Friday Night – King of the Cups Satellite
The festivities began Friday night at Skybox, where Fast Times Entertainment was throwing a KoC satty for all the teams competing in the BoW. Similar to the East vs. West tournament held before the WSOBP, this was a nice prelude to the main event. The rebuy-tournament ended up with 48 teams competing. There was a lot of confusion early on as to how the bracket was working with the rebuys, but Chris Gracia was hard at work trying to keep things running smoothly the whole night.
There were so many teams huddled around the 5 tables it was hard to keep track of who was doing well. Looming over the crowd was DOE#3 Mike Seivert playing with his partner Byron Findley. Everyone was curious as to how the AC Champs were shooting the night before the big tournament. Also making a big impression were the New Mexico teams. Arguably the loudest and most supportive of each other, NM had 10 teams participating in the satty. At one point in the night the DJ was calling out states to see who had the most energy. “Colorado?” …silence. “California?”…silence. “Arizona?”…one cheer. “New Mexico?” the bar erupts in screams and chants of “505”. Yah, that’s how we do.
NM Team DnA, featuring Adam Holbrook and David Dominguez, went the furthest of the group, taking third before getting knocked out by NorCal’s Bo Lewis and Barrett Allison. Congrats boys on winning bids into the King of the Cups tourney in Vegas. We wish you luck.
The finals were a bit of foreshadowing, with AZ’s Chris Gracia and Brandon Marx facing the NorCal team. The game was intense, especially with the trash talk on the sidelines (mainly between AZ’s Lucky and NorCal’s SonomaJoe). In the end AZ proved victorious as Chris and Brandon took the win.
Saturday – Best of the West
Saturday morning was a rough one, as the majority of players had stayed up into the early hours. The previous night’s tournament hadn’t ended until 3am, which was probably an elaborate ploy by the AZ players to throw off the competition (j/k Chris). In any case, most players piled onto the courtesy shuttle taking us to Whisky River, home of the 2010 Best of the West.
17 tables were set up on the dance floor and around the bar to accommodate the large playing field, and the competitors were itching to get started. The following teams made up the competition: NorCal, SoCal, IE Trash, Vegas Blondies, AZ INS, AZ Misfits, AZ 10 Girls 10 Cups, El Paso EP Elite, NM#1, NM Team Drunk. Seven preliminary rounds would be played, and the top 8 teams would advance to bracket play.
The first round of the prelims saw the two NM teams face off against one another, as fate would have it. NM#1 almost swept Team Drunk, however Sonny and Donovan pulled off their teams one win. In round 2 NM#1 went 2-3 against Vegas Blondies, and Team Drunk went 3-2 against AZ’s 10 Girls 10 Cups. I have never seen so many guys talk so much shit to two girls in my life as in that last game between Huff/Mike and Kim/Melissa.
In round 3 NM#1 was swept by AZ INS, and Team Drunk went 2-3 against AZ Misfits. In round 4 NM#1 finally turned it around and pulled off a sweep against EP Elite in a pretty exciting match up. Team Drunk, unfortunately, were swept by INS. In round 5 NM#1 followed up their sweep with another 5 wins against 10 Girls 10 Cups (sorry ladies), while Team Drunk lost to EP Elite.
The prelims were going smoothly until round 6, when a break had to be called as some teams were having trouble turning in their scorecards (looking at you NorCal!). After an hour of sit-n-goes, the games started up again. In round 6 Gabe and Josh were the only NM#1 team to pull off a win against NorCal, while Vegas swept Team Drunk. Finally in round 7 NM#1 pulled off 4 wins against IE Trash, while Team Drunk lost to SoCal.
At the end of prelims, the final team rankings were:
1st: AZ IN
2nd: Vegas Blondies
3rd: NorCal
4th: SoCal
5th: AZ Misfits
6th: NM#1
7th: EP Elite
8th: IE Trash
9th: NM Team Drunk
10th: 10 Girls 10 Cups
Once bracket play started things got serious. Friendly rivalry was over and the intensity was on. Round one saw NM#1 face off against NorCal. Gabe and Kyle made their best effort but were unable to pull off the two wins needed to take their series. AJ and Jeremy lost the first game, but were able to rally and pull off the next two wins in the series. After the first two games the score was 1-1, and the crowd moved to the other tables. NorCal took the next two wins against Brent/John and Josh/Ted, however the last game was still being played by players unaware of the score. At this table was none other than SonomaJoe, facing off against the NM coed team of Beth and Jack. The series was 1-1 when Jack made the last cup. Seivert and his partner failed to make the rebuttal, and the game was over. Even though NM was now out of the tournament, they definitely made their mark by taking down the 3rd ranked player in the country.
The other round 1 matchups proved AZ’s intensity, with AZ INS sweeping IE Trash, and AZ Misfits knocking out SoCal. Vegas Blondies was also still in the running after knocking out EP Elite.
Round 2 saw Vegas facing NorCal. SonomaJoe had recovered after the last round and absolutely destroyed his opponents, taking the first win in the matchup. Mike Wan struggled probably for the first time all day in his series, losing the second and last game by 6 cups. Ultimately, NorCal advanced to the finals. On the other side of the bracket was the inevitable matchup of AZ INS against AZ Misfits. It was an emotional round for the local teams, but AZ INS eventually proved their superiority.
Vegas Blondies then faced off against AZ Misfits to determine 3rd place. These games would be single-elim. The first four games ended quickly, tying the teams at 2-2. In the last game, Wan had pulled himself together and pulled off the win after a single OT, giving Vegas 3rd place.
The final matchup was the loudest and most intense of the day, between AZ INS and NorCal. After the first set in the best-of-three, AZ was barely ahead at 3-2. In the second set, AZ’s Josh and Tyler hit 9 cups in a row to take a 4 cup win. SonomaJoe’s team was forced to make a 4 cup rebuttal in his game, but fails to hit the rebuttal in OT after their opponents hit 3 in a row.
At the end of the second set, the overall score was tied at 2-2, with only two games remaining between AZ’s Matt Stinson and Mike Donnelly and NorCal’s Barrett Allison and Anthony M. The NorCal team had won the first game, and the second game was now in OT. There was a heated discussion about Stinson crossing the edge of play when distracting, and it was hard to keep the Drunkest at BoW back from the table. Stinson then went on to knock a cup over while trying to distract his opponents. That didn’t stop Mike from making the last cup and winning the game. This put the finals at 2-2, with the tie-breaker series at 1-1. Unfortunately, the close nature of this matchup came to an early end, with Stinson and Mike choking in the last game. Berry doesn’t miss and makes the last cup with 5 remaining on NorCal’s side. The AZ team was not able to pull off the miracle rebuttal, and NorCal was declared the Best of the West champions.
All in all it was a great tournament with some good competition. Thanks to Chris, Tracy, and Mooney for putting it together and running the damn thing. And be ready next year, New Mexico is taking it!
-Clawless
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Preregistration Discount Here
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August 3rd-5th, 2012
Southwest Beer Pong
Spectators Sports Bar
Friday: WSOBP 8 Satellite
Saturday: $5k Doubles Main Event
Sunday: Singles Championships
Albuquerque, NM