We did a super singles tournament on Tuesday, and had 30 people show up for the event. The crazy thing about it was that all 30 had played league before at least once, not one brand new player.
Super Singles means that we divide the league into Tiers, we did it strictly off points, so most of the newer players were in Tier 3, Tier 2 was a division filled with high end players that have spent a lot of time in the league, and Tier 1 was the top 8 players in the league.
To get started we did a few Tier 3 games, including Ray putting on a show with some epic banks, hitting 6 of them in his match to take out #1 seed Garrett. Ray had a good event and ended up finishing a very respectable 4th.
Zak was playing Ray Thompson (different Ray) in his first round match up and it was a battle, in the second game I saw Zak take a 4-4 time out and recollect his thoughts. Sure enough he won it with a long pull and moved into the next round.
Kevin was playing Devin, an tough battle for both guys as they play against each other at work a lot. Devin won the first game and was surely on his way to victory when he was up 4-1 in the second match. Kevin fought back hard though and won the game to tie the match, in the 3rd game Devin wouldn’t let it slip away and won quickly.
Kevin went on a winning streak in the B side and took out Garrett and then Uzair, Zak and Kevin finished the night tied for 5th.
Rob, another guy that works with Devin and Kevin, was on fire throughout the night, he won a few matches with some really good hand speed and reactions, ended up finishing 3rd place.
Darren Jordan was also back in business, and his 2 bar was on fire. He won a bunch of matches by timing his shots well and throwing in really solid fakes. Darren was solid throughout the night but ended up losing to Christof in the final.
Christof clearly proved his skill in the event, and you could see that his extra factor that is tournament experience paying off and hopefully he will be winning tier 2 some time soon! Great playing Christof, the match against Karli was a tough one too and it took some fight to get through that one.
In Tier 2 there was a lot of REALLY close matches. Paul and Chad opened their brackets against each other, and of course it went down to meat ball. Chad was playing great again, as he has been recently, but Paul and Chad have played so many games against each other that it probably comes down to one of those mental battles every time. Paul came out on top.
Sam beat Ricardo (who deserves a big welcome back to the foosball scene) and then beat Des in an intense game too. Sam also though couldn’t fight through Paul’s challenge. Paul plays such a consistent game and makes the right decision so often that it is tough to beat him unless you play PERFECT foosball.
Chris was the #1 seed in the event and even though he had a tough bracket including Cam and Ritchie in his path, he still made it through to the kingseat game against Paul. I just mentioned that it takes playing a perfect game to beat Paul, and Chris really did that – he didn’t stray from using his best passing options and shots from every rod, Chris took kingseat.
In the B Side Chad was back at it from a first round loss, fighting all the way through Ritchie, Des, and then Sam to get back to playing Paul to go to the final. I didn’t see this one but it was probably as close as the first one.. Chad couldn’t get his redemption yet.
Chris won the final and is the tier 2 champion, as well as a top 10 player in Edmonton again!
The Tier 1 event didn’t finish, but again a lot of great matches were played. Simon was clearly on his game, and you can see all the practice that he has put in leading up to the HOFC has been paying off. A lot of the top players in Edmonton have been using video to help there game lately, especially watching Insidefoos video’s. Simon mentioned to me that it was helping him with his decision making and that it reminds him to take his time with the ball.
There were a few good games but when Simon smoked me I wouldn’t say it was a “good game” because it wasn’t really close at any time. I didn’t see the match against Christian but I’m guessing it was more of the same. Garry was also solid, and went through a losers bracket path of Tobin, Ben, Will, Christian – to get to the final.
We didn’t have time to finish the event, but Simon and Garry have to play the final, then the playdowns for 1st and 2nd have to take place.
The 4th place playdown was won by me, I had to beat Ray which was really tough considering the point spot. I got enough of the bounces to stay out of my net to get the win. The 3rd place play down was won by Rob from the Tier 3 event.
Tier 2 and 1 still have to happen so hopefully we can get them done this week.
Next week: Pro/Am Draw your partner, essentially that means that the lowest half of players each draw a partner from the highest half of players.
Points Update:
Edwards, Simon 1551
Dunn, Christian 1515
Stranks, Will 1453
Burgardt, Garry 1242
McDonald, Tom 1190
Penner, Roger 1177
Wilkins, Ben 1149
Myszczyszyn, Tobin 1082
Scaife, Darcy 1055
Kerr, Chris 1016
Luft, Carey 1014
Simeon, Jamie 969
Johnston, Mike 931
Humberstone, Paul 927
Trynchuk, Dale 925
Tse, Desmond 919
Rupertus, Lindsey 918
Jones, Darrel 901
Kimber, Daniel 890
Schnieder, Jeff 887
Dick, Matt 882
Smithson, Justin 882
Djakovic, Christoff 882
Spencer, Chad 881
X, Jeff 881
Campbell, Lance 880
Kippen, Rick 874
La, Ed 873
Kwan, Conrad 871
Daly, Ritchie 870
So, Albert 870
Wilkins, Sam 868
Green, James 859
Burrows, Cam 858
Deeg, Phil 855
Hopfner, Jordan 854
Kelly, Brad 849
Gish, Brian 845
X, Darnel 841
Jordan, Darren 837
Ustina, Greg 834
Campbell, Carmen 830
Crockett!!, Ben 829
Rob 828
x, Ryan 825
Taft, Spencer 824
Lehman, Blair 823
Volkman, Dallyn 822
Faulkner, Stephanii 822
Wood, Greg 818
Xtra, X 818
Ray 817
Schiebelbein, Karli 817
Devin 816
Moses, Kevin 815
Moir, Zak 814
X, Gerald 811
Wong, Felix 811
Phillips, Mike 806
O’Stream, Don 806
Perira, Carlos 805
M, Judah 804
C, Erek 803
Hasiuk, Jody 803
X, Jarrell 802
Gibson, katy 802
Hodinski, Jasmine 801
Bennett, Doug 801
Baayens, Dean 801
Nasir, Uzair 801
Thompson, Ray 801
