Theory of Soccer Pt. 2: The Abstract
Reframing a macro and micro general theory of soccer
In part 1 of this new “Theory of Soccer” cycle, we toured some of the prevailing mainstream assumptions that we suspect might be underpinning soccer analysis today and uncovered some of the unresolved tensions within these. These next several posts together are a project to explore and then synthesize some of the soccer things (and non soccer things) I’ve been reading and reflecting on for years into a coherent theory of soccer that might tackle the tensions in the prevailing theories of soccer. Over several chapters we’ll forage and critique insights from the soccer analytics and soccer tactics spaces, borrow some ideas from chess and other sports and patch together a theory. But first, I think it’s important to give you a bird’s eye view, a summary or abstract of the overall thesis as it has started to take shape. So that’s what this is. This is the “pitch” so to speak. Despite its length, I apologize if it is at times abstract. I suspect I’ll have plenty of time to fill in the spaces in the chapters to come, but let me know if you have specific questions. I submit this humbly, accepting it is by definition incorrect!
I. Macro Soccer Theory
At the macro level, a soccer game is the struggle between two teams, neither of which hope to fully “control” the ball, but who are both 1) working to build the capacity to find “paths to goal” before their opponents do, and 2) when these paths to goal are present, they are executing to convert these paths to goal into goal scoring chances. Working to build the capacity to find paths to goal is a process which involves among other things an interaction between inputs like chance, player abilities, manager effectiveness, and tactical ideas in the hopes of tilting the balance of found/available paths to goal toward one team at the expense of another. The range of goal scoring probabilities for either team is relatively narrow during this process/phase and as it concludes.
In contrast to this process of “building the capacity” to find paths to goal, when paths to goal are suddenly available, executing to realize these infrequent paths to goal (convert them into goal scoring chances) involves moments where players are simply “playing” (performing and expressing themselves): moments absent of all tactical or game model considerations. These “path to goal” moments can appear at the end of a successful possession, but they appear most commonly at the end of unsuccessful possessions in the transitions between possessions. The range of goal scoring probabilities for either team swings wider with more volatility during these moments and as they conclude. In turn, this is the mechanism by which player ability has an overwhelming impact on match results relative to that of the execution of a manager’s tactical ideas or choices.
“Control” is not really possible. Soccer is a “ball game” and all ball games have chance baked into them from the beginning — this is the very thing that makes them ball games and not some other type of sporting competition like wrestling or sprinting. As Carlin Wing puts it, the ball adds an element of uncertainty or bounce which is one of the necessary conditions for “play.” And this planned and accepted presence of chance makes “control” in soccer only a fleeting dream. Beyond just the presence of a ball, not being able to use your hands means the body parts you use to stand and move around with are also the body parts you must use to control the ball. To state the obvious, this means that soccer is not a fully deterministic sport. In fact, of all the ball games, it’s perhaps the chanciest. At its core, both sides are doing their best, as individuals and as collective units to do something really difficult: to find a “path to goal” with the ball and to prevent their opponents from doing this (and then to execute when those paths to goal are available). I’ll define “path to goal” perhaps as the space suddenly made available preceding the last move or two before an opportunity to take a high probability shot on goal.
Because control of the ball is so fragile not only will paths to goal rarely be realized/converted into good scoring opportunities, but both teams should expect to fail to find paths to goal at all over a short time horizon (say within a given possession sequence). So over the course of a match, at any given moment teams are mostly focused on doing their best to “build the capacity” to find a path to goal at some point… maybe not during this possession sequence but at some point, preferably soon, and importantly before their opponents do. You’re kind of just always trying to ready yourself to find a path to goal when you have the ball and the opposite when you don’t (while also keeping in mind the reverse, to prevent giving your opponent one when you have the ball etc). You control what little you can. Even when executing at a high level, successfully creating a path to goal is a rare achievement.
Disorganize to access
Now, because while one team is building the capacity to find a path to goal their opponent is simultaneously working to constrict and eliminate the space (and time) needed to create a clear goal scoring opportunity, you can think of finding a “path to goal” then as the act of disorganizing this defense in a way that opens up space (and time) for the attacking team to control the ball if only for a moment in an area where they can create a good chance to score. They’re trying to create “access” to the valuable space the defense is trying to lock away. Because it’s easier to score from closer to the goal, normally a “path to goal” is a path into the valuable space that is the center area of the penalty area, but any space where a player can control the ball with only the keeper to beat is very valuable as well (think about how much more valuable the space just outside the penalty area can be when there are no defenders in the way, when a player is through on goal). An operational definition of this “access” or this “path to goal” is difficult to articulate (at least for me), but it is broader than simply a path along the ground, or a direct path through the air. If we were trying to define this precisely, we might have to consider not only physics (the forces affecting the ball’s traverse into the space we’d like it to go) but also the “predictive capacity” of the human brain to clearly define this space (how often can a player be successful and to what degree in moving the ball to where he wants it to go). Suffice it to say, whatever it is exactly, it’s what’s on the mind of most of the players most of the time.
Backing up for a second, to “build the capacity” to find a path to goal is to successfully execute on an individual and collective level in a way that makes your team more likely to find a path to goal with some modest level of consistency. A big part of this is “buildup” play and an opponent’s resistance to this buildup play. John Muller describes it beautifully as part of his “Big Book of Buildups” series:
One of the main problems soccer teams in possession have to solve is that they’re facing the wrong way. Sure, the guy on the ball is pointed toward goal, and maybe a few guys alongside or behind him are too, but to get to goal you generally have to pass it forward to players who are facing backward. Those players need time to receive the ball, turn, and face goal so they can make the next play. They need space.
The defense’s job is to deny them that space, and one of their advantages is that they’re all aimed the right way, toward both the ball and the goal they’d eventually like to score on. Defenders can see the field. They can see—most of the time—who they’re supposed to mark or screen or close down when the press is triggered. What the attack really wants to do is rearrange the defense so that they’re moving and looking the wrong way as the ball is passed forward to a player in space.
If paths to goal rarely appear and are most commonly quickly destroyed when they do, by working to build and constantly repair the conditions for finding a path to goal, the attacking team will still fail most of the time, but over time will find more paths to goal than they otherwise might, and importantly more than their opponents will. This is why a manager must have an idea of how he wants his team to play in every phase of the game (a “game model”), must communicate this idea to his players via principles and sub-principles and individual player instructions via training exercises, and why the players must be aligned and working towards these overall game model principals (and contributing to create them themselves) on both sides of the ball to edge their team towards consistently building the capacity to create paths toward goal and undermining their opponent’s capacity to create paths toward goal. The act of building the capacity to find a path to goal is in part the execution of the manager’s game model and tactical instructions on a collective level and in part improvisation by the players performing to the best of their abilities and expressing themselves in ways they feel most comfortable and natural and in the face of opponents who have their own opposite ideas they’d like to stamp on the game as well.
Paths to Goal
By contrast, in the rare moments when a path to goal is present, what now follows is a moment devoid of detailed tactical planning and execution. Individuals together with their teammates are now just reacting and performing to take advantage of whatever previous tactical successes (or the fortunes of random bounces) have led to this moment where a path to goal is now available. In this way, paths to goal are moments where player skill or ability is paramount, vastly outstripping the importance of tactics or team shape, or the manager’s instructions however specific or high level those might be. To clarify something, I’m not saying that in these moments of “access,” the result comes down to a single player executing. The players themselves are operating in relation to one another, anticipating each other’s movements and actions - so they’re still coordinating (teaming), it’s just that the execution of these “paths to goal” moments whether individually or collectively does not come down to the execution of a manager’s game model (a set of instructions he has built up for each phase of the game taking into consideration his style of play and recognizing the tradeoffs attached to various tactical decisions). In these moments when a path to goal is available, the tactics have already done their job. Now, it is the players’ expression and execution of their ability, largely relying on their instincts (and in combination with the inherent chance in the sport) which determines the outcome (are they able as a team to create a good shot out of this opportunity?). Taking advantage of a path to goal is a team effort primarily influenced by player ability. Building the capacity to find a path to goal is a team effort, influenced heavily by the manager’s game model and the players’ coordinated execution of the instructions that comprise it, where the tactical tradeoffs and styles of play reside.
Again, a path to goal does not materialize on most possessions. It hardly ever does. Instead, the most common result of building the capacity to find a path to goal is still a turnover of the ball and the beginning of a transition phase, where your opponent is now looking to begin building the capacity to find a path to goal at your own expense. Most possessions end in this “transition” from one team attempting to build the capacity to find a path to goal to the other team attempting to build the capacity to find a path to goal. Sometimes, these transition phases might persist for some time as neither team is able to successfully “control” the ball in any meaningful way after dispossessing their opponents.
Critically, if the definition of a path to goal is a moment when the defense is disorganized in a way that leaves space and time for the attackers to control the ball inside a dangerous area, then we have to think really carefully about these transition moments when the ball has just turned over ending a previous possession. In these moments, the team which has been building capacity to find a path to goal (executing the manager’s tactical plan in buildup) is suddenly not doing this, and they may in fact not be totally organized in such a way so as to eliminate the space and time needed for their (now attacking) opponents to create a goal scoring opportunity in the other direction. They might also be outnumbered depending upon where the transition is taking place, but even if they aren’t, as transition phases develop toward goal, they often just involve fewer relevant players than in buildup (think 3v3, 2v2), and when there are fewer relevant players relative to the static space of the pitch, then the likelihood of a team scoring before being dispossessed again might be higher, and importantly as the transition develops (successfully or unsuccessfully) the probability of scoring may swing wildly.
I’m basically saying there are oceans of space in transition moments. And if there are oceans of space in transition and defenders who aren’t completely organized and ready to defend it, well then it sounds a whole lot like transition moments might also be “paths to goal” (somewhat loosely defined). At the very least they are proto-paths to goal. And if transition moments are themselves paths to goal then continuing down the logic’s line, it might be the case that the transition phase of the game is the phase in which player skill is the most impactful on the outcomes, when it’s the least “diluted” by other things (i.e. team tactics and the execution of the manager’s game model instructions). Conversely, the other phases of the game, the building up and attacking against an organized defense, — the things that lead to transitions of varying flavors (they almost always do) are the result of a more diverse set of factors which include not only the players’ abilities but also the coordinated execution of team tactics (and as always in soccer, raw chance).
For a manager focused on designing a game model that maximizes his team’s chance of creating a path to goal from buildup, it is a real dilemma: this unfortunate truth that most buildups end in transition and potential disorganization going the other way. You can imagine that as you throw more numbers forward when you have the ball, not only do you create more overloads and more off-ball runs into the penalty area, marginally increasing the chance of scoring on the possession, but you are also inadvertently creating more space for your opponent when they win the ball back. To solve this dilemma, some managers might actively choose to limit this off-ball movement in possession so as to maintain a shape that limits the worst case scenario when the turnover inevitably happens (i.e. plenty of bodies still behind the ball). Others might drill specific behaviors for their players to execute in a coordinated fashion in the moment of turnover — think “counterpressing” to win the ball back immediately. On the other side of the ball, with the knowledge that one team’s possession will inevitably devolve into transition, among the tradeoffs a defense faces are how many and which players to rest in defense in anticipation of breaking into valuable space in the moments after a turnover.
