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I for one applaud the idea of a unified ruleset. I mean, why the fuck not!? The only differences in the rules are minor. Doesn't mean that there won't be controversy (like if mallet shape and hole diameter were to be regulated, which it isn't anywhere as far as i know). But as we saw in Seattle the style of play isn't really that different around the world. And i'm not just talking about the two videos people have seen so far, which it seems people want to reach some really broad conclusions from.

They're discussing how to deal with lefties in some threads.

uh, they are? FUD.

Some endo-tailwhip bullshit from the dude playing with dustin and seabass.

That's called a dolphin slap around these parts. you have a MM:SS for that moment? Didn't see it when i edited this thing.

i agree yorgo. east coast means it's more affordable. august still means summer, so easier time taken off work/study. much stronger european rep. next year, let's remember this.

I'm excited to see lots of Japanese, Mexican, and Australian polo teams, and west coast makes travel easier for them.

But i agree early August would be best. Only problem with that is then any qualifiers need to happen by late May/early June so people can plan travel.

i voted yes on this poll, too. but it's mainly a vote for an experiment. Have you ever had a whole day of pickup in which shuffles were allowed? might be interesting.

Currently, I think the tap-outs are the number one rule change.

Hell yes. double tap outs have never worked. Calling out players names, often un-amplified, especially on bigger courts, is distracting at best. "disturbing the flow of the game" is just B.S., i think a ref trying to get one players attention disturbs the flow of the game way more.

Courts were definitely big. but i think the camera and its angle make it look bigger, especially wider, than reality. These weren't that much longer than Philly WHBPC 2009, around 160', with goals set out quite a bit from the back boards. But they were good boards so a hard, wide shot would still rebound all the way back in front of the net.

I actually think this court size is perfect (i like getting out of my saddle and sprinting, and i don't consider a 32x22 ratio on a flat surface all that exciting). unfortunately the game in the video above doesn't show it very well, pretty boring game. bigger courts = more pretty passing plays, and reduces the effectiveness of offensive blocking/interference as a strategy.

Our courts in toronto (the bigger of the two in NORTHSIDE 2011 TORONTO on Vimeo
) are even longer and wider. i hear the "dump and chase" complaint sometimes, but it's not much of a factor in competitive polo. It happens a bit near the end of a game by a team that has an advantage, but most people will play a possession strategy... it also happens with those players who feel the urge to shoot all the time from no matter where on the court. tends not to be who i choose as a teammate.

why do i end up writing essays when i post here ?

wtf london?

There have been well over a hundred double elim polo tourneys in N.A. and i've never heard this argument before, so i don't think this vote will have any bearing on what we (or the rest of Europe) does.

That said, i'm a polo geek so i'm arguing here anyway.

Don't vote for less polo. Vote for more polo.

Cosmic has more 2nd place finishes than Cadel Evans and Andy Schleck put together, right? People should take their opinion on this seriously.

You're allowing the format to rule the spectacle.

I've seen enough incredible two-game finals to know how spectacular they can be. The first i can remember was at NACCC 2008 in Chicago. East Van Crown last year was awesome, there's good video of it. Midwest 6, or 7 maybe, with Beaver Boys vs Machine Politics. I don't think any of the participants in those games would have wanted a different format, and certainly not the spectators.

It seems like some people haven't gotten past that initial confusion when they first encountered double elim.

From a finalist perspective: It's very common that the winner of the winners bracket was the team that sent the winner of the losers bracket to the losers bracket. With a single game final, you could easily end up with a "winner" who has a 1-1 record with the other finalist. That's a dirty way to win, and if it was me, i wouuldn't feel like i deserved it. Play the second (well in this case, third, and tie-breaking) game.

From a spectator perspective: If you're a spectator and you don't want to see a repeat of the two best teams at the tourney, you're crazy! Aren't you all used to home/away series in football?

srsly, who's better at code and shit. Gabes or Kev?

gabes is better at code. i'm better at shit.

No, basically using his shoulder to create a collision. Lamer than the 838347 attempts to dislodge the keeper.

That's Robbie, he kind of invented goalie harassment, ha.

