London International - Results & post-tournament discussion

[manicx]

Some impressive results there especially Pedro's win... Congrats to Dough for winning this. Good for Panayotis that he is in the top 4. Congratulations to the Torchio brothers for another solid performance. Wish Alkis and Spyros were there too so we could see one of the most tough tournaments in the history of the KOA.

[Kostas O]

Just arrived home and will post more later.

Yeah! In 4 months, if Alkis blackmails you!

Congrats mate! This must have felt real great.
I bet the "cylon" comments were once again a big hit, especially during the last match with Gianni

Panayotis and Steve also did great. Great tournament guys!
Looking forward to the reviews.

[Logos]

Robert, thank you for organising such an outstanding event. Your selfless effort, dedication and passion for the KOA amazed me and it was a real pleasure to debut at such an awesome tournament. Also, thanks for lending me your spare joystick!

On to the tournament: it was an epic Kick Off orgy with my memories of the games currently blurred. I 'm getting the odd flashback now and then and my overriding impression was of how much bloody fun it was! It was fun meeting the UK players, (too many to mention by name), who showcased some top skills and made me feel very welcome. It was a real treat to play against such a rich variety of UK opponents. I look forward to meeting and playing you guys again soon if there is ever another tournament around London, Heathrow or Luton.

The foreign players also made a big impression on me. Gianni and the Italians play some stunning KO2 and Gianni makes the game beautiful. The Germans were great fun, Alex, (who should have finished higher than me!), is a very conscientious player and I had some crazy games with Volker and Thorsten. It was a pleasure to meet Dagh in person, after playing so many online games together and it was no surprise to me that he won the event. It was fun to hear his Viking roar after scoring against Gianni.

My only regret was that I could not attend the dinner, (due to family commitments), in order to get to know you guys more! hopefully next time!

My appetite for KO2 tournaments is now whetted, I'll certainly be attending future events. Moreover, to see people travel the country and the globe to meet and play Kick Off is a testament to the KOA community. Long live the KOA.

Also, a massive thank you to my online KO2 buddy Rayge! Who selflessy spent many hours playing and training me online! It's a pity he could not have attended, I'm sure he would have done well!

[dnielsen]

Please let me second Andy G's eloquent words of gratitude to Robert. That was a very generous effort from Robert. Also a big thank you to the numerous guys who brought Amiga, monitors etc. And for arranging rides to football (Mark, sorry I got your name messed up at the pub, but every other guy seemed to be called Andy last night. Also sorry for asking you for a second game, I hope you can forgive my confusion.).

Tournament review: The British team had loads of talent and heart, but against a combination of Italian defending and elegance, Swedish raw physical power, German goalkeeping, and not least Norwegian counter-striking, the outcome could never really be in doubt. I really hope to gain weight before the rematch so that James Beard can only send me flying one meter and not 3 with his "shoulder tackles"

Will write about Kick Off later today.

[Robert Swift]

Robert, thank you for organising such an outstanding event. Your selfless effort, dedication and passion for the KOA amazed me and it was a real pleasure to debut at such an awesome tournament. Also, thanks for lending me your spare joystick!

Thank you - I appreciate those words. I think you should be very satisfied with your debut. I keep meeting other people who say "I lost to Andy G as well", and this includes a lot of very good and experienced players. Like I said during our game, I don't mind losing to you now, as I don't hate you yet.

[Logos]

Thank you - I appreciate those words. I think you should be very satisfied with your debut. I keep meeting other people who say "I lost to Andy G as well", and this includes a lot of very good and experienced players. Like I said during our game, I don't mind losing to you now, as I don't hate you yet.

Rest assured Robert, hopefully you'll never have a reason to hate me!

