9:50 Who’s At The Top Tables — Round 10

It’s finally here. Oh thank goodness.

Table 1 — Martin Arraiga (9 wins) vs. Jae Kim (8 wins)

Table 2 — Abel Carrasco (8 wins) vs. Julian Wong (8 wins)

Table 3 — Jason Destowet [SBC Competitor] (8 wins) vs. Alejandro Reyes Suarez (8 wins)

Table 4 — Michael Arimas (8 wins) vs. John Burkhead (8 wins)

Table 5 — Gianluca Bommino (8 wins) vs. Sam Gomez (8 wins)

Table 6 — Christian Accosta (8 wins) vs. Cesar Gonzales (8 wins)

Table 7 — Rex Mendoza (7 wins) vs. Andrew Salazar (7 wins)

Table 8 — Brenden Beckmann (7 wins) vs. Richard Diep (7 wins)

Good luck everyone!

 

9:30 Simon Choy Reads The Blog

Simon wanted to see his “poster,” assuming that I’d made a nice Motivations by Metagame™ poster out of the picture I took of him earlier. I showed him the Kung Fu Panda picture and he read the post.

 

 

9:15 Who’s At The Top Tables — Round 9

Can we all survive one more round? Can we make it until then? Hopefully these guys can!

Table 1 — Martin Arriaga (8 wins) vs. Alejandro Reyes Suarez (8 wins)

Table 2 — John Burkhead (7 wins) vs. Tyler Kobrofsky (7 wins)

Table 3 — Jae Kim (7 wins) vs. Rickie Ricketts (7 wins)

Table 4 — Brenden Beckmann (7 wins) vs. Cesar Gonzales (7 wins)

Table 5 — Gianluca Bommino (7 wins) vs. Juan Valencia (7 wins)

Table 6 — Michael Arimas (7 wins) vs. Lance Leonhardt (7 wins)

Table 7 — Abel Carrasco (7 wins) vs. Yosef Negussie (7 wins)

Table 8 — Christian Acosta (7 wins) vs. Michel Andreas Gruner (7 wins)

 

 

 

Keep going, guys! Only one round left to go. 

7:45 PM — Who’s At The Top Tables — Round 8

2 more to go . . . 2 more to go . . . it’s getting rather intense in this end of the room!

Table 1 — Martin Aggiara (7 wins) vs. Tyler Kobrofsky (7 wins)

Table 2 — Sam Gomez (7 wins) vs. Alejandro Reyes Suarez (7 wins)

Table 3 — Brenden Beckmann (6 wins) vs. Manuel Gonzales (6 wins)

Table 4 — Alex Dye (6 wins) vs. Brett Everett (6 wins)

Table 5 — Michel Andreas Gruner (6 wins) vs. Luke Mattingly (6 wins)

Table 6 — Jackie Jian (6 wins) vs. Yosef Negussie (6 wins)

Table 7 — Gianluca Bommino (6 wins) vs. Jose Quintero (6 wins)

Table 8 — David Lui (6 wins) vs. Juan Valencia (6 wins)

7:15 PM  — Thanks For the Snack Cake

Must . . . keep . . . going . . . Thank you, Dustin Johnson, for giving me one of your chocolate cream filled snack cakes. I think I can carry on for at least one more round. I wish this tournament came with free Coffee Crisp candy bars. That was awesome.

6:45 PM — Who’s At The Top Tables — Round 7

Oh mercy, it’s only round 7. I’m so glad I decided to do coverage instead of play.

Let’s see who’s on top!

Table 1 — Jae Kim (6 wins) vs.  Tyler Kobrofsky (6 wins)

Table 2 — Gianluca Bommino (6 wins) vs. Alejandro Reyes Suarez (6 wins)

Table 3 — Martin Arriaga (6 wins) vs. Rickie Ricketts (6 wins)

Table 4 — Manuel Gonzales (6 wins) vs. Timothy Hutchinson (6 wins)

Table 5 — Richard Diep (6 wins) vs. Sam Gomez (6 wins)

Table 6 — Christian Acosta (5 wins) vs. AJ Tachella [SBC Competitor] (5 wins)

Table 7 — Daniel Rivas (5 wins) vs. Malcom Storness-Bliss (5 wins)

Table 8 — Matthew Songloke (5 wins) vs. Lloyd Swanson (5 wins)

6:25 PM — The Great Wall of Ivy

People have been bringing me these all day. I think I’ve got to have over 500 by now.

I started collecting these at the Crossroads of Chaos Sneak Preview, because my daughter’s name is Ivy, and I want to cover one wall in her room with the cards. So far today, players have donated a total of 106 Wall of Ivy cards.

5:40 PM — Who’s At The Top Tables — Round 6

Sorry I missed the last round, I was trying to catch up on the Scrub Brush Challenge update. Let’s see what we’ve got here . . .

