Thoughts.

Made a 2-hour trek (hey, a resonably close tournament!) to Tajima for the…perhaps 7th? iteration of the tournament.

Sadly, I could only stick around for part of the first day–myself and a few other Tottori JETs had to book it back home for our sayonara party that evening*–but in addition to being very nostalgic (I had been once before in 2005, when I was studying abroad near Tokyo), it was a lot of fun!
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“All ultimate people are great people. Well, except for the assholes.”

-Matt Love

Location: Okura Beach, Akashi.

Format: Hat tourney Saturday (competition included accuracy and distance throwing as well as on-beach play), team play Sunday. 25 minute (continuous) rounds made for short but sweet games (the girls, perpetually shorthanded, were especially appreciative of the short game times)–games were typically followed by an hour or more bye, so there was plenty of time for hangout/fooding/socializing between games.

Conditions: Warm bordering on hot (20-24 deg C), cloudy on Saturday, sunny on Sunday. Beach was pretty rocky–barefoot playing was a no-go, sadly. Still forgiving enough to bid freely, but the arms and legs would pay the price.

Overall experience: Great!

Saturday I wound up with a squad of Japanese college students (as I’ve mentioned before, the scene here largely revolves around college teams). I showed up late and arrived as teams were already huddled. Opening conversation went something like this:

“Is this team G?”
“Yes”
“Sorry I’m late! I’m Matt, nice to meet you.”
“We were just thinking of our team name…What’s that on your shirt?”
“This? Oh, you mean ‘Dartmouth?’”
“What’s a ‘Dartmouth?’ Mouth, like mouth?”
“Oh! Well, uh yeah…it is but it doesn’t really mean anything, it’s a person’s name…”
“Sounds cool. Alright! ‘Dartmouth’ will be our team name.”

So it was that Dartmouth had its inaugural tournament appearance in Japan. Our 2-1 record was good enough to finish 5th in the tournament, but a poor showing in the accuracy contest sank any hopes of finishing in the top 3 overall. Our foreigner contingent represented pretty well though, with one team sporting a couple of us making it to the finals (out of perhaps 150 players on Saturday, there was just the dozen or so of us foreigners spread about).

After games on Saturday we made the obligatory onsen trip to clean off, hit up a nearby buffet, and then hung out at the beach for the evening with some of the other players–now teammates and friends–and some watermelon. Spent the night in a ryokan near Kobe, channeling some summer-camp sleepover nostalgia sharing a room with the 10 of us for the night.

Sunday we Wondertwin-powered into the form of a Rising Tide:

The smallish roster and being already familiar with each other from having played together in Awaji meant that as a team we gelled pretty well from the get-go, with a little bit of basic strategy talk and subbing (your basic “always have a handler on the field” prescription).

First game we opened up a 3 or 4-0 lead before letting them creep back in late for a 7-6 victory that never felt so close. Second game saw us brush up against some stiffer competition–indeed, the team went on to win the whole thing–and drop a 7-5 game that also never felt as close as the score indicates. Almost all of the Japanese teams had a good grasp of the fundamentals of using the dump-swing and break throws to punish poaching or generate easy motion, but this team had it down even more systematically than the rest, who seemed to improvise more (or maybe we just played better D). At any rate yours truly wound up looking stupid on D a couple times.

Our third and fourth games were also tight, with our last game going into sudden death overtime after we were tied at the end of 25 minutes, but, much like our namesake, we slowly and inexorably rose above. (Our second game of the day obviously occurred during a receding phase).

Rising Tide finished 8th overall, with a 3-1 record and the 1 to the tourney champions. In other words, I think we have a solid claim to second-best team overall.

Other events: Between games/during byes (games are only 25 minutes, remember, so 3/4 games a day means a lot of down time) were various frisbee-related demos: some freestyling here, disc golfing there, a fair bit of dog catch, and some other games of skill, all complete with an announcer to narrate (“Ok, here’s the throw to Rover…can he do it? YES! Nice catch!”), as well as continuous (good) music playing at the fields. It wasn’t just an event for the people who love to run themselves ragged on the field; families could come and enjoy, with there being several food options and games on the side. Saw a few young’uns tossing foam discs around, or throwing at targets, while the families picnicked. Tourney organizers in the States take note–loath as I am to feed associations between ultimate and dogs, there are plenty of options out there to make a weekend of ultimate about much more than simply ultimate.

