We had a nice showing for this afternoon’s monthly tournament – 17 players made it. The bar was a bit of a zoo – two different birthday parties were happening on the patio, and the line to get food or drink was substantial. Then a couple of hours into the event, the rains began, and they were heavy! But we were all warm and dry inside, and having a grand time.
Two new players showed up this month, plus a number of folks we haven’t seen in a while. With 17 people, I had to have a play-in in one of the brackets, but it all seemed to work out pretty well.
In the “A” bracket, round 1 had Tim defeat Kyle, me over Joel, Jeremy over Philip, and Ed over Bodger. Jeremy and I went on to face off in the final, and I managed to pull it off! Sadly, my camera seems to have died about 12 minutes into the match, and so I won’t be able to put it on YouTube. Maybe one of the others will make it… Bodger went on to win the consolation bracket over Ed.
In the “B” bracket, newcomer Corinna took out Mark A, Nathan beat Larry, Julie steamrolled Dawn, and Steven won over newcomer John. Nathan went on to win the bracket, over Steven, and Mir (who didn’t have a ‘first round’ opponent because of there being 9 players) took the consolation bracket over Larry.
The year is rapidly coming towards a close, we have just two scheduled tournaments on the calendar before 2024 is upon us: the normal monthly tournament on December 3rd, and the Championship + Friends tournament on November 25th. As we head into the end of the year, I thought I would share some statistics. So far this year, we have had 73 people attend at least one tournament, and we’ve had a record breaking 18 tournament events to date! Last year, we only had 15 recorded tournaments total! So in spite of a smaller “Tour of Patios” season than last year (3 events versus 4), the Championship Qualifiers made up the ground. Last year, however, we ended up with over 80 people who attended at least one event, so we have lost a little ground on that metric. Maybe we will get 8 newcomers (or long time missing returners) over the next couple of events, though – you never know! Hope to see you there, and bring a friend!
-Mark