I would include these immediate moments after a turnover as still broadly within the umbrella of “building capacity” in the sense that coordinated team ideas need to be executed to prevent the very next moments from becoming paths to goal for the wrong team. For the team that has just turned the ball over, an unsuccessful few moments after a turnover might mean a path to goal is suddenly very real for their opponents. A modestly successful few moments after a turnover might mean forcing their opponent to start again at building the capacity find a path to goal (rather than immediately realizing one). A wildly successful few moments after a turnover might mean winning the ball back immediately and seizing an even better immediate path to goal for themselves. Regardless, these moments following the immediate moments of transition are what you might call “chances” in the broadest definition — one that feels useful for theorizing about soccer.
Accelerating these logics
This leads us to a macro soccer conclusion that is at once both obvious/banal and contested/controversial in its simplicity. If soccer is a game where control is only an illusion, where almost all possessions end not via the creation of a path to goal but via turnover, then most possessions are about building the capacity to create a path to goal but ultimately failing to create one. And if the buildup phase is really about building the capacity to create a path to goal but failing to and it’s a function of many things operating together (player ability, tactics, and chance) while conversely moments when paths to goal are already available are really just functions of player ability, then at a high level, the role of a game model (and a manager’s tactics) is to generate a play style and set of player instructions which when executed successfully builds the capacity to find paths to goal. This means increasing the team’s chances on any given possession of finding a path to goal and decreasing the opponent’s chances (hang onto this thought a little longer). Conversely, the most impactful moments of the game in terms of impacts to the score line involve the realization of these path to goal moments via the individual players’ raw talents.
Further, if soccer is a game where control is only an illusion, where almost all possessions end not via the creation of a path to goal, but in a turnover and transition, and where the moments of transition following a turnover are themselves moments when the defense is disorganized and therefore transition moments are proto-paths to goal, then a major role of a game model (and manager tactics) is to generate a play style and set of player instructions which successfully generates more and more valuable positive transition phases than those it affords its opponents. Sure, it should also express ideas and weigh trade-offs aimed at creating clear goal scoring opportunities out of buildup, but given how rarely these transpire relative to how frequently transition opportunities arise, shouldn’t the game model be pointed (directly or indirectly) in the direction of transition as an end in and of itself? This means choosing between trade-offs in the buildup and defensive phases which together limit the opponent’s chances to break in transition following your own team’s turnovers, while increasing your own chances to break in transition following your opponent’s turnovers (tactical concepts like positional play, pressing traps, counter pressing, and rest defense all come into play here). And it might mean working to shift the severity of these moments in your favor (i.e. can we shift all of the turnovers, theirs and ours to be closer to their goal).
And I emphasize that these transitions are common, perhaps the most common situation in a football match. If the role of a player when paths to goal are available is to shine and exhibit his superior player ability, devoid of tactical considerations, and if these clear paths to goal happen rarely in buildup but theoretically are always present in transition (if only budding), then the contribution of a player’s ability to his team’s performance (when measured in terms of his absolute impact on the score line) is mostly to be found in the transition phases of the game (this applies both to attackers racing down paths to goal and to defenders, being able to defend in space in these moments of danger). Even if most of the player’s efforts, most of his decisions, and most of his active minutes are to be found in buildup or in defending buildup and even if the rarest and most impressive (the most traditionally treasured) contributions of an individual player’s ability are to be found in the buildup phase, his ability to impact the score line is mostly found in transition. Conversely, the contribution of a manager’s tactical ideas (when executed well by the team) is really the stewardship of the flow of possessions (in buildup and defense) so as to showcase his attacking players’ abilities in transition and to limit the opportunities for the opponent’s players to showcase these same abilities in transition.
To come at this from another angle, over the last couple weeks I conducted two twitter polls asking users to theorize about how the game might be different with more or fewer players involved. A decisive 67% percent of respondents suggested that if soccer was 16 vs 16 instead of 11 vs 11 then having better players than your opponent would be less important than it is now in determining the outcomes of matches. In the next poll, 89% percent of respondents suggested (emphatically) that if soccer was 5v5 instead of 11v11 then having better players than your opponent would be more important than it is now in determining the outcomes of matches. Many added some color in the replies analogizing to the NBA. Most people seem to agree that for a given amount of space on the pitch, player ability (however defined) impacts the score line the most when there are fewer players. And I would posit that this is not so abstract a thought experiment, but an observable scenario that can be found often across the various phases of every soccer game. If buildup is mostly 11v11 soccer where tactics and player abilities and other factors are coming together to influence the modest goal scoring probabilities of the two teams, then in transition is where you find your fastbreak regains or your counter-attacks, your 3v3s, and 3v2s, and 2v1s where the importance of the players’ abilities shines through above other considerations (where some of the chess pieces are off the board). As the number of players attacking and defending a given space falls, a team’s coordinated and pre-determined tactical objectives lose their grip on the outcomes, cedes it to the abilities and execution of the players involved.
Perhaps one way to sum this up is to say that a multitude of competing and complementary factors go into teams successfully or unsuccessfully building the capacity to find paths of goal, but once a path to goal is available most of these factors are subsumed by “player ability” itself. Further, paths to goal found during buildup are just specific kinds of the more general path to goal commonly growing out of transition moments. Buildup paths to goal are like farm-raised versions of the transition paths to goal found in the wild. If we are to believe the conventional wisdom that players determine the outcomes of matches more than managers/tactics, I submit that the mechanism by which this occurs is the degree to which a player’s ability subsumes the coordinated tactical impacts on the outcome of transition moments.
II. Micro Soccer Theory
For an individual player, “player ability” or the state of “being good at soccer” can almost entirely be reframed into the concept of one’s ability to “be in the right place at the right time (which is all of the time).” We can break down this ability to be in the right place all the time into several different attributes. This is true for all phases of the game, but the phase of the game where this has the greatest impact on the team success is in transition. This means being in the right place at the right time (and continuing to do so) as transitions develop following an opponent turnover and being in the right place at the right time (and continuing to do so) as transitions develop following your own team’s turnover. Being in the right place at the right time is not necessarily passive or reactionary. It is something a player can create.
In the above clip, a young Gary Lineker’s talking about the importance of off-ball movement for goal scoring. He says the trick to scoring goals is to be in the right place not just at the right time, but all of the time, emphasizing that it’s important to make creative and dangerous runs even if the service from your teammates doesn’t match your ideas in a given moment. If you keep doing those runs, eventually the ball will arrive, and in retrospect, you’ll be imagined to have been “in the right place at the right time” but in reality you were there all the time. Something like that. While he’s talking about strikers here, I see this principle he’s using as broad enough to be universal to all players, while also being specific enough in its meaning to illustrate a perspective that is actionable, to reframe how we think about player ability and to help us bridge the micro player-level theory of “what it means to be good at soccer” to the macro team level theory discussed above.
What does “being good at soccer” look like at the player level?
If on a macro level, soccer is about finding paths to goal and more fundamentally most of the time about building the capacity to find paths to goal, then what players are doing basically all match long is individually and as a team trying to control, occupy, and create dangerous “space” by being in and moving to the right places so as to disorganize the opponent and find paths to goal (moments when higher probabilities of scoring are in reach) and then continuing to control, occupy, and create dangerous “space” when these paths to goal become available (to maintain or advance these goal scoring probabilities).
Specific paths to goal that emerge are rare, and when the defense becomes disorganized, allowing access to valuable space, a team’s goal scoring probability might swing wildly depending on how they execute on taking advantage of this access, growing the space available or securing it for themselves as every moment passes until the moment has passed. Conversely, before paths to goal appear, the way you build the capacity to find a path to goal is to constantly move the ball and move players into the right spaces (places) so as to maintain as many possible threats to paths to goal as you can (and try to make these possibilities strong) as a team (while being mindful of your opponent’s chances to score when the possession inevitably turns over). A team’s goal scoring probability swings less wildly during these moments of building capacity. The fruits of this labor are the glimmers of hope themselves, the appearances of potential paths that need realizing. Nevertheless, if soccer is a struggle for valuable space, and if at the player-level, contributing to your team’s efforts to struggle for valuable space involves being in the right place as much of the time as possible, then whether or not we’re talking about 1) executing when paths to goal are available or 2) building the capacity to find paths to goal, we can reframe our understanding of “player ability” or “what it means for a player to be good at soccer” into these six or so different skill categories:
Skill 1: Knowing where you need to be
Being good at soccer involves knowing where to be from a static perspective. What is “the right place” to be for a given snapshot of a soccer game? Think of this as knowledge of the game: static knowledge of positions, what general positions are good relative to locations of teammates, opponents, and the ball. How might I link play? How might I extend our possession? How might I pull the defense apart with movement? This is a knowledge of space and what “good space” is for a given soccer moment. I don’t want to call this “tactical knowledge” because it’s more universal than “tactics” (which I want to define more narrowly) and it assigns more agency to players than suggesting they are simply cogs in a wheel, but it does involve a learned abstract view of the game (learned mostly through experience). So, if you handed a player a snapshot of a game which included the ball, 10 teammates and 11 opponents on a wide tactical view of the pitch, and if you asked him where the ideal location for the 11th player (himself) was, could he put a sticker down in the right place. Or even better a sticker with an arrow on it showing how he might arrive there? Could he explain what he would then expect to happen next?
Q: How do we know what makes a place “the right place” for a given moment in time?
A: As discussed in several previous posts, we can imagine that for any given moment in a soccer match, there is a probability that the team with the ball will score within the same “possession” and then some other probability that the opposing team will score once they are able to get on the ball next — and they almost always do get on the ball next. You could also frame these in terms of “probabilities the teams will score within some time horizon (e.g. 10 seconds or 20 seconds), or within 2 possessions each, etc, but you get the idea. Anyhow, every player on the pitch in theory (and to varying degrees) impacts those two probabilities at every moment, based on where they are (and where they’re headed and how quickly) in relation to each other, to the ball, to the two goals, and to the boundaries of the field.