Highlight of the non-ultimate events was definitely the 「ダイビーングケーチコンテスト」, aka Diving Catch Contest, aka Layout Grab-off. Yours truly did a little showboating before tracking down and catching a nice floater above the head, with a near-faceplant of a landing and a facefull of sand to show for it and little else. For whatever reason we didn’t so much as place despite, you know, actually catching the disc, which some 20 of the 25 pairs did not. Plus we had way more style.

Personally: I felt pretty great all weekend–despite having to deal with a strained quad for much of the week preceding, the short beach fields combined with some day-before muscle debugging (my VMO was too tight and not firing; got it working with a bit of foam rolling and some massage along with some focused mobility work) had me feeling fine all weekend long, the usual after-game and day-after aches and pains notwithstanding.

Played pretty darn well–the short field helped in a lot of ways, as it a) reduced a lot of defense to something closer to handler D, where I’m most comfortable and b) put me in close proximity to all the other players, meaning I had plentiful opportunities to poach, bait and help with good results. Offensively, despite not having really thrown a disc in a month or so, my IO backhand and forehand were both gellin’ (though the flick was a little too zippy at times) and the rest of the arsenal fell in line pretty well too–it helped that Saturday was close to breezeless and Sunday wasn’t too strong either, but regardless of condition it bodes well to see the muscle memory holding up. Having fewer players on the field makes it a bit easier to assess the state of my options with the disc and find space, so I didn’t find myself struggling in the handler role as much as at Awaji (it helped that we defaulted to a straight stack O).

Personal highlights are numerous. I knew I was set for a good weekend when, late in my first game on Saturday, I had a full-extension, fingertip layout D on a swing for the goal, which I immediately followed with an IO backhand break huck to the other endzone for the goal. There was also a span in one game Sunday where I believe I threw a goal (or at least right up to the endzone), and then in the ensuing two points D’d up the first throw and threw the score on the next pass (the first, a poach on an upline pass that led too far; the second, a straight-up denial catch D on a dump attempt), turning a pretty tight game into a comfortable lead in the span of about two minutes.

Altogether, couldn’t have asked for a better weekend getaway. Left on Sunday riding on cloud nine; it’s ridiculous how happy this sport makes me sometimes.

While writing the last post about energy demands in ultimate¹, it struck me that there is a LOT of potential data to be mined just looking at scoring trends, play durations, etc, but the data isn’t there currently–nobody really tracks that sort of thing (at least, not publicly).

We need more descriptive score keeping than the simple “X-X” final total. In much the same way that baseball scores by innings, or tennis has set-by-set counts (or really any sport has at least some temporal division), ultimate needs something more robust to help keep the fan clued in. I’ve broken it down below into a few phases based on ease of incorporation:

Phase 1, (I hope) obviously, is reporting scores at halftime. You get this all the time in written-up recaps; why not on score reporter or tournament result sites?

I’m not saying it has to be done all the time–hell, at plenty of tournaments even final scores go unreported–but at bigger tournaments that have a fan following, it’s the bare minimum to be done to build something of a “box score” and give an at-a-glance view of how the game went. Did team X cruise out to a big halftime lead before blowing it at the end? Did team A stay neck and neck with the #1 seed through the first half and fall back to earth in the second? These are stories that are out there, but often go un(der)reported.

I’m thinking a parenthetical–i.e., Team A 15(8) – Team B 12(2)–would be pretty simple and easy to incorporate into the current SRT structure.

Phase 2 is generating a score report that can really capture the flow of scoring throughout a full game, and I have just the method in mind:

Enter The Hardball Times’ sparklines (I’m amending to scorelines for ultimate’s use).

So much of what makes games into exciting stories is the string of breaks, rises and falls in momentum, or the hard-fought back-and-forth matches, and this metric would capture it perfectly–long gaps in the scoreline denote a string of breaks, whereas the back-and-forth games would have a, dare I say it, beautiful symmetry to their scorelines. Could you imagine how ridiculous the scoreline would’ve looked for Fury’s massive comeback from 10-1 against Riot in the UPA finals last year?²

Even if the scoreline doesn’t make it into mainstream use anytime soon, I imagine it’d be very useful for teams that keep any kind of stats to track their scores (if it isn’t done already)–rather than wonder “did we start off with a 2-0 or 3-0 lead before their zone shut us down?” you can look at the evidence conclusively, and with a few short notes during the game, see concretely what impact your adjustments had on the flow of the game. You could write in the score at set intervals (every 5 ticks for instance) to make it a little easier to track at a glance while still keeping the flow-tracking intact.

