Joe didn’t alter his cadence for his shot at all, and Tad was guessing correctly more times than not.  So.. I got to watch very closely what works and doesn’t work against Tad, and Tad took out what I thought would be my toughest competitor.

So.. since Tad and I both won our first round, I would face Tad.  My entire offense is based on the defense not being able to guess when my shot is coming.  My pump fakes either get the defense moving (which gives me information on what shot to take), or they stay still a little too long and I can pop quick unders.  I learned by watching the previous game to stay put on defense and not get too involved in trying to snag pucks because Tad is always trying to score the transition goal.  I played very well.  The most Tad got was 5 points against me, and  I outscored him exactly 2-1.  Another 4-0 rout.

Joe faced Evan in the loser’s bracket… and after my 4-0 win against Evan.. I was really hoping he’d take care of Joe for me.  Evan didn’t disappoint – and came out to a 3-0 lead.  Joe was getting extremely frustrated… I think this is when Joe made a grip adjustment to allow his hurt finger a chance to breathe… and he pulled out some impressive wins, 7-5 followed by two 7-2 wins.  It came down to the final game, and Joe had completely turned things around… and I recall Evan getting an early lead and causing Joe to lose his cool.  Evan ended up winning 7-4.  I couldn’t have been happier.

My rematch with Evan was similar to our first set.  One game came down to the final point, and the rest I ran away with… another 4-0 win.  I was very happy with my spinoff performance.  I didn’t lose a single game… going 12-0 in my spinoffs.  So… recap of the IL guys:

Billy finishes 3^rd after losing to Ehab in a 6-6 game 7 nail biter when Billy blocks a shot very well.. only for the puck to flub in.  Q finishing master while winning his spinoff.  I winning my spinoff,  Goran nearly winning his spinoff, and “Evil” John Song finishing 38^th (much better than my first Houston tourney).  Very, very good turnout by IL.

Highlights:  Q nearly beating Davis Lee and ending up finishing master, Billy absolutely picking apart Tim Weissman, and myself beating Goran for the 2^nd time ever.

Q also had confidence that even if I had beaten him in our set, that I would have gone on to win out in the bracket he won… thanks for the vote of confidence.

One more thing that needs to be said.  There was a mentorship award that was given out at the awards ceremony.  I thought, for sure, it would go to Billy.  I think there are a number of reasons for this… and the most glaring is just the success of the people who play with him, who are new to the sport.  Exhibit A: Q… finishing master after 20 months of playing seriously.  Everything Q learned came from Billy.  I, myself, owe my entire game to Billy… and here I am knocking on the door to Masterhood.  One more reason is that we put up a video of Billy giving his lesson for the cross/left wall attack – one that Billy is particularly known for.  Since we put it up, we’ve had the video loaded 535 times (according to our vimeo stats, and has 987 views according to ahw.com).  We’re planning on adding more tutorial videos.  Billy has always been one to give advice… build us up when we’re feeling low and tearing us down when we develop bad habits.  My and Q’s success are directly related to his mentorship.  This is not a dig at Danny – who may be the best and most passionate air hockey player of all time.  I think Danny is great at talking about the mindset it takes to be a champion – and he’s an absolutely astounding competitor.  It could be that I haven’t seen all the work that Danny has done, but I think Billy’s contributions in developing talent are palpable and significant.

2011 International Air hockey – Doubles

Ok, I guess I can begin with doubles. I was considering not participating, just like in Vegas… but I realized that I’ve been playing enough to not be sore the 2nd or 3rd day out. I feel like last year I really suffered from being sore… but a lot has changed in that time. Q has caught up to me in skill, for one… and I thought he’d make a great doubles partner. We’re basically Billy’s apprentices and to see how far we could get (either in doubles or singles) would be a testament to how well he’s advised us over time.

Q and I formed our team: Rainbows, Unicorns, and Pixies. Q’s wife even designed a shirt for us that features Tinkerbell holding back the mane of a unicorn throwing up a rainbow – all on a cloud that says, “My World” on it. We finished it off with rainbow wristbands. I’ve always considered doubles to be a fun event to tune up for the real deal. People come up with crazy names to call themselves for these things, so we thought we’d follow suit.

Wearing “periwinkle” colored shirts and getting ready to play in one of the biggest air hockey tournaments when I was sleeping in Chicago that morning was a bit of a change of scenery. Jarring, to say the least… but here we were and we pulled our draw of Jacob and Avery. I’d been told that these guys have been practicing 4x a week and watching air hockey videos. It seemed pretty awesome to me that these guys have been putting in the effort to get better.

These guys play pretty good. You can see that they’re still working on mechanics and don’t have every shot… or at least with the accuracy and zip you need. I like Avery’s style. He uses the same attack Q and I started with… a simple cut/under attack (as a lefty, cut/left wall under). Mastering this before moving on to more complicated attacks is what has worked for Q and I.

After a shaky start – and really, a very close set.. Q and I overcome these young upstarts.

Our next set was against the reigning #1 and #2 of the sport, Danny Hynes and Ehab Shoukry. Unfortunately, we don’t have this on film. It would have been great to look over this set again. I believe they got up 2-0 before we squeezed a game out of them… and another was close. I know I had a hard time scoring against Ehab – and he scored at will on me. I know I got Danny with a good pump-fake, but was otherwise worthless. Q shined, though. He’s the only reason we came close.

Shot into the loser’s bracket, we met up with the team of Joe Cain, and Travis Luscombe… two master-level players that would test Q and I. I’ve played well against Travis in the past… and poorly against Joe in Vegas. I know Q struggled against Travis’ cross, but we got Travis with a lot of right wall unders. It all kind of evened out, as we played 5 very close games. I wasn’t sure how well I did until I watched the videos, and I counted 19 goals that I scored, vs 15 I scored against me (including the heartbreakers I scored against myself). Almost good for a +1ppg. Of course, all of the pressure fell on Q – when in the 5th and final game, I got us up 6-5, and then scored on myself. Timeout was called, and Q and I talked about what shot he should take. Q’s best shot against Joe was his cut. Q just looked at me and said, “Cut?” and shrugged his shoulders. I looked… hemmed and hawed a bit… and then said, “uhh.. ok”. Q goes right out there and hits his cut, which Joe charged. Talking with them later – they knew we were going to hit a cut, and a charge is the correct thing to do (and very gutsy). Instead of forcing a turnover, the charge sent the puck off the table – and Q was able to recover for the win! Q and Travis had a Chipotle side-bet… which we also won. Yay.

We went on to play another team – Mark Butler and Tory Evans. The biggest thing about playing the two was that the older guy had the softest mallet I’ve ever seen (great for defense), and the youngster had a high density mallet (puts a lot of pop on offense). I don’t recall the scores, but I remember doing well.