Theoretically, “the right place at the right time” for a player is whichever location optimizes those two probabilities in favor of his team at a given moment in time (this optimization might be asymmetrical depending on the score line and the time remaining). Identifying and occupying “the right place” might involve moving towards a holding midfielder and showing for the ball to relieve him of on-ball defensive pressure, or it might mean finding a pocket of space in the opponent’s left half space to allow your team to progress the ball into the final third without turning it over. As a fullback it might mean drifting to the touch line to help create team width in the first phase of buildup, or as a wide attacker it could mean making a diagonal run across the back line to gain access to space for a through ball in behind or to draw defenders away from valuable spaces in the center, or holding a run to stay on-side during a fast break. It could mean beating a defender off the ball to the near post when the ball is out wide. It could mean taking the right kind of first touch and gobbling up space being afforded to you by the defense. It could also mean finding one’s proper spacing in a zonal marking scheme when defending in a block.
As explored in the “Macro Theory” section above, my belief is that a player’s ability to find the right space at the right time impacts his team’s goal probabilities the most during transition phases (counter attacks, fast breaks, for and against) because there is so much space to be had there and potentially so much space to be had in front of goal, and in these moments the impact of collective tactics to expand or constrict space is mostly gone - it’s just up to the players to figure it out.
In these attacking transition moments a player using his movement off the ball to drag defenders away — to turn 3v2s into 2v1s and 2v1s into free players in on goal — is the definition of a player turning his raw talent into contribution. A knowledge of the most dangerous spaces in transition and the types of movements that open up (or hold open) this space throughout the move is part of “player ability” and impacts the results of matches both in attack and defense. Being in the right place at the right time also improves a team’s goal probabilities during the buildup phase (and conversely defending against a buildups), but in general the space is more constricted, and the act of opening up space is more contingent on the collective actions, objectives, and organization of the team as a whole in addition to the abilities of individual players. A player’s ability is impactful in this stage, but not as impactful on the goal probabilities as when the space is open in transition.
Skill 2: Sensing (anticipating) when ‘where you need to be’ is changing
Being good at soccer also involves being constantly aware of your surroundings (locations of your teammates, opponents, and the ball), so you can quickly sense when “the right place to be” changes, and then you can react to those changes quickly so that you can continue to “be in the right place” before “the right place” changes again, as it is always changing. A player with perfect static knowledge of good soccer positions might know the game well (he might understand what positions increase his team’s chances of scoring at the expense of the other team), but he will not be able to find those positions in real time without awareness. A player with perfect static knowledge of “the right place to be” and perfect awareness of his surroundings, has perfect “dynamic knowledge” of “the right place to be.” I suspect “awareness” is impacted by a player’s in game habits (i.e. scanning the field with the right frequency during the game), as well as memory, creativity, imagination, pattern recognition, etc. Importantly, being aware involves not only this constant mental update of where the space is in buildup, but also when the space inverts because the field flips entirely on a turnover, or when it might be about to flip entirely on a turnover. The spaces that matter the most change quickly on a turnover so player awareness in these moments has a huge impact.
Skill 3: Being quick enough to arrive at ‘where you need to be’ before it changes again
Being good at soccer also means being fast enough so that as soon as you become aware of where you need to be (or where you’re about to need to be), you can actually get there quickly, before “the right place” changes into “not the right place.” “The right place” changes into “not the right place” when some combination of the locations of the ball, your teammates, and most immediately your opponents changes (as it always does). A player with perfect “dynamic knowledge” (see above) of where the right place is or where it’s about to be cannot actually be in the right place if he lacks the athleticism to get there in time. And without good physical fitness, your athleticism will not persist for the entire time you’re tasked with being in the right place at the right time (all the time, hopefully for 90 minutes +).
I’ll also leave a placeholder here for other physical attributes like height. Taller players or players who can jump high have access to space that others do not. How valuable the space along the z axis is relative to the extra x,y space afforded by quickness and the degree to which these things are mutually exclusive or not is a discussion for later (and probably beyond my scope). Suffice it to say, physical traits (e.g. strength, speed, quickness, stamina) allow a player access to all kind of different spaces, so long as they’re able to understand where it could be (skill 1) and aware of when it appears or moves (skill 2).
Skill 4: Having a good first touch so that ‘where you need to be’ continues to be ‘where you are’ just a little bit longer before you’re closed down
When you are in the right place at the right time (all of the time), there is a higher probability that the ball will arrive there too. When this happens, having a good first touch helps, so that as the ball is arriving at “the right place,” you are able to “continue to be in the right place” for as long as possible (even as that place changes). Basically, because “the right place” is constantly changing (and when the ball is where you are, “the right place” changes most immediately because of changes in the location of your opponents: namely, they’re coming to get you), if your first touch is clean, then “the right place” continues to be “where you are” and not “somewhere else” for longer, even if just for a half second longer. Worth noting - whenever you’re in the right place, and also the ball is there, the opponent will want to be there too, so as long as you have the ball, it is basically impossible to continue being in the right place forever without moving it somewhere else. As your opponent closes in, not being able to pick the ball up with your hands is unpleasant. It means you’ll have to make a decision about what to do next with the ball. Often, hanging onto it is the wrong decision (the right place has left you).
Skill 5: Empathizing with teammates and opponents to understand where they think they need to be and anticipate their arrival in those spaces so that you can make the correct choices with the ball.
My suspicion is that if you are really good at 1-4, then you are also going to be pretty damn good at #5, which is being good at choosing what to do with the ball now that it is in the “right place” and you are also in the “right place.” I’m mostly talking about passing here. There are other things you can do of course (dribble the ball, shoot the ball), but the lion’s share of on-ball decision making in soccer is choosing where the ball goes next (toward someone else who’s also managed to be “in the right place at the right time”) or if not that, it needs to go to the next least damaging place (sometimes this is out of play). If you’re pretty good at being in the right place all the time yourself, then you’re not terrible at imagining where your teammates are heading next (assuming they’re also striving to be in the right places at the right times (all the time)” or more immediately which ones of them are already in the right place at the right time, something that is again relative to where you are (with the ball) and all the opponents. In this way, you have empathy for your teammates and perhaps your opponents.
NB: Many people, when they imagine “what being good at soccer” looks like, imagine starting here at this attribute, but I have purposefully placed it after 1-4 because it is only in reference to 1-4 can a player truly have #5. Too often, we like to think that soccer is about the decisions a player makes when he’s on the ball based on the choices available. What is most important is whether his teammates provide him these good choices to begin with (by being in the right place at the right time) and whether he does this in turn for them after he’s passed the ball. I suspect even a passer with poor technical ability can move the ball consistently to good places when his teammates are providing him multiple “good” “easy” options through off-ball movement and he himself understands how they’re doing this and reciprocates.
Skill 6-X: Applying the above skills to the other side of the ball (defense)
When your opponent has the ball, you’re playing defense, and 1-5 above apply equally to this as well. It helps to know where to be to decrease the chance of your opponent scoring on the possession or to actively rest on defense with an eye to jumpstarting a transition when the ball turns over. It helps to be aware of the changing positions of all the players and the ball so you can map your static knowledge to a new situation. It helps to be quick enough to keep defensive shape and athletic enough to keep the right defensive posture and to have the stamina to continue to do it for as long as you’re tasked with doing so, and then it helps to have good touch, god forbid the ball arrives where you are when it’s time to cycle back from defensive-minded into attack-minded thinking, to flip the two goal scoring probabilities and begin again.
Alright, so to be as controversial as possible, I want to cut it off right there. Probably everyone reading this has in mind some key attribute of a soccer player that I haven’t included, but I want to challenge you to consider how it might already be in there with the right framing. And for those of you reading this saying “well duh- grass is green” I would just ask that you focus on how everything above is framed around the singular principle of optimizing a player’s location in space and time (i.e. mostly his off-ball movement and awareness) first. As you may know from prior posts, I firmly believe soccer is unfortunately framed in the complete opposite (and incorrect) way all the time by scouts, pundits, television and radio broadcasts, video games, data analytics, coaches and even some tactical theorists. Soccer is all too often framed as a series of actions or decisions that occur on the ball in the face of or in reference to the rest of the scene which has been exogenously decided by some all-powerful force, rather than endogenously generated every moment by all 22 players who are actively making decisions. This ball-focused framing of soccer is entirely wrong (albeit understandable), so part of this exercise in rearticulating what makes someone “good at soccer” is to correctly frame all of these traditional player attributes in reference to the correct uh.. metaphysics, one of endogenous creation of space in time and the interdependence between all players and the ball, rather than a metaphysics of dueling individuals encountering one another in a state of soccer nature.
One reason for this focus on the spatial temporal elements of the game, and how individual player skills can be reframed along these lines is that this space-based micro-lens allows us to connect the micro theory of player abilities with the macro theory surrounding the opening up of paths to goal, the building of capacity to open up paths to goal, the struggle for valuable space, and the interaction between the tactical (team-level) game model elements found in the buildup and defense phases and the individual player skill elements present in all phases but emphasized during the transition phases of the game.
Other player-specific skills
I want to specifically address a couple player attributes I left out. First, there’s Pep Guardiola who asks: “Can this guy dribble? I only want players who have that skill… because you can learn control and good passing.” And he’s right. It was cynical of me to leave “dribbling” out of the above, but I wanted to purposefully de-emphasize this skill in the hierarchy of “things a good soccer player does” because while there are moments in a soccer match where a player has no choice and must size up his mark, complete a “take-on” to eliminate an opponent, too often players seek out these “duels” as a result of prior individual and team failings to find the right spaces (to over-man key parts of the pitch, to create overloads with multiple strong passing options threatening dangerous areas). Being a great dribbler helps, and I’d even agree that dribbling is one of the rarer inherent skills that cannot be “taught” so to speak, so I understand the temptation to put a higher emphasis in the recruiting process on “buying” what are imagined to be “inherent skills” that cannot be improved and then trusting your technical staff to improve all the others. I would just caution that if you’re going to recruit for dribbling and flair at the expense of the rest (say in a youth prospect), understand that you aren’t recruiting for a successful team result in the near term (only later if the more impactful learnable skills are added).
Also there’s finishing.
This has been a summary of a new reframed “General Theory of Soccer,” which hopefully provides a new perspective to consider at the macro level (“what influences the outcomes of games and how/why/when”) and micro level (“how/why does a good player go about being good?”). I believe there are some immediately actionable insights there when it comes to recruiting and plugging this back into our overall front office theory, but those will have to wait, because what I’m more excited to explore with you in the coming weeks is the multi-step journey I took to arrive at those conclusions. I went looking for kernels of truth in different forms of soccer analysis and other writing, affirming and critiquing aspects of each. The first chapter is about data analytics in soccer and in particular the first wave of soccer analytics - the xG stuff. If you’re like me you’re pretty tired of talking or reading about xG at this point, but within this framework of building up a theory of soccer, i hope it takes on a different spirit. I think I can honestly say this next chapter contains within a soccer analytics argument you haven’t read before and one that connects vitally into this meditation on how soccer works.
Thanks for your patience and for following along. Thanks for sharing. See you in the new year with the next post.
Images come from wombo.art. Prompts: “Macro and micro soccer theory” and “Being in the right place in time.”


