P(O/I)TT News: August 2004 Archives

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August 05, 2004

POTT '04 Writeup (with pics!)
by kmikeym

The Doubles Cup started out with six teams. The two highest ranked teams, Ryan & Judy and Russell & Kieran had a bye into the second round. Cory & Stacie eliminated Justin & Curt and Gene & Tara beat Wade & Steve. In round two Russell & Kieran beat out Cory & Stacie, and just like last year, Gene & Tara eliminated Ryan & Judy. This came as quite a surprise, as Ryan and Judy had been practicing their N64 doubles game for quite some time leading up to the tournament. The final battle, again, like last year, was the married couple, Gene & Tara, against the Perfect Strangers, Kieran and Russell. In a heated last battle Kieran and Russell won the game and the Doubles Cup!

The Head to Head (SNES) match had 9 people entering, so the lowest seated players, Gene and Curt, had to battle it out to get into the first round. Gene beat Curt and advanced into the tournament, and then quickly eliminated Ryan! Russell and Justin, the two newcomers, faced off, and Russell eliminated Justin. Last year's H2H champion, Wade, was facing last year's best player, Judy, and was eliminated in the first round! And Kieran beat out Steve to advance to the next round.

Round two saw Russell beat Gene and Kieran face his Tetris Arch-rival Judy in a heated Head to Head match where he savored eliminating her. The final match, Russell verses Kieran, saw the Perfect Strangers fighting it out for who would be getting an additional Trophy, and Russell was the victor.

The final battle was ready to begin. Newcomers Justin Sanders and Russell Thomason were perceived as real threats, though Judy was still the favorite. Kieran was chomping at the bit to improve his third place ranking and at least wedge himself between the Holy Tetris Union of Ryan and Judy. In the first round Judy beat out Curt with a rather low score of 137,050 (Curt had a flawed game, only getting 20,674). Kieran also won with a low score, just 108.212, over Steve (42,118). Finally with newcomer Justin Sanders we saw a respectable score, 153, 780, but he was trounced by Russell with 203,800. And Ryan beat out Wade with his 140,817 to 23,840.

The lowest scores had all been eliminated except for Justin Sanders, who with had scored the second highest in round two, but was eliminated. We look forward to seeing him play in the future.

Round two saw much better scores. Again Judy and arch-tetris-nemisis Kieran faced off, this time Judy handing Kieran a solid ass whoopin' with a score of 231,732 to Kieran's 126,656. And Ryan scored better at 173,719, but not high enough to beat Russell's personal best of 245,313. Watching Russell play that game, I thought he might beat the all-time high score set by Judy last year of 276,264. So the final match was the mysterious newcomer Russell Thomason verses reigning champion Judy Zawatzky. The room got quiet as they started playing.

Judy scored a personal best for the day of 231,732, but was disappointed, as this was only her third highest score of tournament play. And then we watched, mesmerized, as this unknown kid from Wilsonville played an astounding game of 280,726, setting the new high score record and winning the championship. He was so unassuming and polite we didn't even realize until the awards ceremony that he had won IN EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY. A new champion. A new era of Tetris competition... The Russell Era.