We had an incredible turnout at Occidental Brewing this afternoon – 20 players! That is, in fact, a new record. There were a lot of newcomers or people returning after a long absence as well – I think 7 or 8 people I had not had the pleasure of meeting before.
We caught the management off guard – I should have scoped out the location earlier and I would have learned that they were a little on the smaller size, in the area we took over. Probably should have given them a head’s up, but Sara and others smoothed some feathers with the staff and once we got running, it went very smoothly. If we go there again, we’ll warn them, and probably move to the upstairs space, which is (I’m told) a little larger (I never made it up there today). Martin assured me that this is the best brewery in Portland, even though it is somewhat out of the way for people, based on the majority of comments I got.
Being such a large group, I divided us up into two brackets. You would think 20/2 = 10, but with the chaos of filling in the brackets as a few stragglers rolled in, we ended up with 9 in the A bracket and 11 in the B bracket. Oh well!
The “A” bracket ended up in a newcomers show-down. Karen beat out William for 1st, and Billy won the consolation bracket. The “B” bracket went to the established crew, with Nick beating out Gints for the big prize. I squeaked out a win in the consolation bracket, mainly because Mark F left “early” – I would have had to face him again, but he didn’t want to stick around another half hour or so for the $10 entry refund that went to third place. So: payday!
Greg made the suggestion that the consolation bracket should run 3 point matches instead of 5 point matches, in order to wrap up a little faster. By definition the consolation bracket starts later, and so it was running long. Thanks for the suggestion, Greg, we will definitely do that next time!
The other big thank you goes to my daughter, Kira, who took over the clipboard while I played and helped keep the tournaments running smoothly. What a great Father’s Day gift, eh?
All in all, we did manage to finish the tournament by 6, although Nick and Bryan were observed playing a money game as I headed out. Some people never get enough, I suppose. If you want more, we’ll do it again next month at Great Notion, on July 16th. I’ll call and warn them first!
| Player | Initial Elo Rating | Matches Played | Matches Won | Final Elo Rating |
| Mark F | 1542.6 | 4 | 4 | 1604.62 |
| Karen | 1500.0 | 4 | 4 | 1568.85 |
| Nick | 1500.0 | 3 | 3 | 1554.27 |
| Billy | 1500.0 | 4 | 3 | 1530.34 |
| Bryan | 1544.6 | 3 | 1 | 1523.25 |
| Mark | 1534.4 | 3 | 1 | 1518.88 |
| WIlliam | 1500.0 | 3 | 2 | 1517.10 |
| Joel | 1500.0 | 3 | 2 | 1513.56 |
| Noah | 1500.0 | 3 | 2 | 1513.53 |
| Mally | 1500.0 | 4 | 2 | 1506.43 |
| Greg | 1500.0 | 4 | 2 | 1500.15 |
| Paul | 1508.5 | 3 | 1 | 1492.50 |
| Gints | 1469.3 | 3 | 2 | 1491.31 |
| Karla | 1500.0 | 3 | 1 | 1483.08 |
| Martin | 1500.0 | 2 | 0 | 1468.08 |
| Donnelle | 1500.0 | 2 | 0 | 1466.07 |
| Kristin | 1500.0 | 2 | 0 | 1465.10 |
| Julie | 1502.8 | 3 | 0 | 1452.32 |
| Sara | 1482.1 | 2 | 0 | 1450.28 |
| Justin | 1480.7 | 2 | 0 | 1445.35 |