The Rugby World Cup 2015 will kick off on the 19th of September with the first game between Fiji and England, so for all you rugby fans who would not want to miss a single match, or at least not your favorite teams matches, here’s how you can download the times for all the games into your Outlook Calendar.
1. Make sure that your computer is setup to the correct time zone. This step is important to ensure that the game time gets shown at the correct time depending on where in the world you are. Go to the Windows Control Panel and open Date and Time.
(Your screen may be slightly different depending on the version of windows… it may have a separate tab for Time Zone).
Make sure that the correct Time Zone is displayed i.e. the time zone of where YOU are. (I am in Fiji so the screen shot above says Fiji). Click on Change time zone if you need to.
2. Click on the link below to download the Rugby World Cup 2015 schedules:
Download Rugby World Cup 2015 Schedule
* Click on the ADD TO CALENDAR button
* On the pop-up screen, select if you would like the schedule for all teams or for your favorite team only
* Click on the Outlook button. Outlook will automatically open
* In the popup, click Yes
* The new calendar will be added to the panel on the left
The times for all the games will now be in your Outlook.
Enjoy the games and may the best team win.


Main / Uncategorized / Frozen double trouble game
Frozen double trouble game
Name: Frozen double trouble game
File size: 237mb
In this Frozen game, Help Anna make her way up the mountain in her epic journey to find her sister Elsa. Now on Disney LOL!. In this game about the Disney movie Frozen, you have to help Anna make her way up the mountain to find her sister Elsa. Check out our page with frozen games. Go in search of Elsa by controlling alternately her sister Anna and Kristoff the mountain man. The magic of Elsa has totally frozen the kingdom and it will be a long way before reaching her ice palace. But Anna's optimism and bravery of Kristoff will be your best assets in this.
Frozen Double Trouble: Explore the Disney Frozen world to find Elsa! - Frozen Double Trouble is one of our selected HTML5 Games. Play for Free!. Play Frozen Double Trouble - Help Anna and Kristoff on their journey through the winter kingdom, in search of Elsa and her beautiful but dangerous powers of. 2 Jul Help Anna and Kristoff find Elsa by navigating your way through obstacles, gather objects, and getting to the finish line. This platform game.
Frozen: Double Trouble: Help Anna and Kristoff to find Elsa in this epic Journey. Use the arrow keys to control the game and follow the given instructions. Visit our website to play Frozen: Double Trouble or other great adventure games!. Frozen - Double Trouble is a fun platform game with the characters from the Disney film Frozen! Help Anna and Kristoff find Anna's sister Elsa, who has run away. 29 Jul Help Anna and Kristoff make their way up the mountain in their epic journey to find Elsa. Anna went off the kingdom and into isolation! Help Princess Anna and her friend Kristoff as they find Princess Elsa in Frozen Double Trouble!.
Anna and Kristoff have set off on a epic journey to find Anna's sister Elsa whose magic has beauty, but also great danger. Play Frozen Double Trouble HTML5. Search games. Homepage» Action» Frozen: Double Trouble. 1; 2; 3; 4; 5. Rating: Plays: 2, Tags: frozen. Description: Help Anna make her way up the. Frozen - Double Trouble is a fun platform game starring Anna and Kristoff! Play it for free now!. Anna and Kristoff have set off on an epic journey to find Anna's sister Elsa, whose magic has beauty but also great danger. Help Anna make her way up the.


