We had a fine turnout for the first Women’s/Men’s Championship tournament. 18 players came out, 5 women and 13 men. That, unfortunately, makes for two uneven brackets, and so the gender distinctions (which are, as noted in the announcement, a social construct) began breaking down immediately. Molly and Pete had come down from Seattle for the event, and Molly agreed that, for the purposes of the event, she was man enough. So we proceeded with a 4-person and a 14-person bracket.
In the Women’s event, we had two newcomers (Liz & Jackie), and two seasoned pros (Sande & Leah). Fortunately, the draw did not put the newcomers head-to-head, and so the pros were able to help explain the ropes of tournament play. Evidently Sande is better at explaining than Leah, because Sande’s opponent, Liz, was able to advance to the next round. Leah beat out Jackie in round 1, but fun was still had by all. In the championship round, Leah triumphed again, making her the front runner for the championship match in December! But Liz seemed like she held her own, and she is also qualified for the December championship match. It should be noted that Ceci did show up for the tournament as well, although she had misjudged traffic, and so arrived well after the start of the event. We discussed having her play in somehow, but she was content to just play some pick-up games with Jackie after the first round ended. After all, there are three more Satellites to come, so plenty of time to get into the championship later.
In the Men’s event, round one had Tim beating out Dave, Molly defeating newcomer Dan, Chris over Pete, Bodger over Ed, Jesse over Paul, Kyle over Clay, and I beat out Rick. Matches lasted between about 30 minutes and over an hour, which made tournament flow a little uneven. We may have to enforce the use of clocks next time to prevent things from running quite so long. Everyone really appreciated the longer match length, however. Dave and I played some heads up while waiting for the next round, and I think that consoled him since he beat me up by 18 games in about 30 minutes… Anyway, after a bit, for the quarterfinals, we had Molly playing Chris and Kyle playing me. By this point, Leah had finished winning the Women’s, and she and Chris were dramatically overdue for a couple of other things they had planned for the weekend. Kyle finished me off in a very timely manner, and so we got to watch much of the other game. After a drawn out battle, Molly eventually came out on top, putting her and Kyle into the final. But by that point, it was like 5:30, and the place was a zoo as the staff prepared for their “Worst Day of the Year” bike ride event the next day. Kyle and Molly agreed to just chop the prize money and both get a spot in the Men’s championship event for December!
The next satellite event is scheduled for June 6th, although I have not yet sent the announcement about it. Hope to see most of you there again then!
-Mark