Chennai Heat 2013 - Predictions

The cat is out of the bag now. You should get a better version of the above picture on the tournament facebook page.

First look comments - I am not sure what even distribution of seeding means. Also, there needs to be a mention of what benchmarks have been used to come up with the seeding. In my opinion, every team needs a ranking before the tournament and after the tournament. The criteria for allocating teams is sensible but can be contested for logic.

When you look at the pools, the results of pool-play just stand out in front of you without any reason for a second look.

All the teams against A1-F1 respectively are going to top their pools comfortably. The only pool games that would be worth a watch for the spectators are Flywild vs DoD and Spinergy vs Falcons. I must mention that the games between 3 and 4 numbered teams in all pools would be interesting in a way that you can never predict the outcome.

If we have 3 pools at the end of pool-play, then Gold pool will have Stall7, Flywild, L2F, Spinergy, Blitz, Airborne. Now that's 6 done with 2 more slots remaining. DoD has a very good chance of making the 7th spot. The last spot will be a fight between Chakraa and Falcons. I would give that last spot to Chakraa because of the home advantage they have but still be doubtful about the points difference they can make with the other teams in their pool. Which gives Falcons a good chance to make it to Gold. Fringe Flickers are capable of throwing a surprise but they have never done that yet so I wouldn't place my bets on them.

With a minimum of 4 Chennai teams in Gold pool, there will be enough pressure on the other teams to even get to semi-finals. L2F has not been very successful on beach for a very long time. Spinergy has reached semis but crumpled as well. L2F and Spinergy have a good chance to move up in Gold if they play teams like Airborne, DoD, Chakraa and Falcons. Blitz, Flywild and Stall7 are going to give a menacing blow to anyone playing against them. I am not sure if Blitz still has a problem with their women ratio but if that's sorted out, then there is no stopping them at all. This also means that if neither of these three teams meet in the first round of Gold, then there is only spot left in the semis between 5 other teams.

In the end, the finals of Chennai Heat 2013 will be a repeat of the last year. With no doubt, Stall7 will win this edition of the Heat making it three in a row - a record that any other team can only dream of achieving on beach.

Flywild and Blitz are great teams as well and deserve credit for being fantastic teams, but they have a panic / choke button hidden somewhere. When they see their opponents score, they switch on automatically and its only downhill from there.

Like it or not, its going to be a Chennai domination all through.

Chennai Heat 2013 - Pools teaser

Excessive hullabaloo from my side over the last few days and many facebook posts by others did give a wake up call to the organizers of Chennai Heat 2013 to bring out that piece of classified information - The Seedings. I was so irritated that at some point I was even thinking of getting someone from WikiLeaks to help me break into the TD's mailbox.

UPAI - this one is for you guys to address in upcoming tournaments. 23 teams had registered for Chennai Heat by 12th Sep or something. Why does it take TD's such a long time to release information about pools? Pools for tournaments are definitely independent of schedules. I understand that it may take time to fix the fields and the slots but the pools can come out within 10 days of registration. We definitely need a booklet called Tournament Guidelines and I will author that. Mind it.

So, here are the pools. Well, not really. I am not supposed to reveal anything until the TD announces the same. I had a sneak peak into what is going to come out and here is what I have to say.

It looks like there will be 6 pools with 4 teams in each. In effect, three games before you step onto the next stage. I would have preferred a bigger pool which also means that you get to face-off against many more competitive teams but in this case, you will be moved to your comfort zone on day 2. From then on, it becomes a smart play for many teams, especially the ones that just missed the bus for the gold pool - to keep their head above the water and maintain the lead against the smaller teams.

Anyways, the predictions are still to come by. Ciao until then.

Germany - Part 5

Now this is when it starts to get slightly boring for me as I have already written 4 parts to this vacation and it just doesn't seem to end! I do have to complete what I started.. So literally, the next HALF of our vacation is going to be compressed in one single post.

From Berlin, we took an early morning train to Dresden. Walked around the city for like 30 mins and then took a bus from there to Praha - back to small towns with cobbled streets. Prague was extremely crowded. Tourists all over the place. We did the usual old town and clock tower on day one and castle the next day. Took some photos around Charles Bridge and then boarded the night bus to Vienna.

The bus company - Student Agency, was awesome. They had in-bus entertainment with movies and TV shows. The staff also offered hot chocolate / coffee. But in exchange, dropped us at a random place in Vienna at 4.30am. So we checked into a hotel for like half a day, got some sleep and walked around the city. It was all the same now - city center, palaces, museums and cathedrals. We changed our objectives - Sachertorte and Viennese coffee! We planned our tour in the city around these.

Quite bored with Vienna, we decided to head to Bratislava the next day. This city was a huge surprise for us. It was a dead city. We could literally count the number of people on a Saturday mid-day! In less than 2 hours, we decided to head back. We reached Schonbrunn palace that afternoon, had a look around and then it was time to catch the bus to Munich.

Day one - we did the free tour. It was awesome. Our tour guide, Blake, was a quarter-back with the Munich Cowboys. He did a fantastic job. After the tour, I headed towards the BMW Museum. Came back in the evening and then met Blake for a Beer Tour! That finished around 11pm. The next morning we had the Disney Castle tour with Blake again. Rain played spoilsport but overall it was still good. The next day we spent a few hours at the Deutsches Museum - one of the best technical museums in the world. Sadly, due to lack of funds, most of their exhibits are in German. After a point we got bored and walked out.

Next stop was Freiburg - capital of the Black Forest. We got there by night and decided to head to Triberg the next day. Spent the day hiking up the waterfall - wasn't any great at all but apparently this place is a big attraction. Then tried the original black forest cake.

The next day, our stop was Heidelberg - the most beautiful place after Berlin. This university town is famous for its one mile long shopping road. Whatever time was left between walking out of shoe shops was used to see parts of the old town.

With Heidelberg done, our tour was coming to a close. We took the train to Frankfurt, spent the next day walking around the city and boarded the flight back. I could have detailed this post a bit more but its just taking a lot of time. Hopefully the photos will have a better story!