The 2025 Atlantic City Open was one for the books with some pretty incredible things happening. PB Fit won their 3rd event in a row after slipping into Sunday on a wildcard bid. They were in the “Texas Bracket” as I was akin to call it. They finished prelim competition with a 2-2 record handily beating Infamous by mercy rule and putting up a tough win against NRG Elite 6-4 (another story I will get to). They lost to the two other teams based out of Texas, AC Diesel (6-3) and X-Factor (5-3). X-Factor won the bracket going undefeated and garnering the direct shot into Quarter finals. Diesel would drop one to X-Factor in preliminary match up play and take the 7th seed entering the Ochos to face off against… you guessed it, PBFit. But it would be a different story this time. PB Fit would mercy rule Diesel 6-0 giving them the opportunity to face off against… yep, you guessed it again, X-Factor. And in an incredible turn of events, Fit would go on to mercy rule X-Factor 7-1, as well. In the semi finals, they would slow down the Red Legion who was averaging 8 points played per match, beating them 4-2. And finally, or perhaps I should say, “Finalement” (that’s French see…), they would beat Ton Tons in a double overtime match that went to 1v1’s that ended with Scott Stewart shooting Axil Guadin. If Axil didn’t slip on his way to the buzzer at the end of regulation, we may have had our first European team win in America….

I think it is worth mentioning that NRG Elite, after losing all 4 preliminary matches in overtime at the Tampa Bay event, continued that streak in Atlantic City losing their first 2 preliminary matches on Friday by one, all in overtime, too. On Saturday, they would lose to Infamous by 1 (but not in overtime) and be dealt their final blow against Fit losing 6-4. Besides setting some sort of record (most consecutive losses in OT), they are actually showing some real promise. They are in all their games, they just can’t seem to get over the finish line. It’s coming though.

Leverage, who won their pro spot out of Semi Pro, continues to struggle taking their second last place finish in a row. This event was particularly harsh as they only managed to score 1 point the entire event (Saturday in their Ton Ton match where they lost 3-1). I understand they are missing 2 or 3 starters. Hopefully they will have them back in Cincinnati and we will get to see what they are truly capable of. The team took 2nd in Semi Pro behind Leverage, and who bought their spot in the pro division, the Royal City Sea Dogs, finished this event 16th. They had a 15th place event finish in Tampa. In Tampa, they went 1-3 beating ASG Aftermath, and at this latest event in AC, they went 1-3, beating Seattle Uprising.

Baltimore Arsenal showed up and out winning their bracket ahead of Dynasty and Heat, but then losing in quarters final to finish in 5th place. A vast improvement over their 15th place finish in Tampa. Chicago Aftershock bonus balled their way to missing Sunday again going 1-3 and taking 14th, a drop from just missing the cut in Tampa where they placed 11th. Impact was mercied by the Red Legion in quarter final play taking 8th, a surprising drop from their 3rd in Tampa.

Okay, let’s get into it about Dynasty. We will do things a bit different for this one. Whereas, I normally go point by point, I want to do more of a high level recap of our performance during the match ups. We will see how this goes. This field played to a center presence with a heavy dorito push touched off with an opportunistic snake attack. Most teams played that hand. You needed to have a good gun fighter with high survivability in that snake side can. You could use “paranoia” to slow or cause hesitation on this field. Most teams would launch offensive or counter punches from the pocket. Dynasty wouldn’t be much different since it was the appropriate way to play the field in my opinion. Sure, there were plays in the play book that didn’t look this way. And they would be there if needed… but they weren’t often needed.

VS Baltimore Arsenal

When asked if I would rather have the opportunity to scout a team or have a warm up match, I would prefer the warm up match. There are advantages to both. We had a chance to scout Arsenal as they played (and beat) Houston Heat. They played a pocket game and we felt confident in how to beat that.

Penalties didn’t help though. That being said, even when we were down bodies, we knew to push. For example, that first point, we got a penalty but the remaining three knew how to address. It just didn’t work out.

This match we played down bodies and we over gun fought…a lot. In the few up body situations we had, we would throw a body away by either gun battling unnecessarily, not waiting or calling for help, forcing an issue or trying to create pressure alone. Lots of individual play during this match. Our tempo was off and the guys needed a few reminders of how we were going to play the field. For the record, the two points we won weren’t necessarily because we executed well. And the play call for the final point was busted when Arturo got a bad start. Good solid heads up and disciplined play from the Arsenal camp.

PS – Shout out to JC Whittington! We saw you!

VS CHICAGO AFTERSHOCK

We scouted Aftershock and felt confident heading into that match. We knew there would be some tom foolery but that was to be expected. No surprises there. They appeared to struggle with NYX meaning there were certainly chinks in their armor. We would attempt to exploit them.

