[Joe Johnson]

Last week I was a judge at the Great Lakes Regional. I had mixed feelings about the game. Lots of activity but too much to watch, impossible to score.

This week Chief Delphi is in Detroit and I begged my wife and my boss to go. Both gave me the nod :-)

So...

I have to say two things have changed.

#1, I am much more adept at knowing who is up or down in the winning/lossing dept. I attribute this to folks having fewer penalities (to be honest, I think it is a matter of teams playing better and a small amount of ref's letting things go if they are "tickie-tac" fouls) AND to teams playing much smarter. Oh, yeah, unlike at Great Lakes, where the screen was on the left of the field, the Detoit Venue has the screen on the back wall behind the field, this makes it much easier to glance up at the Real Time Scoring and see what is going on and then get back to the action. The RTS is often wrong but it is mostly correct and it does allow me to quickly to get back into the action after I watch one robot too long.

#2, the Style of Play has a TOTALLY different character. Teams are getting smart about where they put tetras. It is VERY exciting to watch Team 245 play. I can tell you that I NEVER saw them put a tetra on a goal they already owned unless there simply were no other places to put them. To watch them methodically cap cover their home row, then get a few goals in the middle row, and THEN ATTACK THEIR OPPONENT HOME ROW. I am telling you, it was a HOOT. Most oppenents have a total panic attack the minute they see them coming to raid their home row. Many others are catching on. It makes for some very fun matches.

Bottom Line: This Game is perhaps the best FIRST has had. By Atlanta, I think there will be few doubters.

Comments, counter points welcome.

Joe J.