At most fingerboard contests and tournaments I constantly see the game SKATE as being the contest which like determines it all and for some reason I just don't think that SKATE should hold such a big importance.

I was recently watching Battle at the Berrics with Eric Koston and after hearing about all of the rules and such I just think that a game of SKATE just really limits skaters and reduces their full potential.

Just think about it. Eric Koston is an amazing skateboarder who has been around a long time. I don't like SKATE because if you miss one trick then you get a letter. Anyone can mess up on one trick. People like Eric Koston have bags full of tricks and tons of ideas on how and when to use them. Just because he messes up on a kickflip do you really think that hes doesn't know how to do a kickflip?

Now SKATE in fingerboarding isn't exactly like Battle at the Berrics, but it's similar. I just don't think single tricks should determine that much. What if I'm really good at doing heel flips and my opponent can't do them for jack. So guess what I'm going to do? Spam the hell out of heel flips and guess who is going to win? Me! All you have to do is find other people's weaknesses and exploit them.

I think a great fingerboarder is just someone who goes out there and does their best. What if somebody can't kickflip at all, but they have the cleanest impossibles. Does that mean that they suck? I say no. It just means that they have different skills.

If I had to decide who was a great fingerboarder what I would do is just watch very closely several fingerboarders and see what kind of tricks they pull off, but tricks really aren't everything. You have to look at the person's style. Are they sketchy or do they land everything clean? Are they pushing them selves to higher levels? So what if they didn't land something on the first try did they eventually get it after the nth try? And you have to look at their attitude too. Are they really into it and are truly supporting the scene or are they a total asshole and are completely full of themselves.

And I think the game SKATE is just unfair in its nature. Whoever goes first is in control of the game as long as they land their tricks. I think for a fair game it should go like this. There should be two games of SKATE. In the first game, person A goes first and in the second game person B goes first. This way both skaters/fingerboards get a chance of going first and being in control of the game.

And... all I have to do to increase my odds of wining in a game of SKATE is just to SPAM as many easy tricks as I can and hope that someone will get cold fingers and mess up.

Example

All I have to do is this:

1st trick: 50-50 grind
2nd trick: fakie 50 -50 grind
3rd trick: 5-0
4th trick: fakie 5-0
5th trick: nose grind
6th trick: fakie nose grind
and
so
on

And I swear to God that I'm going to do this at the next fingerboarding event that I go to and then I'm going to win the event by doing this and then I'm going to tell everyone there why this game is stupid and doesn't really determine anything.

Seriously!!!

i have noticed that people spam the opponents weakness for example in this video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx1HllHEOK8) mike says "heelflip" and daniele pulls a face as if he struggles with them and then mike does varial heel and other heel combos and wins, so i see where you are coming from but part of fingerboarding is about the consistency because anyone can just do trick if they sit there for hours, so if your looking for a consistecy test then skate is the way to go. But if your looking for good combos and variation then thats what best trick and best line are for so there are different competitions to show different aspects and imo consistecy is the most important aspect

Its just an easy to measure 'battle', it's unbiased such as judging runs can be, and it tests the consistency of a fingerboarder.

yeah really if you are "good" at fingerboarding then a game of skate shouldn't matter.

some people can do some tricks, some people can't.

that's skill, not unfairness.

It's actually one of the most practical way to do battles. Best Lines and Best Trick contest are more fair in paper but when people actually do it, some might say a judges vote is bias or crap like that and it all falls apart when using SKATE if you fail you get a letter. No favoritism or crap like that. It's True or False, 1 or 0, Land or Bail.

Pureskate wrote:

And... all I have to do to increase my odds of wining in a game of SKATE is just to SPAM as many easy tricks as I can and hope that someone will get cold fingers and mess up.

Example

All I have to do is this:

1st trick: 50-50 grind
2nd trick: fakie 50 -50 grind
3rd trick: 5-0
4th trick: fakie 5-0
5th trick: nose grind
6th trick: fakie nose grind
and
so
on

And I swear to God that I'm going to do this at the next fingerboarding event that I go to and then I'm going to win the event by doing this and then I'm going to tell everyone there why this game is stupid and doesn't really determine anything.

Seriously!!!

You realize that you have just as big a risk to fail those tricks as your opponent?

Another thing. What do you think happens when Eric Koston participates in a contest based on runs and he fail to make a kickflip?
He gets a lower score. That's the way contests work. If you have a bad day then you are going to lose.

Just to back this up with an example (kinda). There was X games in barcelona recently.
Some dude makes a killer run that would give him around 40+ (out of 50), then he slams on his last trick. His score is 26.

Skate is the only way for contests....

Wait we could use tony hawks pro skater scoring and add the points up after each run

Yeah, I think its complete fairness because you have the same risk to miss the trick as your opponent. Game of SKATE is on skill, it has nothing to do with fairness.

I don't really have a problem with SKATE, but I'd rather see runs and lines like in the X-games.

Game of SKATE is ok.

It's a good way to compete against someone for flatground ollie based tricks. There are specific competitions in fingerboarding and skateboarding designed to test people in this specific area.

In skateboarding, I royally suck at SKATE. Despite skating for 10 years, I never learned flip tricks properly and my style is basically a mixture of any random crap that I can do, including more old school and freestyle tricks than most people. I can't kickflip. In fact, I can't do most flip tricks. What I can do, however, are a retarded amount of shove it variations and switch/nollie hospital flips.

There are also run based competitions and as long as the environment is varied enough and the time limit is long enough, a fingerboarder or skateboarder can demonstrate their true all-round skill without as much limitations. It's not really biased if you have a few neutral judges.

Then there are other competitions styles like best trick, first to land X, king of the road, styleathon and many variations of SKATE. I love different types of competitions but I think the run based comp is the one that's most representative of a rider. However, different competitions cater to different people's tastes. If there was a freestyle skate competition in the UK, I'd consider entering. I would suck at most styles of skateboard comps apart from this particular niche.

You do realise that best line/trick contests usually last way longer and they are also way harder to judge even with a panel of judges? And they are of a completely different nature?

SKATE is a quick way to test your consistency. Sure sometimes people slip up, but it's also up to them to hold their score up too. It's a battle of people trying to outlast each other on trick consistency on flat ground - I mean, should we remind you that before you start bringing your tricks to obstacles you need to learn the tricks on flat first? The outcome of SKATE games aren't exactly the most predictable either. Doesn't matter whether you only go for simple tricks or whether you go for harder tricks. If a player can match whatever his opponent just set and land it clean enough with his fingertips not hanging off the edge of the fingerboard, it's all good.

Oh. You know the thing about "exploiting your opponent's weaknesses"? Most of the time if you don't personally know someone you won't really know what their weaknesses are and neither will they know yours, and here's the thing - you're responsible for working on your own weaknesses. Everyone is, and everyone has their own weaknesses to work on. Just because someone else can do something that you can't, don't whine about it. It's not unfair when everyone has to deal with it.

Anyway, skateboarding and fingerboarding are each made up of various disciplines and playstyles. In other words, there is no one fixed definition of how people should fingerboard and a fixed definition of how you can test someone's fingerboarding. Confining it to just one kind (e.g. SKATE alone, or Best Trick/Line contest alone) - especially for fingerboarding, is very limiting.

And you know one thing? SKATE actually pushed me to learn tricks that I couldn't do in the past. There was a period of time where I would just keep playing SKATE with all of my friends during every single meetup we would hold every couple of weeks. Through all that, I improved and learnt new tricks extremely quickly. It's a nice way to push yourself forward. All I can say is try not to avoid it and just embrace it like everything else.