Welcome, subscribers! Thank you for subscribing. What will be shared today and the days ahead are alpha from our Economics Design's researchers. Please keep these mails secret and do not share them with any one because these alpha are confidential. Enjoy your reading.
Short note: Hi everyone. We’re excited to share that we’ll be at Gamescom on August 24th, and if you’re dropping by as well, we would love to meet you at the event to chat about partnerships, consulting, advisories and more! If you’d like to say hello, please submit your request using the form below. We will get back to you shortly.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice
Gunstar is a 2D MMORPG turn-based artillery strategy game. It is developing its own in-house scholarship rental system, with a free-to-play clap system which allows users to experience the entire game with one free pet. However, users would need to purchase at least two NFT pets in order to withdraw their utility tokens from the economy.
Players are split into two teams where they would compete with each other on a turn-based artillery strategy. Teams have pets which are NFTs, and these pets have unique projectile-based skills, which are thrown in the hopes of hitting the targets. In PVE, the targets are computer-controlled, while in PVP the opponents are other players.
Killers: Gunstar sports a big PVP aspect with its competitive scene. The game also features a leaderboard, which is what killer architects mainly thrive on.
Achievers: The campaign side, or the PVE side, sports a progressive nature which achiever archetypes may find challenging and spurred onwards to complete the game.
Socialisers: Socialising features are present in terms of family or clan features, which are planned to be rolled out in future.
Miners: As this is a play-to-earn game, miners are foreseeably present in Gunstar’s economy. A trade-off for miners would be selecting between extracting the value of $GSC tokens or reinvesting these tokens into the game to further their progression, which allows them to earn more tokens in the future.
Investors: A pen renting system and house renting system inside the economy means that both of these NFTs could be sources of passive income if rented to active players.
Pets are levelled up with the use of GSE tokens, whereby the level is capped depending on the level of the user’s account. Users are therefore not able to purchase high-level pets from the marketplace. Pets have a maximum of three charges for energy. There are a total of 18 tickets that can be used to play the game, and these tickets and energy will recharge as the day progresses. Players can equip items to help them with gameplay, which can be acquired from the Wheel of Fortune, or purchased using GSC tokens. The Wheel of Fortune runs on an RNG mechanic.
There are two on-chain tokens inside Gunstar and one off-chain token hard currency called runes. The first on-chain token is called GST and players obtain it by arena participation, through leaderboard rankings trading on the marketplace, or through special events held by the development team. It’s mainly used for staking governance, exchanging NFT bets, borrowing these bets through the rental system and anything to do with marketplace currencies, such as buying and selling of NFTs. There is a maximum circulating supply of around 400 million GST.
The game also has a utility token called GSC, mainly obtained through campaigns such as PVEs with raid bosses, arenas, PVP, leaderboard rewards, as well as direct exchange from other players. GSC is used for the Wheel of Fortune, to roll or obtain in-game items. It can be used to merge pet fragments into NFTs, level up pets, purchase stamina – which is limited per day, and pay for house rentals and transportation within the ecosystem. The latter part is not yet active in the ecosystems (as of August 2022) but it has been mentioned in the white paper released by the development team. It is an uncapped token – an inflationary token – meaning that the more the user plays the game, the more GST token is minted.
Lastly, Gunstar has an offshore token called runes, obtained by converting it from GSC. Users can get runes through the completion of daily quests or campaigns, or by direct purchase. Runes are used to purchase raid passes, which in turn allow a player to battle raid bosses to win NFT pet fragments. Runes are also used to upgrade free bets, allowing progression within the free-to-play ecosystem. Because it’s off-chain, it’s also an uncapped token within the economy.
Skilled gameplay drives the supply of GST tokens, while GSC tokens will primarily be driven by interactions with the protocol, such as through PVE. It is possible for any user to earn runes – the same as with GSC tokens, but users could also purchase them directly from Gunstar.
As GST is a marketplace currency, anything that has to do with the trading of NFTs would affect the demand for GST tokens.
GSC is more focused on utility syncs and progression within the game, such as levelling up your pets or purchasing items that help in completing the levels.
The demand for runes comes from the need to do raid battles, which are driven by how much a player would need an NFT fragment in order to mint a new pet.
The bulk token allocation is geared towards the different sales of the token. Pre-sales of the token while 19% goes to the development of the project. 18.11% is allocated to the reserves of the team treasury, while only 16.5% goes to the team and its advisors. 15% goes to marketing activities, 10% to liquidity and market making through the different exchanges, while 0.5% is reserved for airdrops.
Idiosyncratic Risk #1
The game draws inspiration from Gunbound and Wormz. Comparisons will always be drawn, and the market may adopt a perception that Gunstar is a copycat game because of where it drew its inspiration from.
To mitigate this, Gunstar could add unique features that would help it differentiate itself from Gunbound or from Wormz. This could be done after the core game-loop is fully developed and they could add features based on other games by using the same NFTs.
Another risk which Gunstar has is botting. Strategy plays a really big part in the gameplay, which relies on the calculation and positioning of bets. If a bot is used to bypass these calculations and bypass different elements inside a stage, it could impact the overall gameplay experience for gamers.
To mitigate this, the Gunstar team should invest in anti-voting measures to make sure bots do not thrive in their economy. They should look for ways to identify if a user is a bot, or if a user is using a script within their device. This would ensure the playing field is levelled.
Idiosyncratic Risk #2
NFTs inside the ecosystem are repetitive and identical from an end user’s perspective. The only differentiating factor for these NFTs is based on their stats and those stats are based on the level of the NFTs. Everything else will probably be similar – one particular entity would have the same skills as a different NFT of the same character.
One way to prevent players from having a cap on the content and to entice them further to purchase from the marketplace – especially once they have collected all the pets – is to add vertical progression to the pets. Perhaps introduce a mechanic where players could fuse two of the same pet together, allowing players to customise the skills they want to use within the game. That helps to add depth to the game while making it more fun. It also functions as an NFT burn mechanic as well.
Idiosyncratic Risk #3
The introduction of new NFTs is quite slow in this ecosystem. Users would have to collect enough NFT fragments to fuse them together to obtain a new NFT. Once the game enters mass adoption, there will be a limited supply of NFTs. The growing demand might make it too expensive for new players to enter the economy. This means Gunstar may potentially price out future or potential users of the game.
Though the developers can always add more eggs, which would produce two NFTs per egg, this would simply be an inflationary mechanic given that the number of users or growth will eventually stop.
The team should monitor and be mindful of the number of users that they have and the number of NFTs inside the marketplace. They should continually look to add new pets to the ecosystem, as well as introduce vertical progression to avoid overinflating the economy with a large number of identical NFTs.