I was happy to see that our guns on the break started showing up this match but we would still give bodies back. If you want to understand what happened that first point, we shot two off the break and killed a 3rd very quickly but lost two pretty quick as well. It’s a 3 on 2 and my guys hadn’t tracked that 3rd body that was gone. In other words, they thought it was a 3 v 3 still. They eventually figure it out though. Great close by Alex, Ryan, and Harrison. Great execution of the game plan on point 2 even with the early walk from my man Joe Barret. Joe had a tough go of it this match. 3 points in a row he got clapped forcing a move by not checking off. We had a quick chat, it wasn’t some rocket science talk, no… it was quite simple. Anyway, he got his stuff back together and showed it the last 3 points.

That penalty point was frustrating though. We had to start the 5th point down one because of a major on Arty during the 4th point. We argued that Ryan shot Hoskinson across field prior to his launch on Arturo. But the review showed Arturo was shot prior to Hoskinson’s launch. Dadnabbit. It was now tied 2 to 2 with a little under 7 minutes left… plenty of time.

I made a mistake here with my play call on the down body point. I even wrote it on my scout sheet – “mistake, bad play call”. I was trying to decide where we should be dynamic up the center. In doing so, I wasn’t clear about roles. We got the ground and created pressure early but lost eyes on snake. Of course, Aftershock does their bonus balling shtick. That was okay because the next point they get two minors allowing us to tie it up. And it would be all us the last two points anyway. That stuff may work on less experienced teams, it was just motivation for us. I think we made a joke about it the rest of the weekend.

Harry showed out on the second to last point. Great zone control followed by an excellent read from Harry to, for lack of a better term, decimate Shock that point. We take the lead 4-3 with abut 2:20 left on the clock. Lots of time left but now we’re feeling it. Shock presses the pace next point but we absorb their pressure and turn it on them. When Arturo smoked Hosky and the clock hit 1 minute, I knew it was in the bag. Joe had kept Thomas Kim contained since his arrival at the tower. This forces A-Rod to try and make something happen through the center but Harry dices him up. It’s a 3 on 1, we execute Kim at about 30 seconds and then grab the point after the clock went under 10 seconds.

VS NEW YORK XTREME

With our 1 and 1 record, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit I was hoping to run the score up on Xtreme. This would be our opportunity to pad margin. I was really pleased with our guns on the break again. We shot a body on the break almost every point (NYX survived the break out twice according to my notes). I got a little nervous at first as we tried really hard to throw the first point away. Inadvertent horn caused some confusion on that one as well. Shout out to my boy Timmy Roberts for making the NYX team and getting some spins. Smart call NYX.

We executed the game plan decently well this match. The plan was to get a body into dorito 3, follow him up with a second body to bully the single body from the opponent, shift a third that way to pass off the containment, and start peeling bodes cross field. All of this while our snake side stayed alive, keeping eyes on, and eventually taking an opportunity to feed the snake and close. If an opponent beats us to the snake, our goal shifts a little and we want to be in there with them. It was the paranoia of an opponent being in there with you that did more to slow you down than having a forward Can shooting down on all the knuckles (this wasn’t too bad a practice either). We do all this well on the second point. Not so much the third. We shifted tempos on that one a little. I wasn’t too upset with it but sometimes we over correct.

NYX put a point up on the board on the 5th point. We weren’t over gun fighting in this match but when we did gun fight, we were getting the better of it. There is just over 4 minutes on the clock. Plenty of time to pad the point spread. Shoot a guy on the break, successfully bully our way down the doritos, stay alive on the snake side. But then, we started throwing bodies away again. Frustrating. We almost gave Xtreme another point in the 7th. Thank goodness for my man, Blake Yarber. He literally held the line in a 2 on 1 from the back center and got us our 6th point. 57 seconds left. We stuck with the game plan and it paid off when we shot their snake runner on the break as well as their 1 dorito side. It was a 5 on 3 our favor with plenty of time to get our mercy rule win and pad the margin. By the way, Dany got to show off his gymnastic balancing skills for that final buzzer beater.

VS HOUSTON HEAT

We needed to beat Heat. Sure, some of us had done some math so that, from a contingency plan perspective, if things got out of hand, we would know the situation and could play the margin. But a win by any score puts us in. And it isn’t necessary to have those conversations with the players anyway…

Our game plan matched up well against Heat. It would be a grinder but if we could control tempo and execute the game plan more consistently, we would be the victor and that’s essentially how this one played out. Our guns on the break were good again this match. I keep mentioning this because I gave the guys a hard time about our guns on the break in Tampa.