The other component I’d like to see go along with this is game time.

Even without shifting to a stopped-time dynamic it’d be possible to track active game duration from pull to last goal caught (or hard cap horn), using a designated scorekeeper with a stopwatch. This would give some indication of, for instance, team A’s offensive dominance with 20-second points while team B struggles to the tune of a minute per score, a prelude to team A’s eventual string of breaks (or team B’s unlikely upset despite the lower efficiency). You might see a break at 10 seconds of play, which would suggest a callahan off the pull or a short turn and quick strike. Even a simple notation of, say, 5-minute play intervals on the scoreline would help to give some idea of how rapid or drawn-out the points were.

Phase 3 moves beyond scorekeeping itself and incorporates stats. This is my baseball bias coming in to play of course, but similar to how at bats are tracked along with hits/runs/RBIs/HRs etc, you could similarly chart points played along with goals caught/assists thrown/Ds (and maybe at a high level, things like hucks and completion % and touches as well). A hockey-like +/-, if refined to account for starting on O or D, would also be a cool stat to see.

Why it’s worth it
Each level takes a greater amount of work to pull off, but each brings with it a greater amount of clarity on “what-happened” syndrome that plagues ultimate today. Outside of following real-time updates, we’re left to get the story secondhand, reading sparse/biased RSD and blog coverage, and unless we know people involved, are generally left unsatisfied. Web coverage is awesome–video feeds, etc–but when you compare the logistics of setting all that up to simply putting a little more effort into score keeping, this is a pretty simple/easy way to boost the profile of tournaments and teams to the casual (and passionate) observer.

What do you think? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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¹I wrote this post the same time I finished the last one; I’m posting this earlier than scheduled due to a false-start posting that put this in some RSS readers on Sunday.

²I had to dig to find the UPA championship site and then the recap to get that information. Score reporter? Could’ve been a tight game that Fury pulled away at the end of, for all we know. Certainly doesn’t suggest the spectacular roller coaster. Even the halftime score of 8-1 would have said a LOT more than simply the final score.

I’m assuming I’m not the only one who avoids sensationalist topic titles on RSD geared against the UPA; as such, you might not be aware of the following:

• The UPA Board Blog has a few good posts you should read (and respond to, if you’re so inclined).

• Following that rabbit hole a little further yields a UPA page on Spring College Experiments and a blog discussing the same (namely, more active officiation).

This is an issue that has been, well, an issue, for as long as I’ve been involved in ultimate (admittedly just a short 5 years) and it’s great to see the UPA address it.

I’ve got a really good feeling for the future of the sport and the UPA as an organization, given the progress they’re making in leveraging the internet. Kudos to the UPA for reaching out more strongly and soliciting feedback.

My one gripe would be simply that this outreach is all coming in the form of scattered blogs rather than a single, consolidated, authoritative source (i.e., the UPA website), but I’m sure creating an easy and accessible feedback system is the sort of thing that the UPA will work in to its site overhaul. It’s BADLY in need of one, in this author’s opinion–the site as currently constructed is remarkably busy and compressed, and even information that should be front and center (scores, schedules, and hey–what of all these initiatives and experiments) doesn’t stand out particularly strongly in the context of the page. I only go to the page for the score reporter link; I’d love to see a more efficient and elegant presentation of information and tools on the site.

It’s a new technological age (is the site really dated from 2000? that’s light years ago on the ‘net), monitors are bigger, and the UPA can do a lot. Looking forward to what they do.

The tournament almost got canceled.

It would’ve been just my luck after the other near-misses since I’ve gotten here (see: me forgetting that Japan and Hawaii are different countries and missing half a (one-day) tourney for a couple wrong turns), but, thanks to the power of democracy and on the strength of a 13-9 vote against canceling, we powered on through Saturday’s rainy, windy games, shortened to 30 minutes from the already-short 50 minutes.