Free Sony PS3 Slim with Mobile Phone
Nobody ever thinks that we will get a device in the future which can revolutionized the whole gaming world by bringing a new era of 3D games. Sony, the creator of an ultimate entertainment box known as PlayStation 3, made it possible to enjoy the depth of game with 3D technology. They also invented a motion controller i.e. PlayStation Move to align the multi-dimensional world of gaming with your body movements.
The new Sony PS3 console can easily synchronize with your big screen television and helps you to relieve the stress. All the connectivity options are included in this power-packed device, so that users can simply download & store the latest games from PlayStation Network, a place where you can find hundreds of thrilling games at convenient prices.
Most of the latest contract phones can be accessible with free gifts and you will feel more pride that you are at right place where you have a chance to get a free Sony PS3 with mobile phone deals listed below.


Contact Info / Websites
Total Medals Earned: 214 (From
51 different games.)
Total Medal Score: 4,085 Points
10 Points Get killed by a zombie.
Medals Earned: 1/17 (10/480 points)
5 Points Silly cat, get off ma lawn.
5 Points That's not even a real sword.
5 Points Go back to your cave.
5 Points Farukon Paaansh.
10 Points Wololo.
10 Points Ma gun's bigger.
25 Points Systems failure imminent.
Medals Earned: 7/12 (65/300 points)
Chaos Faction 2
5 Points Complete all campaign challenges in Zone 1
10 Points Go offscreen and recover
Medals Earned: 2/20 (15/500 points)
Communist in Space
50 Points Beat the game
Medals Earned: 1/3 (50/105 points)
Crush The Castle 2
5 Points Detonate a remote bomb in flight.
5 Points Explode 100 castles pieces.
5 Points Hit and enemy directly with a parachute bomb.
5 Points Destroy 10 castles with only log ammo.
5 Points Kill a Princess or a Queen first on any level.
5 Points Kill the Jester last on any level.
5 Points Hit and kill an enemy directly with a log.
5 Points Kill the king first on any level.
5 Points Burn 100 castle pieces.
10 Points Destroy 100 barrels.
Medals Earned: 10/22 (55/140 points)
Crush the Castle: PP
5 Points Beat all castles in Black Shores
5 Points Beat all castles in Umbria
10 Points Get gold in all castles in Black Shores
Medals Earned: 3/12 (20/285 points)
10 Points Kill your first enemy.
10 Points Let history take its course.
10 Points Launch your first mortar strike.
25 Points Kill 100 footsoldiers.
Medals Earned: 4/14 (55/500 points)
5 Points Defeat the Normandy Boss
25 Points Get at least 50 Zombie Stomps in a level
Medals Earned: 2/9 (30/185 points)
5 Points Evolve the vertical movement mutation
5 Points Secret Medal: Unlock this medal to view its details!
Medals Earned: 2/9 (10/250 points)
5 Points Checking out the game.
Medals Earned: 1/8 (5/230 points)


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Aviator is an exciting and addictive game with potential for significant rewards. The straightforward gameplay is enhanced by a multiplier that increases as the plane climbs. Making smart decisions about when and how much cash to cash out can maximize profits.
This game https://aviator-games.org/ utilizes a provably fair algorithm which ensures transparency and security, rendering any attempts by players to cheat impossible.
Aviator is an engaging mini-game that lets players win big prizes by following an airplane as it soars through the sky. Each round begins with an aircraft ready to take flight and a multiplier which increases your odds. But you must cash out before it vanishes from view or else your prize will be lost forever! Aviator makes for great entertainment both novices and veteran gamers.
To start playing Aviator, first choose your bet stake – these range from $5 to $100 and may also allow for free gameplay via promo codes on the website. By testing out different strategies without risking your money, once familiar with the rules and regulations of Aviator you can begin winning real cash!
Aviator’s gameplay is straightforward and accessible across most devices, taking only five seconds for preparation before taking flight with two bets placed simultaneously. Once each round begins, an airplane takes off and multiplier increases quickly – cash out before it takes flight by carefully making decisions with patience and strategic decision-making!
Aviator stands out with its provably fair technology, which ensures each round is genuine and can be independently verified. You can also utilize its chat log feature to interact with other players and discuss strategy; however, it is best practice to follow one strategy for every round instead of changing tactics midflight.
Aviator is an exciting game with simple rules and the potential for significant profits, but players must remain wary of any associated risks in order to limit losses. They should act responsibly by setting a gaming budget and practicing on the free play version before placing real bets with real money.
This game begins several seconds before a plane takes flight, with players having just seconds to place their bets and place a multiplier before take-off. As it climbs, so too will its multiplier value grow; it is crucial that bets are cashed out at just the right moment or risk forfeiture altogether.
An effective strategy for playing Aviator Game involves placing small bets, which allows players to maximize their winnings over longer and maximize playback time. Furthermore, practicing is key as this allows players to develop and refine their strategies before wagering real money on them. Furthermore, using In-Game Chat feature will allow players to communicate with other players as well as celebrate wins together!
Aviator features an inbuilt random number generator (RNG) that generates results for every round, but this can be verified using Provably Fair settings. Provably Fair uses calculations based on Serverseed, Clientseed and Nonce calculations to ensure integrity of gameplay results.
Aviator is an engaging online gambling game, but its addictive qualities may cause lasting problems for many players. Many may become preoccupied with spending too much time in front of a screen – leading to social isolation and making hasty decisions due to lack of time management skills. Furthermore, playing for extended periods drains bankrolls so it is wise to play responsibly by restricting winnings.
Aviator offers multiple payout options suitable for beginner or experienced players alike, from multiple winning bets to the possibility of doubling after losses. Finding an optimal strategy suited to your style of play will maximize profits while preventing costly errors.
Before playing Aviator, players must first deposit funds into their online casino account. To do this, specific personal details including name, email address, place of residence and preferred currency must be provided. Most casinos also require players to agree with their terms and conditions prior to initiating any transaction – this helps protect financial data by preventing unauthorized access of accounts.
Once you have made deposits into your Aviator account, you can choose your betting amount using the options on the betting panel. Once gameplay begins, a multiplier starts out at 1x before slowly increasing as your plane takes flight. At any point during this process, players may cash out when they feel they have reached an acceptable multiplier; otherwise a crash could occur which would mean that they lose their bet!
Just a few simple strategies can dramatically increase your odds of success in Aviator game. Consider changing bet sizes, cashing out at specific multipliers to reduce losses from crashes or using Martingale system to incrementally recover lost funds. Also take note of live stats and bet board on left side of screen to gain valuable insights which may assist you when choosing bet amount and strategy. Always play responsibly using funds you can afford to lose!
Aviator is an exciting fast-paced game that takes players on an exhilarating skyward adventure. With its intuitive user interface and ample opportunities for winnings, its potential winnings are quite high. To increase your odds of success and maximize winnings, try employing strategies to enhance chances of success while practicing demo mode before betting real money. Furthermore, learning from experienced players and taking responsible risks are essential components of winning big in Aviator.
Aviator goes beyond traditional slot machines by giving players the chance to earn multiples of their initial stakes by catching multipliers in bonus rounds ranging from 1.00x to 1000x, depending on how long it is until a plane crashes. Furthermore, bonus rounds increase RTP of the game which helps players recover losses and build their bankroll.
In order to increase your odds of success when playing Aviator games, select a strategy which increases the probability of hitting multipliers during bonus rounds. Martingale system, Fibonacci sequence and D’Alembert strategy may all assist in this endeavor; alternatively you could diversify bets across various sessions to increase your odds.
The Aviator game boasts an exceptional return-to-player (RTP) percentage of 97% and adjustable volatility, giving players control over game outcomes or risks through betting decisions. Furthermore, its unique mechanic allows you to adjust bets based on previous results and player experience.
When depositing money into your Aviator game account, there are multiple payment methods available to you. Each has different minimum and maximum deposit limits as well as transaction fees; therefore it is wise to read all terms and conditions prior to making a decision.
Once you’ve earned enough to withdraw, locate the withdrawal option within Aviator game platform or app – typically represented by a button or icon. Select one that meets your preferences before following instructions to complete this step and make your request. Your funds will soon be added back into your casino account!
Aviator may be an exciting and engaging game, but players should keep in mind that it still counts as gambling. Even with its high RTP rate, there is no guarantee of a positive result; therefore it is wise to gamble responsibly within your means and within any means available to you. Due to its unpredictable outcome, there is no guaranteed way of winning at Aviator; each result depends solely on chance.
Players have their choice of deposit options available to them, including credit cards, e-wallets and cryptocurrency. Some sites require that new users submit documentation in order to prove their identity before placing deposits. Verification processes may take hours or days and should be considered when selecting an online casino. Aviator Casino provides deposit options as well as tournaments and promotions which may enhance your winnings. Aviator features an intuitive and user-friendly interface, offering players an enjoyable fast-paced gaming experience. A great alternative to traditional slot machines, Aviator provides an exhilarating gambling adventure – however, losses are inevitable!


