1) Start of the All Over The World Team
From time to time I’ll update this page (last update July 20, 2026)
Gurushots is a game where you submit photo’s to certain competitions. For instance the competition is about flowers and the idea is you submit good photo’s of flowers you made yourself. Competetitions can last from a couple of hours to a month. The one with the most votes wins. A second way of winning a competition is your photo getting designated by a Guru, earning a socalled Top Guru Pick. You can play it on a desktop, a laptop or an Iphone or Android smartphone.
I was playing the game already 2 or 3 years when Gurushots invented the possibility to participate in certain games with teams rather then as a single person. That happened in the beginning of 2020. From then on you could play as a singel person or with a team. Teams can not play all games a single person can play. Originally teams were max 10 persons, later it became max 20 persons.
Then teamplaying was a new invention of the Gurushots game and it came just in time to keep many people busy in the worldwide pandemic times. Via a chat function you could contact new people who -like yourself- were bound at home in quarantine.
The First Match of the team All Over The World was somewhere in May, 2020. I joined the team by accident (I walked in) just before its second match:
Screenshot of the results of the first team match of AOTW
Screenshot of the second match result with me in the team with Merel Zosja and Emma.
Soon thereafter many more players became members of AOTW.
From the beginning the idea of the All Over the World team was let people walk in and see how we match.
After some time we formed a Facebook group and a Facebook chat as the GS chat was very simple. Later the GS chat became a bit better.
2) Double Photo’s?
Somewhere in begin of June 2020 then members Victor Chaw, Darren, Carl Marx, Mike Alden
and I started to see similarities in some portfolios. We asked ourselves what would be the matter.
I did some detective work and found similar photo’s:
This benchsitter appeared in three Portfolio’s:
Merel
Emma
Zosja
The owls in two portfolio’s:
Merel
Zosja
The poles in two portfolio’s:
Merel
Emma
The Raspberry in two:
Emma
Merel
Together with then members Mike, Darren, Carl and Victor I formed a secret FB group without Merel, Emma and Zosja, to share our suspicion with the other members and to share some of the similar photo’s.
We believed it to be similar photo’s and there were three separate persons who were in one way or another related. They might be friends or family and probably frequently taking photo’s together.
However, the more I looked to the screeshots I had taken, the more I came to the conclusion it were the same photo’s…
You could ask why we formed a secred group. The reason was that all team members were after a certain period of time where they had shown to be active members, granted team leader status. We were starting to like the team and each other and feared that the three when confronted would kick everybody else out and we would have to start all over again. Something we did not want as a result.
Just before we could confront the three, Emma, Merel and Zosja disappeared from the team and if we looked them up we could not find them on GS anumore either
Via FB I had contact with Merel and found out she and Emma and Zosja were all three banned from Gurushots. The indication she got from Gurushots why they were banned was that she, Emma and Zosja had infringed the copyright rules by using each other photo’s. Only later she admitted Zosja and Emma were alter ego’s of her (Merel’s) good self.
At that time there was no rule from GS (yet) you were not allowed to have two or more accounts on GS.
Merel had started a new account immediately after she had been banned.
The team was divided as to accept Merel again as a member of the team. Minimum Master was the team rule then and could not be altered, so the question did not play immediately.
Anyway Merel was interested to re enter the team she had started…
Not very long after she had created a new account Merel got Master status and joined the team again.
Not everybody in the team was happy, but they left the case as it is.
3) The Team Logo
Mike had an idea to have all team members show the same team Logo derived from the logo of the Electric Light Orchestra. ELO had a song All over the World. S0 several members adopted same. Darren created a template.
In 2026 there still are a couple of inactive former members who carry the logo althoug they don’t seem to play in a team.:
Carys Muirhead from down under
Ineke van Besten from Belgium
Svein SunRidge from Norway
Merlina from Hungary
4) Infamous Team Member
This guy I don’t know the name of anymore. Actually he is the sole infamous member who we kicked out because he was constantly rude in the team chat.
Apart from this guy and the 4 who left to form AOTW offsprings (see below) most former members we are quite fond of because we were together and bonded during Covid.
5) 4 memers left the All Over The World team
After some time 4 players found AOTW not aggressive enough and formed a new team
AOTW Addicts
AOTW Addicts
consisting of:
Darren, a Brit,
Merel, a Dutch lady,
Victor Chaw A German, and
Mike Alden Mike is a British subject living in The Netherlands (Vinkeveen). I met him once when I invited him for a tour in a boat through the center of The Hague where I live. Then I also met his girlfriend who is a Gurushots player herself…After spending considerable time in AOTW addicts Mike left that team and has never been a member of a team again as far as I know.
The other team members of AOTW were not happy at all this was happening, but we decided to stay together.
AOTW Click
The second offspring of AOTW is AOTW Click
AOTW Resort
The third offspring is AOTW Resort
6) Some famous former members:
Hartmut Beckman is a german who has played a long time with us, but left for another team and is in 2026 part of PhotoLove where he is the number one.
Carl Marx from South Africa was there already in the very beginning but was sometimes so busy he couldn’t play in the team. Currently he is not in a team.
7) I Stepped out All over the World
In November 2023 I stepped out the team AOTW to get a bit of time to regenerate my enthusiasm for Gurushot and for teamplaying.
I was curious of the 4 who split would be interested to see me in their team again.
It seemed the AOTW click team had almost desintegrated to 3 and 2 members….
….and Darren, Merel and Vic were in a new team W H Y
However this impression appeared to be totally incorrect. Again I had some contact with Merel and she explained that they rotated between teams and each of the four were actively coaching several members in several teams. They were swapping and borrowing photo’s in order to enable team members to become guru’s. When I suggested to become part of their adventures again she talked with the other three and they were adamant they didn’t want to have any contact with me anymore.
So that connection is closed.
Funny to see All over the World sometimes play against AOTW addicts.
8) I became a member of Crazy Dutches and Dutch Creatives
I found Guru Teams Crazy Dutches and Dutch Creatives when I felt a bit exhausted by the fast pace of the All Over The World team and spent some time there. Sometimes hopping backward and forward. Recently in 2026 however Dutch Creatives seem desintegrated