You're 100% right about the beans, I have a couple of more traditional recipes but this one is my comfort food. I've spent an embarrassingly long time researching "traditional" Texian chili but even so, you can never beat the childhood favorites.

I know there are a decent amount of high profile TF2 players who also have professional experience with cooking and the restaurant industry (eXtine, pyyyour, lucrative... ggglygy). Was curious to see if there were others out there, wondering if y'all have any particular advice or any go-to recipes.

I cooked 3 meal a day for someone for about 8 months. It covered my room and board so I guess that technically makes me a former professional chef. I'm currently able to work from home, which means I've had a lot of time to experiment with new recipes and I've really been enjoying it. I've been working through Smoke and Pickles by Edward Lee, which is a lot of Southern/Korean fusion and that's been a blast. I've also been wanting to make a spin-off of the "Julia and Julia" movie called "Sam and Paula" where I work through every recipe in Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible and learn life lessons from her. Subscribe to my kickstarter if you want to see that happen.

I cook a lot of Southern food because my grandma and I are originally from Texas and she taught me everything I know about cooking. I'm including a recipe for chili below because after TF2, my 2nd favorite thing to talk about is Texas and Texian food. It's not a traditional Texas chili, we're from the east part of Texas so it has more in common with what you'll find in Louisiana or St. Louis, but it's a pretty good recipe and it's won me 2 consecutive 1st prize awards at my annual Sam Houston Memorial/Texian Independence Day Chili Cookoff.

Saute two onions while heating 3 lbs. pork and beef in a large pot. Season the meat liberally with chili and salt. Once both are sufficiently cooked, mix the onions with the meat. Add chili powder, oregano, cocoa (unsweetened, do not use Dutch Process), cinnamon, and cayenne pepper and cook for about 5 minutes. Add 4 cups tomato juice and 3 cups beef stock, and simmer for 1 hour.
Correct seasoning and add cumin (don't add cumin before because heat fucks it up). Add a shitton of garlic (I use 6-8 cloves). Add 32 ounces of kidney beans, heat for 5 minutes, and serve.

I love this recipe because I always have a ton of leftovers. In the morning I like to make hashbrowns and fry an egg on top and then pour on leftover chili. It's also delicious with skillet cornbread. I've found that the flavours blend together better after it sits for a while, so don't be afraid to make it early and reheat it when you're hungry.

There's actually some interesting history behind this recipe. Traditional Texian chili doesn't have any tomatoes or beans in it. This recipe hearkens from St. Louis, which had a strong Greek and Middle Eastern population when my grandma lived there. The cumin, cinnamon, and cocoa powder is a reflection of that. I've been told there's a dish in St. Louis called Frito pie, due to the fact that the Frito factory is located there. You make a crust of fritos, heap some of this chili on top, and bake for a little bit. I've made it with sour cream and green onions and it tastes pretty good too so that's another thing you can do with leftovers.

I got the map list this morning so I wanted to get it out as soon as possible, I'll track down the DL links when I have the time. The team on the Steam page told me they had to bow out of the tournament, so far as I'm aware the bracket should all be up to date.

Edit: DL links posted. If you get the chance to look over the maps, please leave feedback here! I'll be getting in touch with the mapmakers and UGC admins, and I'd love to have useful critiques to give them.

Not sure what your issue with Uncle Dane is but he's a great guy and I enjoy his videos far more than the majority of TF2 youtubers. He actually talks about the game and plays it instead of going for the "lol so random" humor that other folks seem to go for. He also has never dismissed 6s out of hand like a lot of youtubers, he might not be its staunchest booster because he can't play his main, but he's never been anything but respectful and understanding of why it is so popular. I know he's tried to nudge his viewers into comp, but just like Star, if his viewers don't watch or care then he has no reason to continue doing that.

I'm a little biased because he's my teammate and friend, but even without that I'd still appreciate his work. And I don't even like the engie class.

With 7 teams and a round robin format, I've decided the tournament will be starting at 2 EST tomorrow. Hopefully that works for everyone, let me know if it doesn't and I'll see what I can do but no promises.

The map list is as follows:
Round 1: cp_alamo (http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/185551)
Round 2: koth_railbridge (http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=19780)
Round 3: koth_artefact_v1 (http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/167670)
Round 4: koth_dropdown (http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=16999)
Round 5: koth_moonshine_rc (http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/118880)
Round 6: koth_rocktop_rc2 (http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/183563)
Round 7: koth_smokeyridge (http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/184810)

Bracket is here: http://imgur.com/3ioQ7Jl

I'll be taking the teams with the two best records for the finals. Should there be ties, I'll select based off of head to head performances. Hopefully it doesn't get anymore convoluted than that because I'm a simple man.

Finals will be a Bo3 starting at 8 or 8:30 (still haven't figured it out). The first map of the finals will be koth_switcheroo (http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/117294). The second map will be chosen by the #1 seed, the third map (should it come to that) will be chosen by the #2 seed.

Standard UGC config and whitelist for everything. FFWs will cound as 2 rounds for the winner. Because we have so many games, I'm allotting 45 minutes per game. First round starts at 2, second starts at 2:45, etc. I will be fairly lenient with late starts because I realize this is a lot of 4s, but do try to get everything going on time.

I'll be making a post with every team's leader for contact information. I'm assuming the person who made each post is the leader, if not let me know. And I'm not going to make any hard and fast rules for servers. If you can sort it out yourself, that's great. If not, either do heavy boxing or rock paper scissors or ask me to flip a coin or something.