Eagles soar and win another Bronx title!!
The Equality Charter School Eagles faced various challenges during our conference championship tournament this past week but overcame it all to reach the championship game on Saturday.
On Saturday, March 16th, we played in the Championship game vs Bronx Lighthouse who gave us our only lost this season. Unfortunately, once again we had key players missing but the team was focused and determined to get the win. We were undersized and at a disadvantage by not being at full strength but our toughness and experience took over. We had a set game plan and knew that we had to execute in order to gain the win. The game started with us being down by 6 as one of their key players was on fire and we were turning the ball over on offense. ECS called a time out to talk it over and made a few adjustments the score was very close through the first half. After half time, we turned up our defensive pressure, stopped the drives and layups by one of their key players and got a hand in the face of their shooter every time down the floor. ECS also started throwing in a full court press which caused turnovers into easy baskets. On offense, our point guard Kalvin Page buckled down and started to take care of the ball and make great passes to our players. Brian Mitchell hit a key three pointer which helped to change the momentum of the game. Key offensive and rebounding plays down the stretch by Adama Kpaan and Kasson Page sealed Equality to its second straight Bronx title as ECS was victorious with a score of 31-23.
We now play in the city-wide final four. The date is not available as of yet, it will be posted to the website as soon as it is released. Lets go Eagles!!!!!


The latest passion for board games is apparent in Richmond with the popularity of the Library Pot – Games & Brains Cafe. The Pot has a library of more than 300 games to play, from Agricola to Zombicide, Pandemic to Avalon or Mah Jong to three-player chess! You can go by yourself and find an opponent, go with friends or start a co-operative. £5 cover charge, plus a good cafe menu.
86 Kew Road, Richmond, TW9 2PQ. Tues-Fri 5-11pm, Sat & Sun 12-9pm.


With the way my beloved Rays played in the first two games of the division series against the Texas Rangers, I thought for sure that the Summer of Baseball would end tonight in Arlington. I was prepared mentally. I would be disappointed but not crushed, since their elimination from post-season play would have been deserved. And, in any case, the Rangers are not evil, so losing to them would not be as upsetting as losing to the hated Yankees. Amazingly, the Rays won tonight, and so go on to fight another day.


This rocket uses Box2D for its physics. You can steer with the (left-right) arrow keys, but the controls are a little mushy. I'd tighten them up if I were putting this into a real game, but I like them how they are for this demo. I spent way too much time last night doing figure-eights around those boxes. :)
I like it! Unfortunately the performance isn't quite where I need it to be for the rocket game. Also, I haven't managed to get it working in Firefox. I have all kinds of ideas for taking advantage of it, though. I want bad guys to shoot bullets at the rocket that knock it off course and send it spinning. I want the rocket to blast through walls with bricks flying everywhere. I want awesome explosions!


Slots With Penny Slots – The Hidden Secret in Winning SLOTS
A slot machine game, commonly called the sweets machine, pug, fruit machine, slots, poker machine or pokers, is really a gambling device that generates a game of luck for its users. Once the ball spins across the reels in the machine it causes mechanical action that results in the payouts. The device is with the capacity of generating wins from all combination of balls in the sequence – one through nine – that are thrown to it at random. Slot machines could be either electronic or manual.
The mechanical action of the slot machine game activates the lever attached to the machine. Once the lever is pulled the “swing” movement of the lever causes the coin to be spun round the mechanical arm which ends up in the player’s wallet. After the coin is retrieved it is placed back into the machine where it is once again spun around the mechanical arm, and this cycle goes on repeating itself. Although technically the process is random, casino goers have been gambling on whether or not they will hit the jackpot since the inception of the slot machine.
Today, most casino goers understand that they are going to obtain the money once the reels stop spinning. The essential mechanism of the slots is the same however. Slots generate results from the reels no matter the way the reels are arranged. There are special slots called ” progressive slots “. In order to have a straight larger payout (also to decrease the house advantage), the payout on progressive machines is definitely bigger than that of a single-reel machine.
Progressive slots are very closely related to other styles of slots such as for example “bunk” or “raft” slots. To be able to qualify for the larger jackpots in the progressive slots there has to be a minimum of four other eligible players in the line. When there are only two eligible players in the line, the jackpot is split between these players and the second player in line. The jackpots increase in size each and every time more players are added in the line. The biggest jackpots generally in most casinos are progressive.
As a slot player, you wish to get as much money as you possibly can, but this means that you need to take the risks that you may get your winnings cut. In the long run, the payout percentage will undoubtedly be higher in the event that you play your slot machine game carefully. You can use some tips and ways of ensure that you don’t lose more money than you stand to gain. Below are a few tips for maximizing your chances at a high payout percentage:
– Usually do not overlook the small ones: there are specific symbols that can make winning more likely. For example, the star symbol in a circular shape indicates that you will be going to win big jackpots. 솔레어카지노 However, you should also absorb the circular symbols like “B”, “P” and “A”. These indicate small jackpots with a small prize. Another exemplory case of these symbols will be the number seven that is sometimes printed on the payoff matrix of some progressive slots.
– Usually do not place your bet on a machine with symbolic that is located far away from the signboard or in a different room from the other symbols. Which means that your chances of winning the jackpot will undoubtedly be lower since you will undoubtedly be relying on luck alone. That is known as the house advantage and is one of the biggest factors that increases the chances of missing the very best slot machine game winnings.
– There are particular symbols that represent the different winnings that you can get. The very best of the reel usually signifies more progressive payouts. When it’s facing you, your likelihood of getting the maximum payout will be greater. To have an easier time counting the winnings, you can check the payoff matrix of the progressive machine you’re playing on. Some modern slots in various casinos will print out the amount of each line in the matrix so that you can easily determine the quantity of the jackpot that you will be likely to win.


By James Booth
One of the most anticipated games of 2008 was Stars Wars: The Force Unleashed from LucasArts. This title, approved by George Lucas himself and considered to be canon to the Star Wars universe, is set between Episodes III and IV, or, if you prefer, between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope (the first movie from 1977). In the game, youtake on the role of Darth Vader's secret apprentice in an effort to hunt down remaining Jedi, carrying out secret missions of espionage and destruction on behalf of the Dark Lord.
Resurrecting my "We Got Game!" column, I'm taking my Force powers with me wherever I go in this hands-on look at the PSP version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed shown in Figure A.FIGURE A
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (click for larger image)
Looking to redeem a game franchise that has had a less than favorable reputation over the years, The Force Unleashed is one of the most impressive LucasArts offerings to hit the gaming world. Available on nearly every gaming platform, Unleashed should find an audience regardless of what system a gamer owns. As a matter of fact, the PC and Mac are the only current gaming platforms where you won't find The Force Unleashed.
How best to use the Force
With so many platforms to choose from, which is the best for your Force gaming experience? That depends. What are your gaming priorities? While the story of the game is pretty much the same across all platforms, feature-wise, each version offers something a bit different from the others.
"I'm currently on my third run through the game. The first was just to complete it, the second to blow the snot out of everything."
If visuals are your priority, then the PS3 or Xbox 360 would be the path to take. Taking advantage of the Havok gaming engine and fully destructible environments, I would expect the PS3's BluRay to be visually superior. But from what I've been able to ascertain, the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game are identical. Gamespot has some PS3 gameplay video offering tips on how to deal with some of the Bosses and how best to level up your powers. If nothing else, it gives you an example of what the game looks like on the PS3.
The PS2, Wii, Nintendo DS, and PSP offer a visual experience pretty much the same regardless of system. Many gamers find multiplayer to be an essential element of their gaming, and those players will be sadly disappointed to learn that multiplayer is only offered on three systems: the Wii, DS, and PSP. Multiplayer on the Wii is really only a head-to-head dueling mode for two players on the same Wii, and not an Internet multiplayer game. On the DS, it's supposed to be an adhoc for three or four players.