I picked up with a mishmash of internationals from all over–ranging from Shikoku to Kyuushu (and yours truly + 1 from Tottori), there were quite a few of us who’d made good treks to play some disc in Awaji (mine spanning some 6+ hours of driving on the way down, including a detour on Friday night to Shikoku to stay closer to the tourney). We had a bunch of newbies; wound up splitting into experienced and rookie teams with so many of us there (about two dozen).

Coming in looking at the teams, I figured we had a pretty good shot at winning the thing–mostly Japanese college teams*, which obviously wouldn’t be up to the level of college teams in the states, and given I was playing on a team with people who knew what they were doing, it seemed like good odds.

I gave up on ideas of winning about halfway into our first game, for a couple reasons. Turns out “experienced” meant, in many cases, that they could throw a forehand–people were familiar with things like zone D, but the fundamentals of good man D were lost on most (especially factoring in our relative out-of-shapedness compared to practicing college teams). For another, we hadn’t practiced together and the lack of chemistry was very apparent from the get-go, on O and D.

And the Japanese teams were pretty decent. It’s very much a stereotype of Japanese sports in general, but most stereotypes have a seed of truth at their root–they work hard, if the extent and duration of pre-game drilling was any indication, and focus on the fundamentals. The wind made everyone’s throws pretty difficult, but players weren’t afraid to take the inside looks (and could get away with them against a loose D) in man offense situations. (Incidentally, every team we played exclusively ran a horizontal stack). I had a lot of trouble singling out teams’ go-to guy(s), simply because most teams were willing to spread the disc around, throwing to the open guy and not forcing it. Throw in their conditioning we struggled a lot on Saturday.

On a personal level, I got stuck handling most of the time. This worked OK when we were running a straight stack, because I could float into cutting territory without too much trouble, but eventually we decided to shift to a horizontal stack–while I can cut in a ho-stack without any fuss, handling it in proved to put me out of my element and Saturday became progressively more frustrating. The difference in level from Nationals with a group of teammates you’ve known and played with for ages vs. a pickup team you just met is large, and I had trouble shifting my decision-making processes. My frustration with my own play also left me struggling to take more of a leadership role in terms of sharing experience and guidance to help the rest of the team improve, which is something I need to work on.

Saturday evening we all made the half-hour drive to a nearby onsen (one of the greatest things about Japan that I sorely miss in the states), where we cleaned off the day’s muck and relaxed away our cares.  Following the onsen stop, we had a short trip to a nearby player’s house, where we barbequed and bonfired. Our host had gotten some bona fide beef imported and made some spectacular burgers–unlike the states, good burgers are hard to come by in Japan, and all together it made for a spectacular night.

Sunday saw a return to 50-minute rounds and a retreat of the rain, but the wind showed up in even more force than the day before, making for a severe upwind-downwind dynamic.

This actually worked to our advantage; we shifted to (huck and) zone D, preventing overmatched defenders from being exploited deep (with yours truly usually playing deep-deep in their stead). Offensively, we saw our share of zone as well, which led to a bunch of blades from this guy and a lot of battling for field position from all corners.

Unlike Saturday, we actually eked out a couple wins–I think we finished 9th out of 16 teams. All it took was a couple lucky breaks going upwind. I was a lot happier playing Sunday, in part because I had a more realistic idea of what to expect, and in part because playing deep in the zone meant I got to run around a lot more against teams looking to punt it for field position–I’ve decided that my preference for cutting and reticence to handle stems from a need to run.

All together, it was a pretty great weekend that made me nostalgic for college after some 9 months without a proper tourney (longest such stretch I’ve had in the past 5 years). Nothing quite like long road trips, Saturday hangouts, and that day-after exhaustion.

Speaking of exhaustion, I’m still in very poor shape. Hopefully I can level up a bit before the next bit of action–a return to Akashi beach in June for some beach ultimate fun in the sun.

*incidentally, most of Japan’s ultimate scene seems to revolve around college clubs. There were a couple club teams there, but they didn’t strike me as much better than the college teams we played. I didn’t notice any formal coaching of any of the teams–I think ultimate, rather than being its own sort of culture in Japan, falls much more into the category of other college club sports–just something you do for fun in your spare time, and forget about shortly after graduation. Will refine my impression/opinions as I get more exposure in tourneys throughout the spring.

Spirit is an elusive concept.

Ask one player what it is, and the reply might be “knowing the rules and playing by them.”