Our next match was against Davis Huynh and Anthony Marino. I like both of these guys a lot, and I didn’t think we had a much better chance against them than we did against Danny/Ehab. It felt like I had a chance to score against Anthony, if I could be accurate at all. Davis pretty much shot whatever he wanted (including great lwo’s). Q had his moments, but we got 3-0’d… and shot out of the tourney.

This tourney featured spinoffs… so we got one more chance to elevate us one more place higher. And we got to play a couple very old-school players. They like to play a back rail defense and do some bizarre shit. Tom hit tons of one-twos or just straight up volleyed. Hernandez also featured some great shots… but a defense that should have been much easier to score on. Q and I lost this one, but felt that if we were to face them in the tournament – we would fare very well against them.

…and that’s it. We finished 6th in the tourney. We beat Travis and Joe, which was our highlight. More importantly, fun was had by all.

Oh – and Billy/Tim beat out Danny/Ehab in a very close set.

Seeding FAQ

So. I wrote out the advantages and disadvantages of a ratings vs. ranking system for seeding air hockey tournaments. I tried to be as balanced as possible… but I think I’ve discussed all the major questions we have regarding the two systems. If I didn’t answer good enough, or didn’t bring up enough examples – please comment below. I’m going to post this on ahw as well – where I imagine most of any discussion will be.

Current seeding system:
Q: Hey man, how’s this thing work?
A: Pretty simple. Just look at the last major tourney – seed everyone that way they finished last time.
Q: Well that’s easy, huh? Well… wait. What about people who’ve never been to a tourney – how are they seeded?
A: Meh – we just randomly throw them somewhere on the bottom. Unless we “know” them, then we put them where we think they should go.
Q: Sound pretty arbitrary to me
A: Nah – it’s not really arbitrary, it’s just that if you’ve never been to a major tourney we have to have allowances for this. Take Randal Leistikow, he’d never been to a tourney, but we know he had beaten some good Colorado players and earned his rank through a challenge match victory. We think he got seeded correctly.
Q: Well.. what about someone who went to one tournament, but missed the most recent one?
A: We have a system for that. For each major tournament you miss – you drop 3 spots. Then we tack on .5 right before the tourney to make sure you don’t share the same spot as someone else. There are limits to this, though.
Q: Such as…?
A: Well… we classify players. Say someone finishes master a couple times. This player is established as an ultra-pro player, and if they miss a tourney on top of having a bad outing… it would be unfair to the person who had to play this person early on. So, we put them at the bottom of the “ultra-pros” – which is 12th. This is what happened with Travis for this tournament. He missed the last tournament – and finished a little bit lower than master in the last tourney he competed in.
Q: Ah.. ok. So let me summarize. The basic structure is the finish of the last tourney, plus we fudge for non-participation, and we fudge for “established” players.
A: Yes. Of course, the non-participation punishment isn’t really that severe, and although the number 3 for losing rank is arbitrary, it’s applied evenly to everyone. I guess the biggest point of contention is this last point. Someone could look at Mark Robbins and say he’s an ultra-pro, and someone could look at him and just say he’s a pro. You look at his last tourney (his lowest finish ever) and say that he’s definitely a pro, but look at the history of all of his playing – and you could justify him being an ultra-pro. This is the part of the current system that gets the most flak. It’s based on how well “known” this player is. A player from outside the established community would have a hard time getting properly seeded. This system seems to work well for the size of air hockey right now, but it doesn’t scale up very well should we have tournaments with 200 or more players. Imagine how a tournament director would seed a tourney in such a way. I might play a major tourney with 60 people early in the year and finish 30th, but if were put in a tourney with 120 people – should I be seeded 30th? Or 60th? The current system would say 30th… and you would benefit from playing in smaller tournaments with a weaker field. Not only that, but if we were to have a tourney with 200 players, figuring out exactly where to seed a new player would be incredibly difficult if not impossible. How do you determine if someone should be put in at 80th, or 160th? Players are also terrible at self-analyzing. Cory Dzbinski came to his first tournament in Vegas and if you would have asked him what his rank would be – he’d probably tell you he was a ‘4’, but he’s closer to a ‘2’ (sorry Cory).
Q: Any other ways you can change your seed?
A: Yes. Play a challenge match. If you think there’s someone ranked higher than you – play a challenge match, which is a grueling 3 of 5 sets or 4 of 7 sets (depending on how the defender decides). If you challenge a higher ranked player and win – you take his spot, and everyone between your ranks drop one.
Q: How many chances do you get to challenge someone? Can they decline?
A: As many times as it takes, and they can’t decline, but a defender can push off the acceptance of a challenge set a certain amount of time. Challenge matches are fun ways to encourage players to travel to play epic and very meaningful games. If you beat the #1 guy – you get to be ranked #1 in the world! The downside of this is “regional clumping”. Two years ago Dan Meyer played in his first major tournament in Houston. A bunch of guys from Chicago finished in various spots (Mike Y finished 33rd, Dan 49th, Nick H 53rd). So, after the tourney – they all played challenge sets. Nick beat Mike, then Dan beat Nick, and then Mike beat Dan. So, their rankings changed from 33rd, 49th, and 53rd to 33rd, 34th, and 35th.
Q: Have other problems come up?
A: Yes. In the 2009 tournament, Mark Nizzi (a guy who generally finishes in the top 5) dropped out of the tournament mid-way through… and finished 48th. According to the system, this is his rank. Now, before the next tourney, he’d get moved up to a reasonable seed (top 10, at least)… but in the meantime, here he is with this low ranking. What if he wants to challenge the #25 guy for his rank? He’s technically below that person and can challenge for a higher rank. Should he be able to? Mark could challenge anyone in the top 16 to get the right matchup going into the next tourney. If he picked up the #8 rank to get the matchup he wanted – would the tournament director move him up to #6? A small movement in seed could change the matchups for all the top players where there is a style advantage, and someone would get the short end of the stick. What if Mark challenged the #16 ranked person and lost? Would he justify a top 10 seed? Where exactly would you put him?.. it becomes a difficult position to put any tournament director. Where Mark was placed in the 2011 Vegas tourney was ultimately determined by vote, and this displeased a number of players.