Any chance I can get a test build for Windows? I can do a showcase on my YT.
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android
Welcome to Ball Run, a game about maneuvering a marble through a course. You can hang from blocks, climb walls, and roll across the floor. As you work your way through the course, try to collect as many tokens as you can to get the highest score. If you get stuck, just look at one of the hints listed beside the obstacle. The game is played on a 2D plane but has 3D graphics. This is my first full game made in Unity, so I am open to suggestions for obstacles or stages at firstname.lastname@example.org.
If you like the idea of the game and want to help further develop it, please help to support by donating. Every penny is appreciated!
2017© CV Programming - All Rights Reserved
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It's not every day a customer comes screaming into your store. It's even more unusual when that results in a good thing.
That's exactly what happened to one downtown Mount Dora store owner last Friday. A regular customer excitedly notified Crissy Stile, owner of Barrel of Books and Games, that “Pokémon GO” featured her business as one of the “spots” to catch Pokémons, miniature animated monsters.
Say what? The game is an insanely popular mobile app that has 21 million active players daily combing the streets across the globe to catch the decades-old Pokémon characters. Think of it as a frenzied, digital scavenger hunt requiring a cell phone. The goal is for players to find each “spot” to catch different Pokémons with varying point values. Mount Dora has become a popular "Pokémon GO" location because there are in excess of 20 “spots” and 3 “gyms” in the small downtown area.
The historic Donnelly House is designated a “gym” where players go to “battle” for coins. Barrel of Books and Games had lures inside for two days so more Pokémons were lured to the store. As a result, players would come into the store and try to catch them. Pokémon GO, currently the biggest mobile game in the U.S., has improved foot-traffic downtown in what would otherwise be its slow season. “It certainly has made people aware of our super-awesome store,” said Stiles, laughingly who also owns Alleyway Comics. “I probably saw about forty people playing today and on Saturday I’d say it was probably in the hundreds.”
The mobile app makes money by selling in-app purchases of coins to buy lures and other coveted items in the game.
National media has reported safety concerns about the app. The fear is pedestrians playing the game will be distracted from watching for cars and safety hazards as they scurry from spot to spot. Additionally, thieves have reportedly lured players to locations with the intent to rob, and it was yesterday today that one player found a loaded gun instead of a Pokémon.
One positive effect of Pokémon GO is that by utilizing Google Maps, the game rewards players with points for the distance walked. Then there’s the local benefit: players that stop in to The Coffee Branch Cafe on Fifth Avenue downtown will receive a 10% discount.
Get more news and events for Mount Dora, Tavares & Eustis here.


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People need cholesterol to maintain your sanity.
1. cholesterol [kəˋlɛstə͵rol] (n.) a substance in your blood that can cause heart disease if you have too much of it
1. semi- = half
semifinal (n.) one of the two games that are played immediately before the last game in a sports competition. The two people or teams who win the semifinals play each other in the last game, called the final, to decide who wins the competition.


This isn't something I've done; I haven't been able to try it. I don't know if anyone is willing to go through the trouble of playing games in such a slow, involved way when normal multiplayer games are available. But every so often, I get an idea in my head that I at least need to write out, so here it is.
Asynchronous gaming, as far as my knowledge goes, goes back to correspondence chess nearly a millennium ago. Special postcards have been made just for the purpose of playing chess over mail, with games lasting years at a time. I don't think I would want to go that far outside of some very special circumstance. I can't see myself playing the same game for years, taking months to come up with a countermove.
That said, the same idea can be applied to email. You can play games by sending moves in the form of files, which opens up certain possibilities that I found somewhat compelling. Board games, for example, can be played by recording moves in VASSAL and sending the resulting file to the next player. There are certain turn-based computer games that could probably be played like this too, like Civilization. I think there's actually a play-by-email option in the newer Civ games.
I also think it might be fun to play games simultaneously rather than in a multiplayer fashion. Single player games can be played in a sort of book club style, where everyone shares scores, secrets, strategies, and discusses the game for a week or two, moving on thereafter to a new one. I guess this isn't really a new concept. When any new game comes out, people naturally flock to forums and discuss it as they play. But maybe doing it more deliberately with older games would be cool.
But there's one idea that that I think is worth trying out. Years ago, I remember seeing options in emulators to record movies not to video files, but as series of inputs to be played back by the emulator itself. Retroarch still has this option, which you can access by pressing 'o' while playing a game. You can only record from within the program, however; you need use the command-line the to play the file back. The recordings are known as input movies, and they're saved as .srm.bsv in the Saves directory.
The command is
retroarch --bsvplay [path/to/bsvfile] --libretro [path/to/core] [romfile]. Once you start playing the file back, the game will play itself in just the way it was recorded. I think you can even save and load savestates while recording, and it plays back just fine. Take the recording and send it to the next player. When the playback is finished, the game simply continues to run, allowing the viewer to keep playing, recording gameplay and sending the recording back again.
Why would you want to do this? I'm not too sure, honestly. Maybe you have a pen pal who isn't awake at the same time as you are, but you want to play games one way or another. Maybe you want a little something to do during a break on busy days. Maybe you can have multiple games going with other people in a turn-based game club or something.
Anyway, this is something I've had in the back of my mind for quite a while now. If anyone else wants to try it, it would be cool to hear about the results.


Baccarat (pronounced BAH-kah-rah) is a popular card game especially in Asia and North America. The game is a simple card game with no requirement of a strategy. You simply have to choose what you want to bet – the banker or the payer. Then the cards are dealt and one comes to now if he has won or lost. It is a straight, simple game where you simply pick your bet and then wait to see the outcome.
Rules of the game
Get a score closest possible to a “natural 9” or a “natural 8”.
In case of unnatural score: another card drawn to obtain a better score which is closer to the natural
In case of score more > 10: left digit dropped, right digit becomes the score
Winning tips to play a better Baccarat online
TIP 1 – The primary trick while gambling online or offline is to know when to call it quits. This is a game of pure luck and has nothing to do with strategy. One has to be very careful with money. Made yourself a decent amount? Leave the table before your Lady Luck leaves you. It is important to know to leave the table when the stakes are getting high. Cash on your winning streak and leave when you are making money. They key is to decide on the losing amount at which you will leave the game.
TIP 2- The rules of the game say that the player either bets on the banker or the payer or lastly on a tie. You should know that the winnings adds are in favour of playing against a player rather than a tie almost always. It is best in most cases to choose to bet on a definite party.
TIP 3 – Let the bet start with small amounts. It is advisable not to start playing with high bets. Begin with smaller amounts and if the luck favours you- slowly bet bigger amounts. It is your hard earned money. Let it make more money for you.
TIP 4 – Playing online – Search for casinos with low house charges. Standard commission charges are at 5% but there are casinos with lesser commissions. These commissions can go as low as up to 2.75% to 4% directly impacting an increase in your take home due to less tax deduction.
TIP 5 – During the game try and study the pattern. This is like any other risky gambling game with no strategy application. If you still are able to spot a pattern follow it. In a situation where there is no identifiable pattern, you simply have to rely on your luck. You can try betting on whoever had won before the last game. Remember to switch your bets wisely as it is very unlikely that the same party is able to snag a win more than 3 times in a row.
James Bond had also played the famous Baccarat game in one of his movies. Baccarat is a good game for someone who is progressing from the slots to the next level in casino gambling. An online exposure gives the much needed learning and fun. This is a simple game of luck in which there is no trouble of deciding if to hit, or stand or raise or any such thing.


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