We won the first point decisively with good guns off the break, solid bumps, and pressure. Heat conceded the point after 32 seconds. Second point was a grinder going 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Came down to a 3 v 3. Arturo shoots Chad George, but at the EXACT same time, Blake tries to retreat and gets caught by Mishka. Then Mishka and Harry traded, leaving just Arturo in the snake can and Lapapa in the home. Lapapa filled Chad’s spot in the snake can just as Arturo went, making him second guess himself and ultimately getting caught.

Third point went long. 5 on 5 breakout and two minutes go by before we shot the first body from Heat. We were already wider than them on the D side but when Joe made it to the dorito corner, I knew we were Gucci. Great execution by Dany to take the ground and Yosh to get Soap off the field. A little more time went by and we took Moorhead off the field followed by a quick concession by Coach Ryan Smith.

This was a Sunday match up and was playing out that way. Not just because of the pace and the teams involved but, on Sunday, you win or go home and both of us were in that situation to an extent. I know Heat was. The 4th point was the key. We get up 4 on 3 after more than 3 minutes pass. As the clock dwindles, Heat found themselves in a tough position. We had them contained. Soap recognizes this and decided to trade out with Ryan and hopefully create an opportunity. They trade but nothing came of it other than it now being a 3 on 2. Arturo was matched up one on one with Chad George while Harrison and Joe were matched up against Moorhead. But then it happened, Arturo got hit by Chad. Joe fills to the dorito corner giving Chad the snake to himself. Harry retreated which I didn’t understand since he was well protected from snake in the dorito he was in. While I’m thinking this, Harrison got a minor clearing our field and allowing Heat to tie it up. As they stood there, I knew Heat would take it to overtime. So we conceded the point at 20 seconds or so in order to get extra game plan time. For the record, at this point, had we lost to Heat, we would have still made Sunday.

We had played pretty conservative the whole match and we decided to go a little far with Harrison. He didn’t make it but neither did Chad George. 4 on 4. Blake was having equipment issues, otherwise, I felt like this point would have been over sooner. When he finally got back into the fight, he went hunting. Because I think Lapapa was having gun issues too, and wasn’t fighting much, Arturo decided to take the snake. Soap repositioned to the brick, Ryan made the call, and Blake took Soap off the board. We end up in an island drill … and it looked grim when they picked up Arturo… but then we got Moorhead. 2 on 2 with 18 seconds left. And then… Ryan Greenspan. What can I say… the dude can play.

We were 3 and 1 headed into Sunday as the 5th seed. Good enough to shoot us straight into the quarters where we would draw the 4th seed and winners of their bracket (also 3 and 1), Tampa Bay Damage. This event had almost a deja vu feeling as in Tampa, we played three of the same 4 teams in prelims and drew Damage as our first match Sunday in the quarters as well.

We went back to the hotel, had sandwiches and burgers, put together a game plan for the former coach and my friend SK as well as former teammate Chris Schehr, and went to sleep recognizing our mistakes and feeling good about the match up.

VS TAMPA BAY DAMAGE

Obviously, we were going to key up on Keith and Chris. And, for the most part, we were successful. We would press hard on the doritos, let our center hunt on specific plays and control on others while taking snake opportunities when appropriately available. The first and second points showed this approach quite well actually. Slow steady pressure. A couple of mistakes in the first but solid execution on the second, even without Ryan.

The next three points however… we let Damage go on a bit of a tear. Third point is different if Harry just checks off. Had he checked off, Holiday is busted and we have an opportunity to counter. Fourth point, we both traded bodies on the break but Damage beat us to the middle as well as got a shot in on Joe. That collapsed things pretty quick. Tied at 2 with 6:40 on the clock. But we had learned something about the field now and it had to do with our first attacker on the D side, so we kept that in mind. We shot Chris on the break and took the snake with a center presence. Solid. Then we get a minor penalty. Dang it. Our 5 on 4 is now a 3 on 4 Damage advantage. In the scramble, Damage pulls it off. Down by 1 with 5 and a half minutes left.

We showed excellent composure and control in the next point. We go up two bodies shooting both Edward brothers but gave them one back in Dany off of a bounce shot. Chaos ensued but this time we won the scramble. Tied up with 3:30 or so on the clock. The rain kicks in but we felt good about our shots. And one pays off as we shot Schehr on the break. They got Holiday into that Hertz tower on the cross. 5 on 4 advantage with plenty of time and lessons learned. Yosh is in the center. Too tasty looking for Holiday who launched into an over watch gun. 5 on 3. Yosh then begins the hunt through the center and got another! 5 on 2 but then he was picked up but not before a concession from SK. Now 4-3 with just over 2 minutes left.

