Let's talk about the VIFA Asia Open... in English. This is the largest foosball tournament in Asia, and in the past had brought in a lot of top competitors from across the continent. This year, players represented Malaysia, Taiwan, UAE, India, and Singapore. From Taiwan were Hsinchu foosball pals Jack Huang, Weichung Tseng, and myself.
The 4-day schedule was like so:
Day 1 (7/17): Newbie Doubles, Amateur Singles, 3000 Ltd. Doubles
Day 2 (7/18): Newbie Singles, Ladies Open Singles, Open Singles
Day 3 (7/19): Amateur Doubles, Mixed Doubles, Open Doubles
Day 4 (7/20): Mixed International Doubles, and final matches for Amateur and Open events
You really have to like foosball to embark on a journey where you play 8 tournament events over four days – almost 12 hours of foosball each day. Even so, we still made an effort to squeeze in some sightseeing in the mornings of our tournament, and the day after the tournament ended.
I had few expectations going to Malaysia. “Just to have fun” was at the top of my list. “See Kuala Lumpur” was another, because I’d wanted to go to KL for a few years now. From a foosball perspective, I hoped to do decently well in the Newbie events, have a little success in the Amateur events, and get crushed in Open events. In fact, I was hesitant in registering for the Open events at all because I saw little point in paying money to get eliminated quickly. But since my Taiwanese cohorts were playing, I had either had the choice of playing as well, or sitting around watching them play. Though I normally play with Weichung in doubles tournaments in Taiwan, I told Jack and Weichung to team up for Open Doubles because I wasn’t sure about my participation.
The average level of play common amongst Malaysian players is much higher than that found in Taiwan for one main reason in my mind: passing. New Malaysian players are introduced to the sport by training their 5-to-3 passing first, before worrying about offense. Consequently, just about any Newbie player in Malaysia has faster and crisper passing than any of us in Taiwan. This goes for the UAE and Singaporean competitors too - although most of them are pretty good players already. It can't be understated how important the passing game is in foosball. These players aren’t too shabby offensively as well, but it's the passing that sets them apart from us. I think what the Malaysian newbies and amateurs lack is in the defensive game psychology.
The foosball environment and atmosphere at Breakers differs from other countries in that indoor smoking is still allowed. Breakers renovated and re-organized their layout this past year with improved ventilation over last year (so I've been told), but when you put 40 chain smokers together in any room at one time, you’re guaranteed to inhale a lot of second-hand smoke over the course of 4 days. Some players (guys and girls) will even light up during the 30-second timeouts！ Maybe Malaysia will catch up with the rest of the world and ban smoking from buildings.
The tournament schedule can also be tightened up a bit, which should benefit everyone. A tournament event can start anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours late. No earlier, and never on time. On average, we were playing from around 2pm until 2am each day – with pretty messed up meal times. Part of the problem here is that players just show up late. "Malaysian Time", you could say. But they won't start a tournament event until there are enough players. The remedy is to start playing on time (or only 30-mins late) just once. This would serve as a warning or threat to scare players into coming earlier in the future. Another reason for the delay is because the tournament is played in rounds, according to tournament director Raymond Kan. Each event is double-elimination with a winners' bracket and losers' bracket. A 16-team double-elimination event will first complete a 8-match round, then a 4-match loser bracket round, a 4-match winner bracket round, and so on. Each round must be completed before the next round starts. So, each round will last as long as the slowest match in the round - which creates super long delays. Tournament organizer Raymond says this is because some players have table preference, i.e. they must play on a particular table. Pickiness aside, this preference should only appear amongst the top players, not so much for newbies and amateurs. I would recommend to Raymond that games get started as soon as the match-up's teams are set and a table is available, because you never know when a game will run long. This would shorten the running time dramatically.
Foosball is a social sport and, as I've said before, breeds some unique kind of comradery amongst players. Is everyone amiable? No. But there are plenty of players that are, and you can meet a lot of fun people everywhere. I also find that, for the most part, advanced players are happily willing to share tips and techniques to less experienced foosers. This is a reason why joining big tournaments with loads of talent is important for one's personal foosball development.
I guesstimate that a good 70% - 80% of the players at the tournament, regardless of country, was between 18 – 24. In Taiwan, I would say that 90% of players are over the age of 25. With age comes added responsibilities – jobs, families, etc – and reduced dedication to foosball. This confirms what I’ve said for a while now: in order to grow foosball, we need to start from college kids. They’re the ones with the time -- heck, most students don’t even want to spend time on school. More players with time to practice will increase the overall level of play in Taiwan.
As for my personal performances, there were ups and downs. Sometimes you just never know how things will pan out; and more often than not, it’s the luck of the draw. So, here's how my events went in chronological order.