Another might tell you it entails flair wearing, tournament parties, random hangouts with people you just met on the field earlier, and a general (and genuine) sense of hospitality and humor–in sum total, that which makes up the Ultimate Culture that draws so many and tranishes the sport in the eyes of school administrators and hippie-hating employers.

The notion of “Spirit” stirs up some controversy–RSD is filled with cries against so-called “Spirit Zealotry,” as though a desire for mutual respect and decency is the sole limiting factor to ultimate “making it big.” Perhaps they’re right.

What the hell should I care about my opponent for? If I play my ass off, and win, isn’t that enough? That douche might try and keep me down with hacks and calls, but if that’s what it comes to I’m not afraid to play that game too (or better yet, to empower a referee to control it for me). They’re just another stepping stone on my path to glory.

The simple truth, that ultimately (in my mind) outweighs that attitude? Nobody cares who wins.

Really. If I asked you who the UPA (pick your level/division) champions were 10 years ago would you remember? 5 years ago? Year before last? Maybe if it was YOUR team or your rival’s team, or maybe your truly exceptional performers, repeat champs and the like. But in the big picture, the result doesn’t count for all that much. There is no prize money or big contract. There are no physical incentives short of one line on the UPA site and a footnote in the ultimate history books–not even an ultimate media that will preserve the legends and remind us when we’ve forgotten. Glory goes quickly; fame is fleeting.

Where you end matters little. What’s truly of worth–what lasts, what you keep–is how you get there.

Ultimate is, at it’s best, one of the most athletically demanding in sport. Good ultimate players are some of THE best capital-A Athletes in sport. This game presents myriad challenges, both mental and physical, and is an optimal vehicle to test oneself. When your back is against the wall and all there is to push you is you–with your motivations and your insecurities, your strengths and weakness–what surfaces?

If you want to get to know a person, be their teammate. Even as your own resolve is tested, so is theirs, and the person that materializes through this is hard to hide. You’ll learn things about them they don’t even know about themselves.

If you want to learn to respect a person, be their opponent. How they–and you–deal with adversity on the field, two wills struggling against each other when the emotional stakes are high but the results are ultimately meaningless, reveals a lot about their character. If one gets worked up about a poor play or a single call, what of dealing with the challenges in life that really matter? If you can’t learn to work with an opponent to compromise, if you can’t bring yourself to back down or forgive, if you value a win in a meaningless game more than the people you’re playing against, what does that say about you?

Ultimate is, in many ways, a microcosm of our lives.

We can prepare for life’s challenges by dealing with smaller ones on the frisbee field. This is why you see a program like Ultimate Peace. This is the beauty and power of a team’s struggle, point after point, game after game, year after year. This is what creates the culture around our sport, what enables and sustains our community.

This is Spirit: to respect and be respected.

Through this shared experience, with this Spirit, we connect with one another; we learn and grow as people.

Meeting your emotions and mastering them when the stakes are high is a means (though there are others) to this end. The set of rules we play by–the fact that the onus is on us to respect and apply them–is a wonderful enabler of this process; it forces you to cooperate and work together, often with people you’ve never met before.

However, the rules, and self-officiation, are neither necessary nor sufficient for “Spirit.” And it’s not simply a switch that can be flipped, either; it’s not something that is decided by the presence (or lack) of an official.

It’s something you cultivate, and carry with you, on and off the field. Call me a spirit zealot if you will, but the reason people have such strong feelings about this “Spirit” thing is because it is what makes ultimate players great people.

Now, as seasons ratchet up and competition gets fierce…Struggle. Battle. Do your best–but recognize and respect the fact that your counterparts just 70 yards away are the same as you. Revel in the joy, the pain, the shared intensity of the moment, and thank your opponents for bringing out out the best in you.

Super-Regional | video overview
Conference | video overview
Both videos didn’t work for me, but perhaps they will for you.

First reaction: wow. Talk about big changes! Division II and III nationals/regionals will make for a ton of opportunities for teams to succeed.