We felt confident they would send Keith on the break and they did. We were prepped and Ryan made an excellent shot and got a ball on Keith. Arturo made the snake before the ref calls Keith eliminated. We hadn’t shown that Hertz tower play all match so it was time to bring it out. Yosh got in but gave it up opting to hunt instead of contain. Ryan got out snake way behind Arturo. Dany and Joe were still alive… we were at just over a minute. I felt very confident with this set up that it was our game. Dany picks up Holiday as he tries to fill the snake… 5 on 3 our advantage. But somehow Jason Edwards makes it into the snake and Jake makes a bold move through the snake side center to pick off Arturo. They now have the snake to themselves as they see Ryan’s gun shooting on the cross. They pinch Dany and Jason launches getting both Ryan and Joe. Chris Schehr hits the buzzer with 1 second left.

We ended up in another Island drill in the overtime point. Joe Barret made a great move outside to stop the bleeding quickly followed by Ryan. Arturo was in the snake. Joe repositioned to check Chris allowing Ryan to pressure Holiday leading to Holiday’s elimination. This leaves Schehr in a dorito and Keith Brown in snake can. Keith launched to bunker Arturo. Keith misses. Arturo doesn’t. Ryan runs Chris down. On to the Semis.

*ZEN NOTE: There appears to have been controversy regarding the overtime point. I will say this, Keith called his shot on Arturo. You clearly hear Keith say, “On his hopper” pointing. There was no hit on his hopper. The paint on Arturo’s butt came from him sitting on a ball. There is no one who was ever in position to shoot him in the ass. Case closed. Technically, you could argue Keith was a dead player signaling…

VS TON TONS

The Ton Tons just got better as the event went on. They started Friday off going 0-2 versus Damage and Impact. However, they would win both their matches Saturday beating Leverage 3-1 (they were the only team that Leverage scored a point on during the entire event) and threw cold water on the Hurricanes’ bid for Sunday beating them 6-1. That was enough to garner them one of the two wildcard spots. They would wake up Sunday morning with a real attitude and give it to Uprising first in the ochos 6-1, followed by a win over Baltimore Arsenal in the Quarters (4-1). So it would be the Ton Tons we faced in the semis.

The first point was a much slower pace for both teams even though we both took the snake early. We were the first to punch the center as well as get wide d-side with two bodies. We shot their snake side can but then lose Joe almost at the same time. The first body to drop for both teams was over 5 minutes in. It was 4 on 4 for the next 2 minutes when out of the blue (with very few guns shooting) we lose Dany. Yosh gets caught a minute later. I start walking towards the concede button when Ryan got caught and Arturo shoots one of the remaining 4 Ton Tons… I concede. An 8 and a half minute point.

We answered the next point in just over 2 minutes. Tied 1 to 1 with just under 4:50 left on the clock. The third point saw our guns hot off the break again. We shot two and blow their snake side. We lose Joe early again but we were in the drivers seat… for about 10-12 seconds. Federov shot Blake making it a 3 on 3. Fabrice got a shot in on Arturo and I am making my way to the concede button again. Except Alex Fraige was already there. 2:50 on the clock down by 1.

We shot one off the break then caught a minor… a 5 on 4 advantage for us to a 4 on 3 advantage to our opponents… again. I try not to slip on the stairs I’m standing on and get to the concede. 2:10 left, down by 2.

We shot another off the break but give them two back! Bodies are running around everywhere, people are colliding, mass hysteria. It comes down to a one on one between Arturo and Federov. Arturo makes the heads up play for the buzzer and hit it with 1:13 on the clock.

It was the final point where we could argue we were robbed. A referee signals a player eliminated, turns and throws a yellow flag high in the air, and pulls a player… except he never pulled or asked another ref to pull the player he signaled eliminated. This is not in dispute. This was confirmed by Jason Trosen. The eliminated player was left on the field. My guys saw the flag go up in the air, signifying two eliminations. That eliminated player shoots Yosh Rau and stalls our push. When he shot Yosh, that should have been a major which is an automatic swing point under 60 seconds. I believe the clock was around 1 minute left. Meaning, we get the point and the Ton Tons have to play a man down so we would have been on the power play. After 30 minutes of discussion, it is decided, “Sorry… nothing I can do.” Our argument was they wouldn’t have been overturning a call, but rather, that they would have been enforcing it. But, alas, to no avail. Ton Tons, a wild card team, would go on to play the other wild card team…

But it shouldn’t have come down to that one call. We should have executed better the points prior. Simple. Lots of mistakes this event. But I guarantee you we are better for it. We implemented some new things in the pits that worked well this time. We have already discussed better preparation methods. So much more to do. Trust the process. Goals are being met but we are not complacent. I, for one, cannot wait to see my boys in blue again and get to work for Cincinnati. Lots to do…

Shout out to the Dynasty Champions Club and all the support the guys and gals provided this event and every event. You know who you are! You are the real MVPs! Couldn’t do it without you.

Be water, my friends.