Q: Ok, I get it, I get it. The current system tries to be as fair as it can – and it has those challenge matches, which are really cool despite you talking about “regional clumping” – who comes up with this stuff anyway? So, this all well and good. Are there any other ways to seed a tourney?
A: Yes. Goran Mitic a couple years ago proposed we keep track of our scores and rate air hockey players statistically using the Elo method.
Q: Wait, let me stop you right there. I hate math and all of its witchery. I came here to play air hockey, not muddle with numbers all day.
A: Can you add and multiply?
Q: Yeah – that’s easy. I thought you were gonna get all crazy with statistiacal cluster analysis, Hilbert spaces and Fermat’s last Theorem on me. I can add and multiply.
A: Ok, then. Let’s start from the beginning where you’re not rated just yet. Goran thought that in order to get rated, you should have to play 5 different people a best of 7 set. We figure that if you play 5 different people, that we’d have a good idea of how skilled you are. So, let’s say there is a new player who wants to get established. He (player A) starts with 1,200 points (everyone starts exactly the same)… and he plays someone (player B) with 1,300 points. So, we take the difference in ratings (1,300-1,200=100) and look at the chart here: http://airhockeyworld.com/ahw_rating.asp. That Elo guy calculated the odds someone would win based on this system. So, with a difference of 100 points, Player B is expected to win 63% of the time.
Q: What does that mean?
A: Well.. according to the ratings, Player B is expected to win – so if he beats Player A… he’ll get some points, but not as much as if Player B pulled an upset. Does that make sense?
Q: So… I get more points for beating someone really good, but not as many for beating someone not as good?
A: Exactly.
Q: So, how many points exchange hands? How is that calculated?
A: Well. Context is important here. We, as a community, put more emphasis on big tournaments and challenge matches than when players just get together to play during a weekly event. So, we can multiply the final result by a factor of “importance” or “value of match”. Ok – so here’s the basic calculation:
Rating’ = Rating + Value Of Match * (Set Won or Lost – Win Expectancy)

Rating’ = New rating
Rating = Old rating
Value of match = (see chart below)
Set Won Or Lost = 1 for win, 0 for loss
Win Expectancy

It’s pretty simple, here’s an example:
Example 1: Player A has a rating of 1200 and Player B has a rating of 1300. Player B is expected to win 63% of the time, based on their rating.

If player A wins a challenge set his new rating would be 1219 =(1200 + 30(1-.37)) and player B would have a new rating of 1281 (1300 + 30(0-.63)).

If it was reversed, and player B won – because player B is *expected* to win more often than not, the point swing isn’t as great. If A lost, he would only be 1189, and B would only go up to 1311. An 11 point swing instead of a 19 point swing.
Q: Ok, I get it. Pretty simple math. So – one thing bugs me. How is “value of match” determined? Seems arbitrary that it’s 30 for normal Mitic sets, 60 for State Tourneys, and 90 for Nationals.
A: True, but Goran has run the numbers with different factors. Thing is, with Air hockey – we don’t have a ton of matches entered into the database. If everyone played hundreds of mitic sets each year – we could have a low factor, and you’d slowly creep to a very accurate rating. Right now – after you play a dozen or so sets, your rating should be pretty accurate. Also, some players tend to play each other *a lot*. Instead of having lots of challenge matches and seeing this “regional clumping”… you’ll get an accurate proportion. Let’s use Dan and Q as an example. If you look at their history, they each take sets off of each other. Q wins slightly more than Dan… but if Dan were to challenge Q for his #9 spot, after a couple challenge matches – odds are good that Dan would win one of them, and then they’d be ranked #9 and #10. But if they just play for ratings, if Q wins 63% of the time – the Mitic system will push them so that Q will average about 100 points more than Dan to reflect Q’s actual win percentage. Now – back to “value of match” – the higher the number, the bigger point swings there will be. There should be a balance. Too high point swings, and someone could be rated 12th, then play a couple matches and go all the way to 24th, then back up to 16th. A lower value would just take someone many, many matches to get to where they should be in terms of rating… and if someone makes a big jump in skill – it’ll take more matches (data points) to adjust their rating to the proper spot. Ultimately, this number is used equally for everyone… so long as these values are consistent, it doesn’t really matter what the values are… the system will work.
Q: Ok.. I think I’m getting it. So.. the other system had some fudge factors to deal with people missing tourneys and whatnot. How does the Mitic system deal with some of these complicated problems?
A: After 2 years (1 year) of inactivity players with a rating total of more than 1200 will lose 10% of the difference of their rating and 1200. This does not have any effect on the calculations of prior matches.
After 2 years of inactivity the player will be dropped from the rating list. If the player plays after they drop they will be treated as a new player. This does not have any effect on the calculations of prior matches.
Q: Any other rules I should be aware of?

A: You must play 5 different players with at least 1 player having an official rating to earn an official rating. Until you have an official rating, your rating is “provisional”. When a player with an official rating and a player with a provisional rating play a match, only the rating of the player with the provisional rating will be affected. This is so an established player isn’t punished by someone who may be really good and is way underrated. Playing new people should be encouraged.
Q: So – what does this have to do with seeding?
A: Seeding a tourney with this system in place is that we can rate everyone who’s been keeping track of their sets. You just lay everyone out by Mitic points, and that’s your seeding list, which makes the process very simple and completely objective.
Q: Yeah – but what if I don’t want to keep score… I just want to play for fun.
A: It’s neat to have a record of all your matches. You can track just how well you were at any point in time. Wouldn’t you like to see how you’ve been performing over time? Most players like to have some kind of record of that time when you finally pulled out that upset against a rival.
Q: But the seeding isn’t done like this, anyway – why should I care to record all my sets?
A: Well. Someday, we may decide that a statistical ranking system will be better for seeding. Until then, recording your scores will help us evaluate the Mitic system so we can see how accurate it is. Plus, we’ll have a record for how well you’ve been performing – for many players, having this record in a database is nice to have.
Q: Well – I play in Houston, and we play handicapped best of 5 sets. How do you apply Mitic ratings for this?
A: Right now, you don’t. There is a way you could do it, but the math gets messy. I know Houston doesn’t like to pummel beginners into bloody paste as it can be very discouraging… but more established players have begun to waive their point spread so that they can have their set count towards the Mitic ratings. Even if the set isn’t a best of 7 for a normal Mitic set – Goran has been working on what kind of “value of match” values one could do for a “best of 5” or even a single game. Having this in place lets completely new players that aren’t willing to play a best of 7 get into the system.
Q: So, let’s say I have a regular practice partner who’s pretty good and beats lots of other people, and I match up very well to this person – and I just beat him all the time – isn’t beating the same person over and over a limitation in the Mitic system?
A: This has happened. Again with the example of Mark Nizzi. He and Keith Fletcher (both highly rated players) played many sets, and Mark has won them all. Looking at the difference in Mitic points – Keith should have won more than what happened and the points are skewed towards Mark. Goran has considered having another factor for limiting the number of times one can take points from a single person over a certain period of time to deal with this because certain style matchups can give a player a skewed advantage in Mitic points.
Q: So many numbers! I thought I had it figured out, but there are all these weird rules in place!
A: Not really. The number that changes is just that “value of match” for the most part. The others are statistical ways we align the points, much like the current system punishes players for not showing up in a tourney.
Q: So, let’s see if I get the basics… if you win a match you go up based on the skill of your opponent and the importance of the set. If you lose, you go down the same.
A: I think you got it.
Q: Ok, ok. So, what are the main differences between the two – any advantages one has over the other?
A: Well, the current system’s big advantage is in challenge matches and encouraging really important challenge matches when there are no tourneys going on. The Mitic system acknowledges this, and adds a point bonus to these challenge matches so that there’s a bigger point swing (and making it more significant). There are 2 ways in which the Mitic system deals with complicated problems better than the current system. The first is the “Nizzi issue” in the first case where Nizzi drops out of a tournament early. Instead of losing his rank from 5th to 49th… he will lose Mitic points, but it won’t be as drastic of a move. Nizzi will be nudged down, but the movement won’t be nearly as drastic. Nizzi can then play anyone he wants to recover those lost Mitic points, and he’ll benefit by getting a better seed in the next tourney (should we adapt the Mitic system for seeding). The other thing is in large tourneys with many unknown players. It’s much easier to get a Mitic rating by playing people in your area than it is to make it to a national tournament. If a player from Russia were to show up to one of our tournaments, we can look at his Mitic rating to see where he would be seeded. Without the rating system in place, the current system would have a difficult time figuring out where that person should be. The current system does a good job of seeding 1-32, but has a problem dealing with seeding people much further down the line. The Mitic system also does a better job of telling people “how good they are” compared to the field. There may be a big jump in skill between 7th and 8th place, but the current system doesn’t measure “how much better” – the Mitic system gives you a better idea how you compare to everyone else. The Mitic system also encourages playing more frequently. Each set gets you closer and closer to your true rank. The more data in the system, the more accurate the system is. One downside to the Mitic system is that it takes a lot of work to maintain this database, and if tournaments aren’t being seeded in this manner, there’s less incentive to record your scores.
Q: Well then, that was much longer than I thought it was going to be.
A: Yes, sorry about that.

