My 3 Paintball Events

Here are the three paintball events i had gone through recently.

1. Advertlets Blogger Paintball Tournament
(17 January 2009 - Saturday) This was the first time I ever played paintball in my life. I registered for the RM10 Advertlets event and was paired up with 4 total strangers, namely Marcus, Evo, Celine and Uncle Zahari and we called our team "Team Yakuza". Except for Marcus and Evo, the rest of us were first timers. Surprisingly after playing the 4 rounds of preliminary games, we advanced to semifinal and then final. We emerged first runner up amongst the ~20 teams consisting of 5 person each that took part in this event. And so, we were promised a free entry to join the National Paintball League (NPL) tournament in Division 4, worth RM300.

2. Paintball Practice
(8 February 2009 - Sunday) In view of the upcoming NPL tournament, Marcus had organized a training season with his old buddy, Simon who is in the Division 3 of the NPL. We went to Astaka which is the home of MY-NPL to practice. We learnt a lot from Simon on the techniques, rules and practice of playing paintball. Prior to that, we had watched the videos on Youtube on the subject of paintball. We learnt a lot from the videos and lots more while practising with Simon. At Astaka, we had to pay each Rm100 consisting of RM20 for renting the house marker, RM20 for renting the house mask, RM20 for using the field and RM40 for the paintball pellets (we bought a box of 1000 pellets at RM200, divided by 5, each will carry 200 pellets thus costing RM40 for each person). At this moment one of our team mate, Celine had pulled out and replaced by Josh from the Advertlets. Thanks Simon for being our SIFU.

3. MY-NPL Paintball Tournament
(14 February 2009 - Saturday) This was the real event and we were excited and ready to shoot. Alas, we learnt that due to some technical issues, we had to pay for the registration fee which is RM300 for the whole team. Josh being the Advertlets liason, had arranged for the NPL people to give us 1000 pellets free of charge. Anyway, we had to buy a box of 2000 pellets to be used in the tournament. The preliminary round were held on Saturday and we had to play against 6 teams. We won 3 and we lost 3. In the end, we ranked 13 out of the 28 teams. Therefore we had to come the next day play for the semi final which we taunted as the Super Sweet Sixteen of the division 4 where top 16 team advances to the next round.

(15 February 2009 - Sunday) We came early for the semi final but the event only started after 10 am because they had to finish the premilinary rounds of Division 2 and 3 which failed to wrap up on Saturday. We bought another box of 2000 pellets for the event today. Team Yakuza (our team) had to face Team Infidelz. We were playing for the best of 3 games. In other words, the team must win 2 rounds in order to advanced further in the game. Team Infidelz ranked 4th in preliminary round (but I later learnt that they actually came out 2nd place in the prelim. but due to miscalc by the organizer they were ranked 4th). Anyhow, we lost the two games. The Infidelz were good, they played very quiet and only shoot whenever necessary. First game I was sniped out of nowhere and the pellet burst on my shoulder. Second game, I advanced to middle of the playing games thinking that no one was looking but then the fella came infront of me and shot me to elimination. My other teammates faced similar fate. It was a good game and we just had to accept our defeat.

What I like about paintball?
The adrenaline rush when shooting at your opponent and experiencing a whole new environment and meeting new people.

What I don't like about paintball?
The gears we have to put on before the game i.e. face mask, and other protective garments such as long sleeve and pads because once you get hit, the hit really stings if you are hit at places other than your face mask and marker. Honestly, I hate wearing the face mask bacause it is just uncomfortable and makes breathing a bit hard and your view is kind of limited. I also dislike shouting because i don't have loud voice and with the face mask, it is even harder to shout loudly. Finally, it is rather costly to play this game and i am not a millionaire.

Pictures?
I have none because I did bring any camera and my phone won't even take a decent picture of anything. Perhaps may other teammates have post some pictures in their blogs:
Uncle Z - http://xperienceoflife.blogspot.com/
Marcus - http://gyakudo.blogspot.com
Evo - http://euveng.blogspot.com/
Josh - http://josh.my/

Conclusion
Since I have more dislikes than likes, I am thinking that I will not be playing this game in the near future. I have made other commitments which is cheaper and more comfortable than paintball.