On that same play the shot goes in right before the buzzer to tie it, although the ref ruled that time had expired. Just as well cause the ref missed a couple penalty calls that would also have annulled the goal.

they don't autoplay here, surely it's the code that's picking up the vimeo url, and building the embed code on LOBP that's adding the autoplay?

no go to any vimeo video, hit embed, "customize embed code", most of them have autoplay on by default.

huh i dunno then. i just do the same thign on LOBP for vimeo videos, edit the comment and turn off the autoplay in the embed code. blah blah geek geek

"edited by gabes."

lemme guess, turning off the autoplay? RIK: before you go to the kitchen with your videos, remove vimeo's stupid default "autoplay" in the embed options. and that goes for the rest of you :p

This is the wrong place to agitate for rule changes

SOMEONE START A NEW THREAD! Although i may not particpate, this video thread is the main reason i look at LFGSS, even though Rik has one of these threads on pretty much every polo forum out there ;-)

Hockey?

Hockey has a two minute interference penalty.

As far as screening goes. If someone blocks my path to the ball, to a pass, to going to my goal, by physically placing there body in my path, i feel i'm justified in un-blocking them.

Most definitely. With our current ruleset, if you're blocking someone's path to get to the ball or the player with the ball, then you're essentially playing the ball, and therefore you should expect to be "safety buffered". I caught a few people by surprise in Toulouse with my own safety buffers.

======

All that said, if we can't get a rule on this, then we should require big courts (40m or more long, 18m or more wide). You're hard pressed to find interference as a central strategy on big courts.

will is indeed a scoring machine. so is quentin. and many teams played very disciplined. the big story for me was bordeaux, two great teams, i think both top 10. it was also great to watch Alex (formerly cambridge) and Felix on the Toulouse team called Shaft Punx (maybe a name resurrected from Cambridge?).

Many teams used interference based offensive strategies, which was boring to play against, and watch. i've never seen so few passes in a tourney (and Hugo and I couldn't get our passing game organized, so i'm including DTGP in that!)

My biggest complaint was that between the interference strategies and the uber-small courts, there was tons a ton of bike on bike contact. half the time people didn't even realize they're doing bike to bike, because they're also throwing very light shoulder checks/blocks, so they're aware about body on body, while their front or back wheel is banging around. or some players who turn their front wheel to box you in, when you've already started moving, so they end up t-boning. the side of your wheel with their turned front wheel. very difficult stuff to ref. i'm now back to be in favour of outlawing intentional interference (first put in place at the original Bench Minor, as well as ESPI last year). also difficult to ref, but it makes the game that much prettier, especially on a small court where interference is actually a half-decent strategy.

that footage is really old. i feel like i saw this video a couple years ago.

Last year NAH mandated that nets be between 180cm and 200cm wide and between 85 and 95cm high. This flexibility was because at the time nets were pretty new and we didn't want to be heavy-handed at the outset.

We've started a new thread to get feedback so we can nail this down a bit more.

http://leagueofbikepolo.com/forum/courts/2011/04/28/bike-polo-nets-whats-best

NAH will definitely take non-north american opinions into account as we make a decision, probably sometime next week, so please have your say, ideally on that thread where NAH board members will be reviewing! This will likely impact on goals at Worlds.

I just read through the first page of this, sounds awesome!

Some NAH organizers have been discussing a similar points-based system for 2012, but with a few differences:

• smaller, but more, tournaments. It's REALLY easy to organize a tourney for 16 teams on one court. It's much harder to organize a tourney on two courts.
  
• a tiered system in which you need X number (or Y ratio) of Cat A players in for it to be considered a Cat A tourney.
  
• every city that organizes a Cat A tourney would have to organize a Cat B tourney, too. But since one-court tourneys are easy to organize, no big deal right?
  
• points might stay with individual players, to continue to let players shift around between teams.
  
  

Problem is, it's going to be a ton of work and we'll likely need a full time staff person to be keeping track of everything. And even if we use this year's qualification system, it'll be tricky to decide who is Cat A and who is Cat B, at the outset. And if you can move between Cat B and Cat A during the season.

Anyway this is all speculation at this point, but wanted to let you know that others are thinking of a similar model.

it just depends on how many rounds you have. just do a dry run-through on paper. Or better yet, or ask Vince (twitter.com/hardcourtpodium) to set you up with tourney a week before, do the run-through on Podium with fake scores, then ask him to reset the game data before the tourney). you'll see how it all plays out.

Mark mentioned trying to knock the outer limits off the SR once they were dead certs for first/last so you end up with 10th and 11th as the final game (fighting for the last UK Euros spot).

You could set up 10th vs 11th, but at that stage (depending on how many rounds you're doing) you may have 3 or 4 games that determine a team's top ten status. For example if you're in 8th place and you lose your last game to the the seventh place team, you probably won't be top 10.