[dnielsen]

Some more overall impressions:

It was a pleasure to meet some more KOA people. I met Pedro, Volker, Glenn, and Klaus from abroad, and along with Alex and Thorsten we had a few pints and talks on Friday night. Among the Brits, I knew Garry and James from forum posts and photos, and even though I didn't get a chance to talk much to them, they feel familiar already. It was naturally also a pleasure to meet Andy G who is every bit as nice and polite as I expected him to be from our online sessions. Simon made a big impression on me on the football pitch ( ), and we also had a close KO2 game. Mark provided a ride to me and the Loitens to the football pitch. Overall, my memory buffer was a bit overloaded during Saturday, and I can't sort various "flashbacks" of my talks with the British guys that I only knew briefly from the forum in advance (besides Simon and Mark, also Darren, Ely, Jon, and Andy H). For instance, I can't remember who the guy with the keypad was. I apologize. It was also nice to see Bounty Bob and Semtex pop by and say hello.

The food and snacks provided by Panayotis (?) was a treat, even though the last few games up to 15 in total were very tough

The restaurant food and atmosphere was very good and the service nice and pleasant. The British Pride pint was good in flavor, but served pretty flat, but another regular pint provided the customary CO2 fix.

The football match was a blast.

In general, everything was so damned nice and fun. Just, one day felt too short. In Athens, two days felt too short. I think the KOA delegates should really lobby the EU to add one more day to the weekends.

[Rayge]

(this drawing was made on http://scriblink.com/ , please send all complaints to logos !)

[Binary]

It was great to at last participate in a KO gathering, and meet so many of you. I was particularly happy to meet a few of the old timers that have been sharing this space with me since the beginning of the century and that I feel closer to, and also many of the "newcomers" to the KOA.

A big thank you to Robert and the rest of the people who helped organize and drive this event (Will, Claire, Panayotis, etc etc). You rock.

Regarding my first participation on a KO2 tournament, I'm not sure where to start. Clearly lack of opponents (and an Amiga!) all my life has made of me a crappy player, and this tournament was the proof of it! It also hasn't helped that I haven't yet found the perfect joystick for me. The CMS seems good (thanks Ely and Alex for letting me borrow your spares), but I'm not sure it's "me".

My tournament has two halves, basically. I started playing, very relaxed, expecting the worst. However, a few games into the tournament, I admit to starting getting frustrated by the constant beatings, and the fact that in quite a few games I seemed to be limiting myself to booting the ball out of my half. If I wanted humiliation, a dominatrix hooker in Galway would have been cheaper! I think it was then that I thought I had to get a handle on the game from the back onwards, and switched to 5-3-2 - things then changed a bit. A bit? A lot! Let's look at a few games:

Dagh N 10 - 1 Pedro Q Hard to start your first KO tournament with such a quality opponent! What I noticed the most during the game (and was something I discussed with John H when we were playing), Dagh has an impressive control of the ball in the midfield. Many players make long passes to their forward players and then use their favorite KO2 routines or moves to score, but Dagh controls the ball (and the game!) all the way from the midfield (some times defense) to the final shot.

Pedro Q 1 - 3 Thorsten B Anyone who's played against Thorsten knows how animated the games can be This was one of my closest games when playing 4-2-4

Pedro Q 0 - 11 Rodolfo M I know everyone is supposed to at least score once against Rodolfo, because of his 4-4-2 formation and the gap between the defense. But due to my lack of skill at trapping, and also because Alex's joystick (the spare of my spare) started giving me issues, I only managed to see the balls going into my net. Against a spanish? Soooo painful!

Steve E 13 - 0 Pedro Q Another painful game. Not because of Steve E, who's a great lad, but because I managed to get Nicholls sent off early. What did I do? I switched to 4-4-2 to get a striker. My keeper also behaved like a twat! All hell went loose and the ball just kept visiting my net over and over, making it the worst result in the entire tournament

Pedro Q 1 - 10 Gianni T Gianni makes scoring seem so effortless I remember him scoring in this game some of the loveliest goals I've conceded. He also always never seems stressed or nervous.

Pedro Q 4 - 5 Mark E This was the 1st game I played with Ely's spare joystick and I scored 4 goals against its owner! I honestly thought this game could have gone either way - I scored the 4-4 with about 1m to the end but Mark got the winning goal with 30s left.

I think it was just after this game that I started playing in 5-3-2...

