2nd PLACE IS THE 1st LOSER

I can’t sleep. I don’t know whether it’s because of the pain caused by my knee injury or the fact that we lost at the SOPL finals. I guess second place really is the first loser. Bittersweet finish for the last tournament in the 2014 season for me.

The tournament itself I say was quite a success. More teams and more participants. A really good tournament. Maybe I am biased on saying this because I work at Magnum Paintball, but I must say this SOPL leg, we step up a notch regarding how tournament Paintball is suppose to be in Indonesia. This leg we had teams from Malaysia, Singapore and cities around Sumatera like Banda Aceh, Pekanbaru and Duri. Hopefully 2015 will shine a brighter light for the series.

Now, back to the reason I couldn’t sleep.

Following a bad tournament in World Cup Asia 2014, I had time to evaluate myself and how I did in the tournament. I looked at videos from the WCA 2014 webcast over and over again to see what actually went wrong. It wasn’t quite much of disappointment but it was clearly a step down from where we were in 2013. It was quite clear what I had to improve in my practices and that was what I improved during the training for SOPL 4^th leg.

The individual training was going great. Going back to fundamentals and sharpening my gun skills were my priorities. The downside of it was that we never had a full team practice. Coming to the event we never had even one full team practice. On how I see it is really a let down and a clearly was quite the reason why we didn’t won. I know there will be pro and cons on how I see it, but this is how I feel about it. If we had practice regularly maybe the outcome would be different. Maybe.

Day 1

We won our first three games before losing two games in a row and then closing the day with two more wins. 5-2 in day one. Wasn’t great but what was different from our last event was that I was on touch with Arab every single game (for anyone who doesn’t know, Arab and I started Double Barrel Effect Paintball Training Program). All Double Barrel Effect Trainees were in my team, so communication on the off the field was running well. Losing our games was clearly something we talked about after the games and was a good thing, so we wouldn’t be complacent. We were focused despite the training opportunity was really minimal. Because of the minimal training we had together, communication was key. We had to talk in and off the field. If we didn’t, we would for sure lose most of our games.

Day 2

We had 3 more games for the prelims. Won two and lost our last one, placing us at the 3^rd seed going to the quarterfinals. Our quarterfinal group consist of, Medan Smokers QQ (us), Medan Smokers 106, Medan Gorga and Team KJ. Team KJ was our first game, we switched things up a little because we knew we had to have an edge in our snake side. Placing 3 up the snake side and 2 dorito side, completely emptying our center. We won the game when Tama (Double Barrel Effect Trainee) won the 1 on 1 battle. Our 2^nd quarterfinal game was against Medan Gorga. This will be the game that I will never forget and want to forget at the same time. Not a lot of people knew what happened. 10 seconds! I was focused, gameplan was in effect. Game on! I did what I do every single game, Attack the snake hard. Upon reaching the snake for my dive, I heard a huge “Pop” sound, following an excruciating pain on my right knee. I still dove into the snake and made it alive. But, I knew I blew out my knee. The pain was really hitting me, I couldn’t bend my knee in the snake, the only thing that was pushing me to finish the game was that this tournament was supposed to be a statement for me. I still got my kills and finished the game. We won, but I knew the tournament was over for me. I got my knee checked, and it was for sure I couldn’t play the remainder of the tournament. So, the last game for us was against our brother team, Medan Smokers 106. For me, playing sports is playing sports. There is sportsmanship and other elements in the game, but you are going to be remembered by the things you do right, apparently also what you do wrong. We fought it out for a draw, putting us through to the semifinals and sent packing our brother team home.

Semifinal Game vs Hangtuah Warriors Pekanbaru

The semis and finals will be a best of 3 match up. We were going to go against Hangtuah Warriors from Pekanbaru. Leading up to the game they were doing very well, so I decided to give a little twitch on our gameplan. The first point was a long point finalizing the point was a 1 on 1 battle of Miftah (Double Barrel Effect Trainee) winning the point for us. 1-0. The second point, we push the snake hard, leading the charge was Arab getting a 4 pack kill, single handed giving us the ticket to the final match.

The Finals

Although I am happy enough my boys took it to another level and playing the finals, there was a deep disappointment that I couldn’t be there side by side them in the mix. The final match was against Hari Harimau Malaya, a very strong team with experienced players. First point, a draw and we were down 1 man. The second point was a lot better, Jafu holding it down and winning another 1 on 1 battle (He won 1 on 1 battles through out this tournament). A little fun fact, every 1 on 1 battle that we (Double Barrel Effect) faced in the tournament, we won all of them. So, we were 1-0 up knowing that if we lost this last point it could be the end. And that was the point where we, as we always do in clutch situations, and where it shows where we are lacking, is the ability to see and do something different. Our opponent already knew what we were going to do, and chewed us up. Done. 1-1, but the first point we drew we were down 1 body. We lost the finals game, not because the the ED, but because we didn’t train ourselves enough to be prepared for that kind of situation. Learning experience, yes. Disappointed, of course.

2^nd place is the 1^st loser.

                                                              We growing now. D.B.E.

                                                   This is for my kids, Amee and Ameer.

        Arab & I, Founder of Grind Up Designs and Double Barrel Effect Paintball Training Program

                                            2nd Place, but Overall 2014 SOPL Champions

Hopefully my injury is not as serious as it may be. For I plan to be better and stronger in 2015. Was my goal achieved in SOPL 4^th leg? I don’t know, probably not as much as I would like. But I know in my heart that we, Double Barrel Effect, made a standing statement.

We are and always will be, fully GRIND UP.

Dany Sitompul #07

Magnum Paintball, Double Barrel Effect Trainer

                                                         Double Barrel Effect Originals

                                   (Left to right ; Jafu, Ryan, Tama, Arab, Kelby, Miftah, Dany)

FAMILY, isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who gives a shit and accept you for who you are. The ones who would do ANYTHING to see each other succeed and to willingly push each other for GREATNESS.