I’ll try and summarize first (I know I’m not the only one who’s put off reading about the changes for worry of length), then add my thoughts:

Regular-Season Tiers

• In either plan, you’ll have a 20-team DI natties, and 16-team DII and DIII tourneys.
• There will be a “Tier 1″ distinction for the most competitive teams–in the SRP (Super-Regional Plan)teams who want to be T1 can opt-in, but in the CP (Conference Plan) the tier is made up of the top teams from last year + 12 who play in at the season’s start.
• Tier 2 is all the teams that don’t opt in Tier 1 (SRP) or teams that register to play competitively but didn’t do well enough to make T1 (CP). The CP additionally has a tier 3 for non-registrants.
• Teams in their respective tiers contribute to UPA rankings by playing in official UPA events. In the SRP only Tier 1 games count; in the CP, T1 and T2 games count, but T1 teams get automatic bids to regionals.
• Rankings are used for seeding and for determining regional/national bids.

Super-Regionals

• You have sectionals, but some teams get a bye to super-regionals (based off of reg. season rankings).
• Sectional winners advance to super-regionals; based on size, the next X teams go to regular regionals.
• There are 4 super-regions.
• Super-regionals is a 12-team tourney, top 4/each advance to nationals.

• Top 4 non-qualifiers also get bids, to make 20 teams at nationals.
• There are 8 regions.
• Regionals have more or less the same deal as this year’s format–16 teams, but a flat 2 bids/region, 16 teams at DII nationals.
• Small colleges and developing teams can opt-in to DIII nationals, which has its own sectional and regional tourney. Only in the open division to start.

Conferences

• You have teams in each of 6 regions sorted into conferences based on proximity/willingness to travel/success. There are no sectionals.
• Bids to regionals are based off of season performance, though all tier 1 teams will play at regionals.
• Regionals do not directly decide who goes to nationals–winning a bid simply adds said bid to your conference championship.
• Bids to DI, DII, and DIII nationals are at stake in each regional tournament, with a DII regionals also occuring with bids to DII and DIII nationals at stake.
• Following regionals, teams have their conference championships to determine who goes where.
• No DIII regionals–bids to DIII nationals are won through the other regionals.

My Thoughts
I LOVE the idea of conferences. Think of the rivalry! Think of the camaraderie as you and your conference mates battle through regionals for that DI nationals bid! I think it’s a huge step forward for the excitement level of the sport.

However, I dislike the idea of having to play for nationals twice. Why should a team that didn’t even make DI regionals have a shot at stealing a bid to DI nationals? If a team wins DI regionals should they really have to play again to secure their bid?

There has to be a better way to work the conference angle while not applying a double-dose of pressure to make nationals–basing bids to regionals off of conference championships, and making DI/DII regionals elimination again…or making the DI nationals bid elimination, with DII/DIII bids going back to conference championships.

I worry that the inherently unbalanced nature of the conferences will make for issues similar to what you see in New England and the Metro East–there are so many teams around the same level that, compared to areas where talent is more sparse, the road to nationals is much tougher. Perhaps that is simply the way it has to be though–in baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays stuck with it in the AL East hellhole with the Yanks and Sox and had a magical season last year despite it.

That said, leaving it as is would make for an interesting, unique quirk to ultimate, and there IS a lot of potential to excite there–and what’s more, a team that misses a bid to DI nationals would very likely wind up at DII nationals, so it’s not a win or go home proposition so much as a win or go elsewhere.

The super-regional plan is obviously a more conservative route–I like the intimate, intense nature of a 12-team tournament for 4 bids to nationals, and I think those events would showcase the sport just as much as nationals itself. I also think the increased focus on current-season results, rather than grandfathering last year’s teams in to regionals, would make for a more meaningful regular season (at the upper level at least).

If I had to choose now, I would definitely opt for the conference plan, though I would like to see the tournament structure reworked there to prevent potential complaints when teams that “win” the bid to DI nationals are usurped by another in their conference championship. Both plans have their advantages, and I’m eager to see how they are developed going forward.

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What are your thoughts? I’m looking at this from the lens of a former (on the bubble) elite team player and potential coach of the same (with a heavy New England bias), and as such am primarily concerned with the top-tier formats, but I’d love to hear the small-mid college perspective or from other regions.

Really, though, your thoughts should go here, where the UPA is looking for feedback. Get in by the 31st, before they close comments!

Word to the wise:Even if Japan IS a lot closer to Hawaii than most of the contiguous States,

…you still need your passport to fly there.

Technicalities and finances prevented a late rescheduling, and my winter just got a whole lot worse. Rest assured, blogonauts, the tournament will be aptly recapped by the others.