Red’s Corner is a weekly column by Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner released every Thursday exclusively at Cadred.

Paul's last three columns can be read by clicking the following links:

This column is the sole opinion of the author and does not represent the opinion of Heaven Media Ltd or the opinion of any affiliates.

After last weeks ranting, you will be pleased to know I have taken a chill pill this week, although having said that, I am still not entirely happy and can you blame me, I had to spend the entire weekend in Belgium and even the Belgians hate the place.

I did have a choice I guess. I could just have decided not to go with my team (Team CoolerMaster) to the event and instead left them to fend for themselves in a barren wasteland they called Wieze with its 4 pubs, 1 bakery and nowhere to eat. What it does have however is a huge, aircraft hanger sized hall called the Oktoberhallen which is home to Frag-o-Matic. This small (relatively at 750) BYOC LAN event has been reasonably untouched by the competitive scene in the past, but its 11th iteration would prove to be different and I hope we played a small part in helping it do so.

We decided very early on to attend the event, 6 weeks ago in fact and drew up costs and plans to send our team there. In doing so we also contacted a number of other teams who all seemed keen to support it and make a decent CSS tournament of it all. Sadly, not everyone who initially planned to go, attended, but we still had 3 top teams, the best local talent Belgium could muster (not much, some would say) and a couple of decent teams from across the lowland border in Holland.

If we also factor in the presence of Gamevibes, a company who have already run some excellent and well organised competitive events in the past, who would run FOM’s tournaments, it all looked pretty good on paper.

I couldn’t fault the Gamevibes guys either. All weekend they ran around like headless chickens sorting out issues which in the main weren’t even their responsibility to fix, but they got on with it, pulling 36 hour stretches to ensure things went off well. It is of course well documented on this very site how poor the internet service was from the venue, yet still, irritatingly, some Cadred members still screamed at us to get SourceTV up and running. Which part of “The internet here is not capable of delivering sourceTV” did people not understand?

Those damn waffles

As for the internet, well, it’s hard to describe how bad it was without experiencing it yourself. For me and Corin in the “press” area (a hastily cobbled together table with some cat 5 cable attached to it) it was difficult even to post an update to a page or a comment in a news item on any site, let alone run SourceTV or upload pictures. Imagine going back to a 512k line and then sharing it with 750 people, all trying to connect to steam, wow and load an internet page at the same time and you may come close to understanding just how bad the internet was.

Despite all of this, the Gamevibes people (Tim and Thomas in particular) kept smiling and trying to help the clans get their games played, PC’s fixed, Internet issues sorted and generally help anyone with an issue get it sorted.

There were a lot of issues and really, we should have expected it. It is after all a BYOC trying to run tournaments and when that happens there is generally a gap between what is expected and what is delivered. Hell Multiplay didn’t get right first time out either, so why would FOM be any different?

Despite all of this, as a team [ReDeYe is the Team Coolermaster manager] we had a good time. Friendly people, passionate and supportive spectators and the enjoyment of our first LAN tournament together, all combined to make this special somehow and remind me why I love this scene so much.

HudzG "gets to grips" with Giftig

Some said we didn’t do very well in the tournament, but I disagree. We attended to gain experience and whilst sure the players have all experienced a tournament before, we haven’t done it together as a team of 6 people before and that was important for all of us. We didn’t play particularly well on Saturday, but in the face of a long day and some tougher than expected opponents we showed resilience in making sure we got the chance to come back again on Sunday.

It’s much the same at any tournament, regardless of game, in that two days can be very different for different players and teams. Sometimes, where a tournament felt just right and the settings were spot on, the following day something intangible changes that you can’t quite put your finger on, but never the less affects how you play. The same is true the other way round and thank the lord, because we played much better on Sunday and much closer to our potential in my opinion.

We showed fantastic character to come back from 13-2 down to draw 15-15 even if we did go on to lose in over time. We pulled off an excellent result against a team who have many years experience behind them compared to our second day together as a team and I was genuinely proud of the players for the way they battled back.

It was also a shame we didn’t get a crack at VeryGames at some point in the tournament because whilst most will believe we would have lost, it would have been good to measure ourselves against undoubtedly the best team in Europe right now. Three consecutive LAN tournament wins should see them top of our Top Ten published in the next couple of days, of that I am certain and they deserve it.

Now it’s back to online competitions and in particular week Two of UKeSA. Tonight, we see more action in CSS, COD4 and TF2 not forgetting FIFA either. It’s begun well despite the issues raised overall and whilst there are issues to work through, you couldn’t fault the drama and action from week One. If this week is even half as exciting, we are in for a treat.