Day 2 – the end of the tourney

So. Re-watching my set against Randy Lind was fun. It was cool to see the people in the background taking up my game and cheering me on. Syed got a front-row seat for the performance… and why not? He was going to play the winner.

Oh Syed. How you’ve become my nemesis. Syed ended my tournament last year in the spins, and this time – he took me out of the loser’s braket. Syed’s been very active in Houston, and it shows. The first time I played him – he beat me 4-0 in what was the only shutout I had in Houston last year. This time I knew it was going to be different because I was so much better.

Well.. it didn’t turn out that way. Syed came out intense and won the first game. I was nervous and playing that way. I recall making some really bad unforced turnovers which crippled me. Sy took the first game 7-3. Then came the back breaking. Not one, but two 7-6 games went Sy’s way. He was up 3-0, and I was two points away from being up on him instead. It’s rough. I then found my groove and turned it into a match. I found my defense and settled down to win the next two games decisively, 7-3, 7-4. Game 6 was another nail biter… and Sy took another, backbreaking 7-6 game. We each scored the same number of points in the set… but it’s a killer to lose so many 7-6 games.

After the set was over.. it felt like I had made too many mistakes and Sy just played better than me… but the stats say we’re dead even. I didn’t play my best, for sure. I have a feeling we’ll keep running into each other. I’ll get him one of these days. For now, it’s a great rivalry. We’re both at the top of our games and I should spend some time looking at film to get a feel for his game before we meet again.

I’ll keep this short.. in the spinoffs – I faced Fletcher and Cain. Fletcher beat the crap out of me.. 4-1. I managed to take the first game, but that was it. My set with Joe was much closer. I took the first two games.. and then he managed to get 2 7-6 games after that. He still had almost a point per game on me, though. Looking at the number of 7-6 games, it looks like they really cost me in this tournament. Looking at the close games where I lost.. it was lost in 7-6 games. Pretty interesting.

I left this tournament thinking I had played really poorly and even though I finished at my all time high (12th), I felt as though I made a lot of mistakes that could have been prevented. I’m learning that to really play well, you have to have a calm mindset, but have to be fierce and active at the same time. Your body has to be quick but under control.

Day 2 – Randy Lind

Day 2.

My first match is against Randly Lind. I got a chance to watch him a little bit.. and I’ll try to describe him. He’s an older guy with an older guy’s beer belly. Loves to talk. He apparently is really good at foosball as well. He also plays with 2 mallets. One mallet was always on the side of the table, the other on it – so there was never any deception over which mallet he’d use to hit the puck. I knew it was going to be a fun match. He’d earlier upset Goran, so I knew he’d be tough. He’s famous for talking shit and getting in people’s heads. Everyone was rooting for me to beat him because his game is so incredibly different and he loves it when he scores doing some random bullshit. He came to the table with a headband – and I thought it would be a good idea to don mine as well. One thing I thought would be to my advantage is that Nick Harbacek really liked his style and has tried to copy a lot of his shots… the superfast drift into a random shot… the blade drift… the soft left wall over, etc. It helped me prepare a little bit and gave me a bit of confidence.

I’m not going to watch the video below, I’m just going to try to remember everything. Randy comes out with a blade drift, where he grips the mallet and uses the bottom of the mallet to knock the puck around. He likes to set up his shots with this knocking it back and forth – and then either taking a shot.. or more likely, an off-goal. He tries to wear down defenses, or get them impatient. Facing him for the first time is difficult, because he is so unconventional. He charges on defense – where, I’ve started to learn how to do a better job against it. My pump fakes get people to commit too early, and if I get someone to move too soon – I can pop that right wall shot to an open goal pretty well. The first game went Randy’s favor, though. He hit some good overs, and I reacted a little too much. I went into a more of a zone defense against him to protect against overs. It’s something I need to practice a bit more, though.

Game two, I started to get my accuracy. He knew not to charge as much – and basically challenged me to hit accurate straights. I think my style of offense made me a little more difficult to read for him. I did a good job of making him pay when he did charge, so it became a little more of me playing a rail defense. He was very active in getting turnovers, though. I took the next game 7-3 and was a big boost for me. For how unconventional Randy is – he plays a very slow pace. On offense, he leans very far out – and puts his hand out near the centerline for support… and then he elongates his possessions by hitting off goal after off goal. It had to be very tiring for him. I figured I’d try to be patient as well on defense and let him wear himself out a little bit. My patience paid off, I believe. The next game was much closer, but I still managed to take it 7-5. Game 4 got interesting – and it went 6-6 and I managed to pull it out at the end.
After this game, Randy had words to the official. Billy came over and told me to tuck in my shirt – which I quickly did… or maybe Billy told me to not worry about it, but I still made a scene of complying and tucking in my shirt.. I guess it was “covering the goal” or something, but it had not been an issue all set. I don’t recall the advice Billy gave me. It wasn’t specific – it was more “just play your game” sort of general advice.

