Bad Moon Rison

I just wanted to echo the sentiments expressed by others that this was a tip-top tournament and a good time. Thanks Evan, John, Raph, and Scott for the work they did on making it a fun day. The raffle prizes were great and I am happy to be going home with at least one prize. The late games were very exciitng and I'm glad I stuck around! Congrats to Raph on winning it all. It was a lot of fun to talk strategy with the different teams with everyone. That's just as much fun as playing the games themselves. Got to get a few practice games in, too, with Robin and Brian. All-in-all, a good day of fun. As for my games, I'm pretty new to playing 94 competitively and haven't played Genesis much outside of the tournaments at the LI Retro Expo, so this was definitely a rude awakening to the level that most guys play. I went 2-3 in the early games, with my two wins coming by forfeit. I lost my first matchup to Paul, a close 4-3 contest (TOR vs NYR), who made me sweat a lot. My next contest was against Brad, who beat me pretty handily 5-1 with WPG (I was CGY) and thankfully he told me he's won a couple of tournies, so I didn't feel too bad about my effort. The last game was against Scott S., who beat me 3-2 with NYI vs. NJD, a game which we both described as a slog (definitely felt slow after the WPG/CGY game). All three guys were stand-up guys and a blast to play against. I hope to see them at a few more. I needed a play-in game to advance and drew George from LI Retro Expo, who I've known for a few years and lets us host Tecmo at the expo. It was good to finally play against him competitively after all he's done for the NY Retro community. It was all PA matchup and I was happy to have my Pens win against Philly 4-1. Then I got to play Aaron in the Best 2-out-of-3 bracket. Well, that was certainly an eye-opener. He called HFD vs WAS and I took the Capitals. Little did I know he likes to use the Whalers and I got down 4-0 right away. I didn't know there was a mercy rule in the bracket. Tack on a couple of slapshots from the blue line that went in and I lost 9-0. For game 2, I knew I had to get defensive. I called PIT vs. EDM and thankfully using PIT just a couple of games ago, I was able to come away with a 2-1 victory. Game 3, Aaron called HFD/WAS again (!) and knew there was no way that I should give him the Whalers again. Game was tied at 1 late when Geoff Sanderson got his own rebound and lightly flicked it in the net for the go-ahead goal and the game winner. Aaron was a good sport about it (especially about me muttering loudly at the first game) and I knew that either of our roads were likely going to end in the next round vs. Raph. I was able to get about 1.5 periods in for both games before the mercy rule took effect, but I am happy that I got as far as I did given the high level of competition on display yesterday. I hope to be just a little bit better by the next one. See y'all at the LI Retro Expo and hopefully many more!