Table 1 — Jae Kim (5 wins) vs. James Ludwig (5 wins)

Table 2 — Martin Arriaga (5 wins) vs. Chris Bryson (5 wins)

Table 3 — Sam Gomez (5 wins) vs. David Monterrosso (5 wins)

Table 4 — Alejandro Reyes Suarez (5 wins) vs. Matthew Songloke (5 wins)

Table 5 — Richard Diep (5 wins) vs. Michel Andreas Gruner (5 wins)

Table 6 — Jesus Farias (5 wins) vs. Manuel Gonzales (5 wins)

Table 7 — Omar Navarro [SBC Competitor] (5 wins) vs. Rickie Ricketts (5 wins)

Table 8 — Cesar Gonzales (5 wins) vs. Tyler Kobrofsky (5 wins)

A few of these guys were around for the top in round 4, so if they keep pushing forward things are looking quite good for them. Oh, and look! We’ve finally got a Scrub Brush Challenge competitor up near the top! He’s also the feature match this round, so hopefully he makes a good showing.

 

4:15 PM — Pairings Are Up — Bring Your Riot Armor

I’m kind of glad I’m not playing; I’d never get through the crowd to find out where I was seated. There’s a limited amount of wall space, lots of paper to post, and lots of players trying to read the papers and that makes for a densely packed crowd all along one side of the room.  It’s fairly orderly, but yeah that’s a lot of people.

Hope the convention center doesn’t tip over.

 

3:45 PM — Jason Has A Theory

. . . That when Simon Choy reaches the age of about 85, he will look very much like the mouse from Kung Fu Panda.

Is Jason delusional or is he on to something here? You decide.

3:15 PM — Who’s At the Top Tables? Round 4

We’ve still got 6 rounds to go, but here’s a look at the players holding down the current top spots:

Table 1: Enye Gilmore (3 wins) vs. Manuel Gonzales (3 wins)

Table 2: Chris Bryson (3 wins) vs. Alex J. Lopez (3 wins)

Table 3: Jordan Jaques (3 wins) vs. Christopher Kendrick (3 wins)

Table 4: Adam Belohradsky (3 wins) vs. Jacob Valdez (3 wins)

Table 5: George Garcia (3 wins) vs. Matthew Songloke (3 wins)

Table 6: Christopher Casperian (3 wins) vs. Timothy Hutchinson (3 wins)

Table 7: Joseph Cordero (3 wins) vs. Patrick Lewis (3 wins)

Table 8: Alex Ballard (3 wins) vs. Claudio Kirchmair (3 wins)

With a field of 600+, players have their work cut out for them to fight their way to these upper tables. I’ll be back next round with a look at who has made the cut.

 

2:50 PM — Hey! Where Did the Feature Match Table Go?

Jason’s all ready to do a feature match, but the table is gone! Wow. He’s off to find out what happened to it.

Oh, it’s been moved to the other side of the stage — no worries. He’s getting the match area set up, and you can all look forward to reading a feature match when the round is over. It looks like a good matchup! And no, I’m not going to tell you what it is . . . think of all the excitement you’ll derive from the anticipation.

12:30 PM — Lunch break — Everyone Make a Break For It!

Hmmm, combine 614 players, a 45 minute food break and a small selection of local fast food joints — let me tell you, it isn’t pretty. I’m sure McDonalds and Wendy’s are all wondering what on earth is going on as hundreds of players pour in, trying to order and consume their food as quickly as possible. The venue won’t allow us to bring food back in, so we’ve got to scarf it down fast and run back to the tournament.

11:10 AM — Head Judge Unleashed!

John Williams is today’s head judge and he traveled here all the way from New Jersey. He has taken over the microphone to announce today’s total of 614 players and 10 rounds. Well, I’m surprised; I guessed 350 in the car on the way to the tournament. Wooo! Let’s go! This will be a long, long day, especially for the judges as they’ll be stretched a little thin. John will keep them going.

There still aren’t chairs for everyone, that’s how many people are here today. Hopefully we’ll be starting in the next few minutes.

10:30 AM — Tomas Majiras Jinxed The Tournament

Tomas apparently remarked “I’ve never been to a 10 round event,” and the next thing you know, we’re looking at a 10 round event. Registration’s at over 500 players now with a large stack of entries still to add. It’s all Tomas’ fault. Blame Tomas. Way to go, Tomas.

10:00 AM — Still Registering!

Wow, there are a lot of people here today. I think we’re definitely going to be doing the full 10 round treatment here in San Francisco! Lots and lots of players today, which is actually really great to see. I know there was some speculation that the event would be small, but we’re in no danger of that.

You know what it is? It’s John Williams as head judge. This is the same thing that happened back at the first Philadelphia SJC, where attendance hit the 800 mark. The players just can’t stay away from John Williams. I wonder how John feels about today’s numbers . . .

 

9:30 AM — Yes, There Will Be a Scrub Brush Challenge