I think Randy had started to mix in some unders, and since I was in the mindset to block the overs – they fell, and he mixed in some overs as well – which made him difficult for me to defend. To his credit, he had pretty good shot selection – I couldn’t really pin down what shot was coming, I just had to react. The next game was another squeaker… coming down to the final point. Randy won this one. It was 3-2, and our games were getting closer. I felt at this point, I’d seen everything he was going to do – and I just needed to play smart on defense. I was scoring against him and he never worried me or really shut me down. I just needed to win one more. I thought I played smart in the last game – and played solid defense. So far in this tourney, when I’ve needed my defense to step up in close matches, it’s been there. Just like the final game against Chris Lee, or game 6 against Chris Green (where I 7-0’d him)… my defense rose up again in this game. I ended up taking it 7-4 amongst applause from those watching. People were happy that I was able to beat this guy and he was out of the tourney. I averaged an extra point per game against him… I think that’s good.

After the match Randy said a couple things to me. 1 – I couldn’t have beaten him without Billy’s coaching. 2 – he did get really tired and his back was bugging him. And eventually 3 – that I was the better player.

2011.06.03 – LBR5 – Meyer v. Lind from Daniel Meyer on Vimeo.

Interview: Nick Geoffroy

Nick has been trolling around my blog for the past week or two. Once he said something good about my interviews I knew I had to cook something up for him. I’ve found that it’s kind of brave to accept one of my interviews, because they’re pretty off the wall. I do think they are far more interesting than any celebrity interview – or heck, any interviews, really. I should have my own talk show, dammit.

Ok.. so, here it is… my words to him and all.

Ok, so you’ve read my interviews and you know about the narcissistic question where I have you “say nice things about me”. Instead of that tired old thing, I’d like you to add a sentence to every “answer” to a question I have that is essentially complimentary to me. I do it because I’m narcissistic – and I’ll say nice things about you. One day, I’ll get the IL kids together with you and we can all sing campfire songs.

Ok.

1. In my vast amounts of research (googling your name and clicking your facebook page) – I saw that you like Firefly. It’s a great show, and I’m a fan of Joss Whedon. Q, also is an enthusiastic fan and says that Buffy was the “greatest television show ever”. My wife watched every single episode on Netflix – and I saw many of them. We also watched Dr. Horrible and Firefly. Great show. I’m trying to think of my favorite Buffy episode… I think it was the one where there was a lot of sexual innuendo and everything looks grim, but they somehow figure out how to beat up/kill the bad guy at the end. That one, and the one that’s essentially a musical. So.. tell me about your love of Firefly and/or Joss Whedon.. and your sweet, sweet man-love for Nathan Fillion.

I am actually much more of a movie buff than I am a fan of television. I have seen literally thousands of movies. So it was that I actually discovered the feature film Serenity before ever even hearing of the show Firefly. I fell in love with the movie and heard that it was based on a tv show that was cancelled before even completing one season. I assumed that the show had a good premise and not much else to offer, so Hollywood took the premise, beefed up the special effects, brought in some prettier people for the cast, brought in their own director, etc. etc. etc. Then I was watching the special features on the DVD and found out about how the movie came about because the fans, director and even the entire cast refused to let it die. All the characters and actors from the film were the same people from the show. However, my brother had watched it, and said he was uncertain whether or not I would like it. So with a decent amount of skepticism I added the series to my Netflix Queue.

I watched the pilot episode and immediately removed the rest of the series from my queue, as I knew at once that I wanted to own the series. I would later screen the show to everyone who came over to my place, upgrade to blu-ray, buy t-shirts, the whole nine yards. As for my sweet, sweet man love for Nathan Fillion, much like his character Captain Malcolm Reynolds, it is something of a mystery. And as so few man loves are, I plan to keep it that way by not expanding any further here.

As for Buffy, I never really got into the show. I only caught maybe 2 or 3 episodes (although, coincidentally, I lucked out in that those episodes happened to be your favorite). I really didn’t care for it at the time, but my tastes have changed dramatically since then. And if two gentlemen of such distinguished taste and character as yourself and Q like it, I may have to re-visit Buffy. If nothing else, I can think of worse ways to spend my time than watching Sarah Michelle Gellar and Eliza Dushku perform choreographed fight scenes in tight revealing clothing.

2. Describe how you came to your style of air hockey. You have this unique 2-finger hold on your mallet. I’ve heard people “coaching” others on how to play me. It’s generally, “you’re going to see a lot of pump fakes”… I don’t see too many people with that style of play. I can get some of the best players to move or incorrectly anticipate a shot. I think it’s easy to do and can’t figure out why nobody else does it… and I really think it’s cool when other players do it a little bit. I’ve always been interested in how different everyone seems to play. Playing people in air hockey is like playing Punch-Out. Anyway – tell us how you got into the sport and how you developed your style.

I actually started out despising air-hockey. I worked in an arcade in high school and my entire group of friends, save one, liked videogames. We frequently wanted to hang out at the arcade, but he would only tag along if everyone promised to play some games of air hockey with him. These games were all back rail defense, hold the knob of the mallet in your fist, and swing wildly on offense. The best strategy in this type of game was stay back, play defense as best you can, and wait for the other guy to make mistakes. I was unwilling to play such a passive style and frequently lost. I considered the game 90% luck and boring to boot.

Then a professional player came into the arcade. I immediately recognized the out defense he played made the geometry much better and by holding the mallet by the rim you extended the radius from your wrist to the contact point with the puck which would give you more power. I had discovered Air-Hockey. The pro player used a 3 or 4 finger grip, but through experimenting I found that I maximized the radius from wrist to contact point, while still maintaining some control, with a 2 finger grip. Later, when I began to learn the value of deception in addition to power, I found that by twisting my fingers in the mallet I could change my releases and add another level of deception. That is the grip I have been using ever since. That is really the only truly unique aspect of my playing style. Everything else I have either been coached on or learned by mimicking other players.

You are definitely correct about the value of pump fakes. Jesse Douty taught me how effective they could be by annihilating me with them. Much like feints in boxing, anyone can use them, but there are almost infinite levels of subtlety to master in order to perfect them. I have always been surprised they are not utilized more by the Air-Hockey elite. Although pump fakes was not what I mentioned when people asked me about your game recently in Vegas. What I talked about was how you had a brutal right wall under. That leads me to wonder what people say when they coach against me. You and Billy both played a set against me at the Illinois State, and then Q came out for a match shortly thereafter. I know you and the other Chicago players emphasize coaching and are some of the best at it, so what kind of coaching did you give him?

3. For some reason, I recall doing a bunch of really stupid things when I was a kid. Really pointless stuff that I feel bad about to this day. I recall egging someone’s house, smashing lightbulbs, and making a sundae out of someone’s mailbox. Ugh, thinking about this makes me feel like a real asshole. What kind of shenanigans did you get into as a youngster that you are either proud of or regret to this day.