Alessandro V 2 - 0 Pedro Q I learned many swearing words in Italian during this game Alessandro wasn't very lucky, and I was pretty decent in my defense, which made this a good result in the end.

Volker B 0 - 2 Pedro Q My only victory in this tournament, was against Volker, to whom everything went wrong before and during the match. He was playing with his spare stick after issues with connecting his main one (thanks Thorsten for the sabotage! ) and then during the match he was very unlucky inside the box. A couple counterattacks sealed the score for me.

James B 3 - 1 Pedro Q I encouraged Jim before the game, saying the winner would get a blowjob from Bob - hence the final score Anyway it was an overall enjoyable game with the occasional snidey remark during the game - even though Jim used to be funny but he's ruined it for me now.

Alex B 3 - 1 Pedro Q I wouldn't dare beating my older brother Brante (even if I had the KO2 skills to do it ) so I decided to do what younger brothers do and tackle him to death Fortunately no players sent off, and I forced Alex to yet another match with a "small" final score

Robert S 13 - 2 Pedro Q I'm not quite sure why but I didn't bother starting on 5-3-2 on this game. Rob quickly proceeded to teach me the wrongness of my decision and scored goal against goal to make it 10-0 at half time! Not wanting to make this an historic result, I went back to 5-3-2 for the 2nd half which ended 3-2 only. Lesson learned. I scored my best goal in this game, although with a bit of luck.

Garry C 3 - 1 Pedro Q I know Garry was tired and he was very unlucky in the 1st half, but I really enjoyed this game. I scored early and held my lead for about 6 minutes. Then Garry eventually pulled through and got a deserved victory.

Pedro Q 1 - 8 Panayotis P Just when I thought "hey this 5-3-2 thing is cool, maybe it's the key to not conceding a lot", Panayotis proved how wrong I was . He even scored a walk of shame! The result could have been bigger but this was the final game and he decided to stop scoring at a certain point onwards (now confess, how many of you did the same but didn't say it out loud )

So thanks everyone for this pleasant experience, and for making me feel "at home". I'm definitely going to try attending more tournaments. However, there are some of you that I want to meet as well, and so they'll be one of the "keys"/"demands" for my next attendance (no Jim, Bob is not included, you can keep him tied to your bedposts)

Now to everyone who took photos... where I can I see them?

[manicx]

So, Pedro, you finally used the famous 'Greek stick'? You can also have a look at this topic now and get some more help...

[Logos]

Dagh has an impressive control of the ball in the midfield. Many players make long passes to their forward players and then use their favorite KO2 routines or moves to score, but Dagh controls the ball (and the game!) all the way from the midfield (some times defense) to the final shot.

Exactly Pedro. Dagh is a KO2 master with total awareness and control of every player on the pitch. Combine this awareness with phenomenal ball control, passing and finishing and you have a champion who can dominate. Rayge's powerful symbolic imagery kind of sums it up! On top of all these attributes, he's a bloody nice bloke too!

Well done Dagh!

[gdh82]

Nice write up, Pedro! Really enjoyed reading your view of events. Hope to get my write up posted soon.

However, a few games into the tournament, I admit to starting getting frustrated by the constant beatings, and the fact that in quite a few games I seemed to be limiting myself to booting the ball out of my half. If I wanted humiliation, a dominatrix hooker in Galway would have been cheaper!

So thanks everyone for this pleasant experience, and for making me feel "at home".

Perfectly put - I too really enjoy that aspect.

Btw I've just started a photo thread so hopefully others will post soon too...

[gdh82]

Tournament review: The British team had loads of talent and heart, but against a combination of Italian defending and elegance, Swedish raw physical power, German goalkeeping, and not least Norwegian counter-striking, the outcome could never really be in doubt.

Can't argue with that - the better team won, with some clinical finishing! We {England] had good spells in the game but struggled to capitalise on them. I found myself attempting to close you down on a number of attacks, sometimes successful but you also collected a number of assists with some cool pull-backs!

Simon made a big impression on me on the football pitch ( )

I'll let him know about that remark!