Let me know if have see any issues with the organization of this all, I am new to this so there could be something I'm not seeing.

He has though, I know in his older videos he mentioned comp and listed a lot of resources to get involved in comp. he also made a couple of vids while in Budsquad I think. But the issue was his viewers didn't care, and why should he continually push comp if his watchers don't follow up or even watch those videos? Pushing comp isn't his job. I know it's easy to be bitter at the relative success of youtube stars in comparison to competitive, but that doesn't make it the youtubers fault. It's up to the TF2 community and previous outreach attempts haven't been terribly successful. Live and let live, I'm happy to see TF2 is popular on Youtube regardless of the format, and hopefully competitive will follow suit.

Minor quibble, we're new to ESEA but the team has been around for 3 seasons of UGC 6s and most of us have some previous 6s experiences before that. That's new relative to a lot of players but it's hard to categorize 1 year+ as completely new. We're bad at 6s though so your point still probably stands. Otherwise, great job.

Still looking for more backups. All class backups are nice, but we particularly need a demo backup ASAP. Could potentially cover your premium and league fees if that is an issue.

My issue with the "off-class wheel" is that I don't see it making a full rotation. I don't expect teams to counter spy with pyro, if they expect a spy I would imagine it'd be easier just to keep their eyes peeled and maybe have a scout checking for one. Same thing with pyro, if one team runs a pyro it'd be much easier for a scout to focus him than for the other team to run an engineer. So the wheel starts turning, but a couple of rotations in you just get to a point where a scout will be the best option the majority of the time. I don't have an issue with that because I like double scout play in TF2, but if you're trying to get all of the classes involved I don't necessarily see that happening. 5v5 as a format does sound like an interesting option though, certainly better than 4s and 5-man teams seem to play well with FPS titles.

All of the team sign ups here have been added to the list. I'll be closing sign ups Wednesday night, so if you're on the fence make sure to make your decision before Thursday.

Additionally, the date of the tournament will be changed to Saturday May 9. Hopefully this will work for the majority of you. I'll also be fairly lenient with ringers if that makes scheduling easier.

I'll be editing the original post with map information before the end of the night (assuming I get it before then, which I should). More concrete details will come later this week, but expect the tournament to start in the evening EST if we don't get too many more sign ups, and in the afternoon if we do. If y'all have any preferences as to exact time, please let me know.

Thanks everyone for signing up!

That and the Florida LAN, I guess everything's going on that day. Thanks for the heads up, I'll see if I can find a better time.

Hi folks, I'm hosting a North American 4v4 tournament to test out the new maps.

"4s lol"

I know that 4s doesn't have the best reputation (and I completely agree) but I've found it's a very accessible entry point for newer players. When folks can come start a team needing only 3 other people, in a format that isn't taken too seriously, it gives them a chance to transition from a pub atmosphere to something more structured. If they like the competitive atmosphere and want more, I think it'll make people more willing to jump to 6s. Unfortunately, some of the maps that have been run in 4s over previous seasons haven't been the greatest. Maps like plr_hysteria, cp_mojave, etc. don't offer the same stepping stone to 6s that other maps do. Because of this, I want to ensure that every map in 4s is playtested, polished, and can offer a hint at the dynamic play players will find as they graduate to other formats and higher divisions.

I'm looking for teams and players who have Silver+ experience in any format or any ESEA experience to sign up. My goal is to get these new maps tested by players with a decent amount of experience and a better understanding of how the maps play; that way there'll be solid and constructive feedback for admins and mappers.

Post your team here (please include UGC/ESEA profiles) to sign up. If you have the requisite experience but can't find 3 of your buds to play with, you can post here as well and I'll match you up with other players to make a pug team for you.

The tournament will be held May 9 and it will potentially be casted.

The maps will be those under consideration by 4v4 admins for use next season. I don't have the list yet, but I'll post it here in a few days when I know. The one map I do know will be included is cp_alamo, a 3CP map by Ethosaur. If you have a 4s map you'd like to nominate for inclusion, please tell me here.

There's a small prize pot of 8 keys for the winner. I'm hoping to do a Bo1 round robin format for the first stage, with a Bo3 for the finals. This depends on the amount of signups and player feedback, so let me know if y'all would prefer something different.

If you have any questions you can PM me here, post them on the reddit discussion, ask me on Steam, post them on the UGC forum thread, or post them on the Steam group. If none of those options work for you follow me on Instagram or add me on Snapchat (not really).

tl;dr: DM your way through a few 4s maps, help newer players and mapmakers, and win 8 keys, probably more than any of us will ever make off of 6s.

Hi folks, I'm a low Open medic looking for a mentor. I've played a season each of Gold and Silver 6s on medic, as well as years of low level HL and 4s, and this season will be my first in ESEA. I'm calling for my team this season so if anyone has experience with maincalling that'd be great but not necessary. My guess is that any high Open or above players would have a lot to teach me.

In particular, I'm looking for someone who can help teach me the basics so I can improve on my own time, so someone who can watch demos with me and show me particular mistakes that I'm making so I can identify them on my own. I'm on EST, but my work schedule is pretty flexible and I could conceivably work with Europeans if they were willing. You can add me on Steam here.

Thanks!

http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/349dit/tf2_confirmed_to_be_getting_competitive/

3 of the top 4 posts are all variations on this.

esports esports esports

These last 24 hours have been a rollercoaster of emotion.