Well despite my advancing years, receding hairline, and many gray hairs, I am still a youngster. I still have a great deal of growing up to do. I really do not regret any of my shenanigans, but perhaps once I finally acquire some wisdom I will. Most of my shenanigans were just incredibly idiotic things that my friends and I found hilarious. We would spend hours at blockbuster video suggesting movies to each other that we knew full well none of us had any interest in watching. We once went to a breakfast restaurant at 4 am to order a side of bacon to split four ways and nothing else. I once quit a job because the parking lot was full and I didn’t want to spend 25 cents to park at a meter for 15 minutes. Mostly I am just amazed at how easily amused I once was.

4. Ok.. I find this next one baffling. In the tournaments in Houston – there seems to be a camp of people who dislike cheering. Now, I can understand not having some dude yelling as you’re playing defense or setting up a shot.. but a few words of encouragement and cheering when someone scores I believe is part of *every* sport. I’m not even sure I can properly present the anti-cheering rationale. What’s your take?

I, personally, don’t have much of a take on it. The cheering does not bother me but I do not really participate either. As a spectator I generally just want to see a well-played match and rarely want one player to win over another. And even when I do have a strong preference I generally get too locked in to analyzing what is going on and what adjustments could be made to really think about cheering. As for when I am on the table, I don’t even notice it. It is me, my opponent, and the table. Some players might get a boost from the crowd, while others are distracted by the crowd, but I tone it all out and just play my game. That being said, I respect the way you are always encouraging the guys you play with regularly and the team attitude is very cool.

5. You mentioned that you may not be employed after July 1. Bummer. I’ve been laid off more than once. It’s not fun, but I’ve always managed to bounce back. My wife and I live well beneath our means for many reasons, but job insecurity is one. So, what do you do and what is your plan if you lose your job? How do you think the economy has or will affect you?

I work for a mortgage company as a business process specialist focused on analyzing audit results to try to prevent repeat audit violations. My current position is being eliminated from the company. We currently have a team of people doing the job, but we have been effective enough that our compliance as a company is way up. Really, we have been struggling to find projects to work on, and the team manager could easily handle all of the work for the team. If I had been in charge I probably would have eliminated my position some time ago. I was offered to go back to my previous position as a loan closer, but I have turned it down. That job wore out its welcome with me. Plus I have lived in Colorado all my life and had been contemplating a move for some time anyway. I am using this as the motivation to finally do so. In addition to just wanting to try someplace new, I have grown tired of winter and am looking to move somewhere I can do the summer outdoor activities I enjoy all year round. As for work, I am not sure. I do not plan to stay in the mortgage industry and hope to find something that inspires me more, that I can be more passionate about. I just need to figure out what that might be.

As for the economy, I do not really think it has affected me directly much at all. Even my current situation is not so much due to the economy. However, it has had quite an impact on some of my friends who have lost their jobs and struggled to find work. And due to the continued weakness of the labor market, it is very likely to affect me going forward as I try to find a new job, particularly if the current hiccup turns into a full blown double dip recession. But like you said, you have been laid off more than once and always bounced back. So if things get really rough I will think about the pump faking, rwu pounding, headband wearing beast from the Windy City, and I am sure that will be sufficient inspiration to carry me through.

6. Now, since we’re all depressed, let’s talk about death. A couple years ago, I wrote my own eulogy. I think it’s a very interesting exercise. When I wrote it – it started out very serious and heartfelt, talking about how I loved my wife and family and genuinely tried to find nice things to say about the way I lived my life and mean it. I actually had a friend read it and he said that he cried reading it. Of course, I took it quickly to a point of absurdity, and for some reason, thought of the worst way I could possibly die. Here’s an excerpt:

“I’d like to now address Dan’s last moments. I’m sure by now we’ve all seen the videos that have circulated the internet. There were no less than 4 cameras focused on him that day. Nobody knows exactly how he ended up in that silverback’s cage, but we do know that he was volunteering at the zoo at the time. Sure, the video started out funny as Dan, the hapless victim becomes prey for an aroused, amorous ape. Dan swatting and kicking, trying to get away, blushing parents trying to explain to their kids why KoKo is being so persistently friendly. The zoo staff tried to help out without getting too close, but KoKo would not be denied. This is typically where the internet video ends as the humor of the situation ends that is, if you think a giant ape sodomizing a zoo volunteer is funny. The rest of the story is more tragic as zoo workers try to distract KoKo and eventually throw things at him. This only fueled KoKo’s rage, as he swung wildly until hitting the back of Dan’s head. Only after Dan’s body had siezed up and gone limp did the animal finally seem satiated and calm down. A very tragic scene that caused Dan’s death and eventually Koko’s.

I’m especially infuriated by the national medias portrayal of this event. Sure, they do the right thing and speak out against those who are sharing the video on the internet, but while doing so, the viewer at home can go online to see more of the video themselves. Its shameful, but seemingly typical of the media these days. How they can claim to be high-minded, but wallow in the tragedy of others for some ratings.”

So.. if you could. Write your own eulogy – or at the very least, write about the worst way to die that you can think of.

I have actually completed the eulogy exercise before. I have always enjoyed reading, and when I had downtime at work I would frequently read. I would typically read the escapist fiction that is my preference. However, we do have a library at work with various books either about the mortgage business, generic books about business or management, or self-improvement type books. One of my former bosses was frequently assigning these books to people as part of their personal development plans. He noticed how much I read and asked if I would read some of the books in the library that he hadn’t read and write up a report so that he could know which of his employees might benefit from them. One of them was a self-improvement book and used the eulogy writing as a two part exercise. First you had to write your eulogy as if you had died right now and what your friends and family might actually say about you. Then you were supposed to write a hypothetical eulogy of how you would ideally be remembered after some indeterminate amount of time. This was supposed to help you determine what goals are most important in your life to help guide you on your journey to self-improvement. Anyway, I am not interested in repeating that exercise and I have already written a fair amount without even getting to your real question. So I’ll try to quickly write up the worst way to die that I can think of with my limited imagination:

I am playing for my first of what would likely be dozens of Air-Hockey national championships (hmmm . . . I guess I do have an imagination). Game 7, second set, I came through the losers and it is 6-6, my possession. I have been developing the greatest shot the Air-Hockey world has ever known just for this occasion, but have not yet unveiled it. This is the first time in the match I have had a tournament point, so it is now or I never. I execute the shot to perfection and it finds a wide open goal!!!! But to my horror I have somehow lost grip on my mallet, no goal. I should never have been so careless as to shoot a shot I am not 100% comfortable with in that situation. I turn around to pick up the discarded instrument that has turned on me as if by its own volition, like the One Ring it has its own plans for how these events will play out. In its final act of heinous treason it gets under my foot as I turn around to look for it, I slip, and hit my head on the table I love. Twelve hours of internal bleeding in the brain later, I finally pass, but not before reliving in my head the perfect shot that wasn’t for a seeming eternity.