Newbie Doubles // The highest would be set against the easiest competition. Unfortunately, Weichung and I didn't make it far, losing our first match, winning the second, and losing the third. Not quite what we hoped for playing in a Newbies' event. Being our first event of the tournament, getting tossed in without time to practice, and not really knowing what to expect, I think nerves got the best of us. So it was a devastating elimination, but also let us loosen up and play with a "don't care attitude" through the rest of the tournament. I played mainly in the forward position, while Weichung played goalie, as we had always done in the past in Taiwan. In between, we switched a few times as our game fell apart, and as we finished _____ out of ____ teams.
Amateur Singles // After losing in Newbie Doubles, the nerves were gone. I normally tend to find my game in Singles play. Being able to touch the ball on every possession lets me relax and has a calming effect mentally. I don't quite remember how this event went, but I ended up tied for 7th out of _______.
3000 Ltd. Doubles // This event places a limit on the combined ranking of the two players on each team. New players have 900 points, amateurs are below 1200, semi-pros maybe 1500, pros 1800, and masters 2200. Something like that. I might have fudged some numbers. With no previous VIFA points, Weichung and I were the lowest possible 900 points. This meant we could have tried to find pro players to partner up with. But we didn't try hard, and ended up playing together in our best doubles effort together at the tournament. We were quickly discarded in our first game against Malaysia's 7th ranked player Jhin and his partner. But with my defense and offense working from the back, and Weichung's passing and Europin clicking up front, we managed to string together 3 wins before losing our last game. Good enough for 13th place out of ______.
Newbie Singles // Newbie Singles has a lot of the same players as the Amateur events. I went on a string of three or four wins before being put into the losers' bracket by the eventual champion (Hamadi from UAE). That already put me in a position for 3rd place or better. But it wouldn't get better with a subsequent loss to Andrew, a Malaysian I had put in the losers' bracket the first time we met. To find some condolence, that game went to the very last deuce point. Nerve-wracking, but spawned a mutual respect for each other. 3rd out of ______.
Open Singles // Did I really think I had a chance? Nope, lost 2 straight games to elimination. The second match actually went down to the wire in the 5th game (best 3 of 5) where I eventually lost 8-7 against a UAE player. When it gets down to the last point, I guess it could have been anyone’s game. Unfortunately, two losses put me in _____ out of _____ competitors.
Amateur Doubles // Again, Weichung and I only made it again to the third match, and maybe only because our second match was a "can't lose" match against an Indian team. I played goalie exclusively because of some success playing this way in the 3000 Ltd event. It didn't help this time.
Open Doubles // I was iffy about joining this event. Like I said, why pay money just to have my behind kicked? Didn't you see my Open Singles results? I did. But as a last day decision, I still asked Singaporean semi-pro Martin Thong if he was interested in playing together since he didn't yet have a partner. Whenever you play with a more experienced player, you trust them with making the decisions. His use of timeouts, his strategy of playing slower when you have a lead or faster and more recklessly when against stronger opponents worked flawlessly. So, with him leading the offence and me guarding the goal, we went on a unpredictable run winning our first four games. Some of these games were against pairs of Pros, but we held our own. It’s also unfortunate we had to send Taiwanese team Jack and Weichung into the loser’s bracket in our 3rd match. But Martin’s passing game constantly had me shaking my head in amazement, while his snake shot was deadly accurate. As we played, he also gave me defensive tips which went a long way in shutting down strong offensive efforts by our opponents. But our win streak would end on the morning of the next day as we played against a very strong UAE team (who eventually took the 1st place). In the losers' bracket, we took Malaysia's top doubles team to five games before losing 5-3 in the final set. It was an admirable effort by this unsuspecting matching of a semi-pro and a newbie/amateur. So I was pleased with our final 3rd place finish among __________ teams.
Mixed International Doubles // The Mixed International event is a random pairing of an international player with a Malaysian player. I didn't really have any expectations here, because it was the last event to play after a long four days. I matched up with Andrew, the young Malaysian I lost to in Newbie Singles and we just had fun with it. We lost against a strong first team, then took two matches before falling to Jack Huang (Taiwan) and his partner Melanie (right after they knocked Weichung and his partner Natalie out of the tournament). We had a chance to win after taking the first game in a best-of-3, but we weren't playing as strong after dinner as we had before the dinner break, and this game offered little room for errors. But encouraged by the fact that we had no expectations, we had nothing to be disappointed about. _____ out of _____ teams.
And that's how the tournament unfolded. I'd be slightly surprised if any readers got this far, but I hope a few of you did. Overall, my offense was mediocre. My pull shot was big when it needed to be, and my push-kick was working sometimes and failing at other times. At the end of the day, it was strong defense that gave me a chance.
A fantastic learning experience, and just an all-round fun time. I would recommend this trip for anyone as long as you can put in the long hours.
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