Ok I guess it wasn’t that short. And I wasn’t depressed after talking about the job and economy, but I am a little depressed now.

7. I love my smartphone (I have a droid 2 global)… on top of listening to podcasts (Savage Love is a must listen)… I listen to a lot of music. Some of the stuff I’ve been listening to is: The Weeknd (the-weeknd.com/), Destroyer’s new album, Kaputt, Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath 1972, and Kanye West’s new album which is great (Billy is also a fan). What kind of music are you into and how do you discover new music?

I listen to just about every kind of music. Some genres have more songs that appeal to me than others. I like classical, heavy metal, classic rock, 80s music, some of the punk stuff that popular in the 90s, Jazz, oldies. However, I never really learned much about music and mostly just like the mainstream stuff. I am definitely not very cutting edge. I have mostly stopped buying or downloading music and primarily just listen to the radio, so I discover new music that way. I looked up the stuff you’ve been listening to and I really liked the cover of The Weeknd’s new album, and very much liked the video I saw of Destroyer Kaputt, but all in all I would say you are on a higher level than I am musically.

8. Ok.. Here’s a logic question that I like to do with 3 dimes and 3 quarters. It’s one of those “crossing the river” logic puzzles. I heard this one in one of my philosophy classes in college – and the prof said that a grandmaster chess player couldn’t figure it out. Well.. this is a variation on the one I was told.

There are 3 happily married air hockey players and 3 sexy, young (but legal), and incredibly horny Amazonian women who are trying to cross a river. They have a boat – but it can only hold 2 people at a time. Here’s the catch… so long as there are an equal number or more married air hockey players – they’re able to fight off the nubile, horny Amazonian women.. however, if the Amazonian girls ever outnumber the married air hockey players – they’ll gang up on them and force them to do unspeakable things that would make their wives very upset… and we can’t let this happen. To clarify, you couldn’t start out with sending 2 air hockey players, because it would be 3 Amazonians with just 1 air hockey player. And if the boat touches the bank – it still counts… so you could have one Amazonian and one air hokey dude together on one side, but you couldn’t send the boat with 2 Amazonians, just to send the guy back. How would you get them across the river?

This just goes to show that once again single Air-Hockey players are far better off than married Air-Hockey players. Anyway here is what I would do:

Start with 2 women in the boat, one of which gets dropped off on the other side. The one remaining in the boat comes back and picks up her last remaining Amazonian and drops her off on the other side as well. She the returns to other side where she exits the boat and two brave Air-Hockey players head over to the other side. One gets out and is replaced by one the girls leaving 1/1 on the far side, 1/1 in the boat, and 1/1 on the starting side. Once our mixed company boat gets back to the first side the lady is deposited and our final frustrated Air-Hockey player joins his friend in the boat and they all head over to the far side. After which, one of them promptly marks the spot on their trusty GPS, and they high tail it to the next major tournament where they tell me exactly where I can go to give these poor famished Amazonion ladies a far better impression of Air-Hockey playing males by satiating all of their ravenous desires.

And just to throw the married Air-Hockey players a bone, I’d tell the whole story when our fantastic blogger Dan gets around to doing The Nick Geoffroy Interview Part 2: The Championship Years

That’s it. Ok. A few things. 1 – If I figured out a way to beat you, I’d probably share it with my IL guys – but leave you in the dark. I’m not sharing that easily. 2. Music is music – there aren’t higher planes of taste, just some people are willing to dig around to get more of it. And finally – I’m very upset there was not more congratulatory or positive mentions of myself. I may have to edit this later to fill them in.

2011 World Championships – Part 1

Ok.. so I’ve been home for a little while, so I hope I can recap everything.

I took off work for Thursday and Friday with plans to fly in Thursday evening. I was going to miss doubles – and I was fine with that. Last year, my body was a mess and I think just playing too much was a factor. Of course, that doesn’t mean I can’t watch. I ended up splitting a room with Goran – which was sweet since it was comped (yay Vegas).

I don’t remember much of doubles, to be honest. I remember seeing Billy and Davis lose to Ehab and Danny. I remember hearing Fletcher talk about how good Davis was playing and how hard it was to read his shots. I just warmed up, played a little bit – chatted with some folks… and saw that Mike had an award made for me.

I should say it’s quite the honor to be given an award for trying to disseminate a little air hockey knowledge – even though the vast majority of my talk on this blog is pretty self-centered. It’s all in good fun, and people seem to appreciate it. Getting this award has lit a little fire under me to write some more. Going to the tourney has directed a little more traffic here and I’ve seen some more comments (well, from Mr. Geoffroy, at least). I should say that Q (his blog linked to the right) should share in this award since he does so much work putting videos up – something my computer and my patience is very bad at. Q also pushes me to write more.. and I encourage him to do the same. Q should be the frontrunner for this award next year if he keeps putting up videos and writing.

So.. I just went home early and crashed. Goran and I got up *way* too early – so, to kill some time, we hit the blackjack tables. Really, I should say that I just sat and watched because Goran was betting a minimum of $100 on each hand. After about 15 minutes and Goran losing about 5 grand, we had breakfast in the little area for high rollers. It was pretty great. They had a high-end spread and it seemed as though they catered to Asian gamblers… there was some kind of porridge with all kinds of things to put in it that I really wanted to try, but I had no idea how to go about eating it… and putting something really foreign into my body may not be the best thing to do before a big tournament. I did have fresh lychee for the first time. I’ve never seen the stuff before and had no idea what it was when I bit into it the first time. Delicious. A couple of those got thrown into my bag along with some fancy bottled water, and we were off.

I warmed up – and I got a first round bye. My first match was against Chris Curry – who came from Houston to cover the event. He wasn’t an air hockey player… and didn’t really seem to be interested in playing – but we have a way of getting people who are involved in the ancillary parts of the tournament to participate. He wasn’t a serious player, and I just needed to take care of him as quickly as possible. Danny called me out at the end of the tournament when I guess he asked when our match would be over, and I replied with something like, “I just need to win 4 games”. Danny thought it was a bit presumptuous and douchey to basically proclaim that it’d be over when “I win it”. I guess I read the situation differently… I got the distinct impression this guy wasn’t really interested in playing and was just embedding himself in the tourney to cover it… and when he went into the loser’s bracket early and then didn’t even finish the tourney – probably because he wanted to actually cover the events. I remember being on the fence about showing him some of the things I was doing and sharing why I like the game so much… but again – I wasn’t sure if a tourney match was the most appropriate place for that, and I tend to reach out to people who seem to be genuinely interested. I guess if I have an opportunity to be an ambassador for the sport for someone, I should make the effort regardless of the situation.

Anyway. On to round 3. Here’s where my first match would really take place. Since Q jumped ahead of me in the rankings – In this tourney, I’d be seeded 17th… which meant I’d face the #16 seed: Chris Lee. Now, Q just went to CO and beat him in a challenge match – which gave me some confidence, but I knew I couldn’t take him for granted. The first game came down to the final point – and Chris was ahead. I needed to get my jitters out of the way and buckle down. My defense wasn’t up to par – and I kept missing shots. I saw the openings, but the shots just weren’t falling. Chris won the 2nd game 7-3 and I quickly got down 2-0 and knew I needed to step things up. Game 3 was the turning point. My offense came alive, and I started to block some of Chris’s left wall shots. I took game 3, 7-3 and I was on the comeback trail. Game 4 was a nailbiter – a critical game for both of us. It was 6-6 when I scored the final point – and evened out the 7-6 games between us. After 4 games, we were dead even. Same number of points were scored and it seemed like it could go either way. Game 5, Chris made an adjustment and socked me 7-3. It was do-or-die time. Chris just needed to win one more game to put me away… and I rallied in game 6 to a 7-3 win. Game 7 coming up – again, at this point the points scored by each of us was dead even. I’d seen all of Chris’s shots and my offense was still scoring on him. I just needed to not get jumpy on defense and I felt as though I was reading him correctly. Game 7 was decided by my defense. I blocked everything… Chris hit some great shots – but I managed to block them. The final game was mine.. and I won 7-2.

It’s a good thing I won this set. Chris got the great Venezuelan player, Javier – who came in vastly under-seeded… it could have just as easily been myself who got a bad draw and I could have been bounced from the tourney very early.

My next game came against the reigning champ – Davis Lee. Davis – who nearly got defeated by Javier earlier (3 7-6 games Davis won to edge him out)… was not going to go easy on anyone. I didn’t have high hopes for this set. I just wanted it to be competitive. Davis came out and smoked me 7-2. I kept it a little closer the next 2 games, 7-5, 7-4… but by this time I knew I needed to try *something* to give me an edge. I’ve been working on setting up my forehand shots better – while still incorporating my pump fakes. I went into an open-v right offense (it’s what Billy and I call it.. it’s like a reverse circle, but with no continuation.. just a angle drift off the right side). I pump fake close to the right rail (I can hit a pretty good left wall under from here – as well as a straight)… and pump fake closer to the middle – or take a forehand shot. Or I take a normal backhand shot. Doing the pump fakes early in my drift creates a cadence.. and after doing it a couple times, I train the defense to not expect a shot to come. After a couple of rounds of this – I take the first shot where I was normally pump-faking. Even against the reigning champ – this works for easy points. It’s an offense that’s not really easy to execute, but I was desperate. I managed to get up to a 5-2 lead… and it got to 6-6 before I could actually put it away and win for a change. Whew! I had just won my first game against the reigning champ with a very odd adjustment. Going to it in the 5th game didn’t work. Davis had seen enough… and I can’t stop his offense well enough to get anything going, and I lost the last game where I started 7-2.

Into the loser’s bracket, I go.

My first match was against Chris Green. Chris thought this was going to be a “battle”… and I thought I’d wipe the table with him. Chris uses a hard mallet and can hit very hard shots.. and he’s been playing for quite awhile. Chris plays what I call a “false rail” defense. I do well against these defenses. When I pump-fake, I can get him to go back to his rail, and I can even see which side he favors. I hit nearly all straight shots against him… and when he started charging, I was able to pop quick unders. It’s one of those adjustments I can make on the fly after one or two charges. Pump-faking or time-delays can get the defense to give you information you can use against them… it also gets them to commit too early. I ripped through him for 3 games, 7-3, 7-2, 7-3. And then…. I couldn’t finish. I got up in the 4th game… and then my offense just completely left me. Wide open shots were missing… close shots turned into turnovers… Chris finally finding his accuracy and getting some quick bank shots in… and he won game 4, 7-6. I figured this to be an aberration, but game 5 turned out to be the aberration. Every once in awhile this just happens… every missed shot becomes a turnover… a misread that leads to a score against you… or suddenly Chris hits a couple really hard overs, that look to be accidents. It just seemed like the pendulum switched so hard that nothing I did seemed to work and everything Chris did worked. I got my ass handed to me – and he beat me 7-1. Chris perked up quite a bit after this win. After I dominated him the first 3 games.. he was on a 2 game winning streak, and he just beat me worse than anyone had the entire tourney, and that includes Davis. I needed to buckle down. I was *not* going to let this one get away from me. I didn’t need to do anything fancy on offense and I just needed to block his damn shots on defense… just get back to basics. This time I executed… and the pendulum of variance swung in my direction in a big way. Final game resulted in a skunk… a 7-0… a rarity for anyone in this tourney.

That was the final set for me on Saturday. Pretty good way to end a day.

My next match was to be against Randy Lind. Randy pulled one of the bigger upsets (in my mind) in the tourney by beating Goran. He’s a long-time player and plays with two mallets. He has been getting on everyone’s nerves as well. For someone who plays with 2 mallets – he likes to call people out for going over the line on games he’s not involved in, or calling out other random rules violations. More in the next installment.

Oh – and I didn’t realize there was video of my playing Chris Green.

2010.06.03 – LBR4 – Meyer v. Green from Daniel Meyer on Vimeo.

New stuff

Thought I should add a note about last week because it was kind of awesome.

Q got to travel on the company dime – and luckily, it was Colorado. Home of Chipotle and a number of great air hockey players. He stirred up some shit on ahw and just started challenging everyone and everyone. He got a couple takers…. Including Chris Lee and Nick Geoffroy. Q managed to beat Chris in an epic challenge set that went down to 7 sets and steal the #23 ranking (and bumping me down to #25). He then went on the next day to play Nick and managed to snag a set before getting beatdown 4-1. He got in a couple games for funzies against perennial badass Mark Nizzi before collapsing into a pile of jello from all the air hockey that was played.

Oh.. and I snagged my first win over Goran in a set. It was strangely anti-climactic… because I did so incredibly well against him. I figured the first time I would take a set off of Goran, it’d be a 7 game nail biter that I just manage to pull it out… but it was a 4-0 beatdown, which included a 7-0 skunk. The closest Goran got was the first game which ended 7-5.

Last night Q, Evil John, and I played some great, highly competitive practice games. It was great to see us all playing at a high level. John, especially – I didn’t think he had a great finish at the IL state, but he could surprise some people. I think the word is out on Q and I, but if John keeps progressing like he has, by next year… he could be the next Q.

Woot.