Thursday, October 11, 2007

Day 10 Action!

Championship Wednesday, dudes! This is what we've been waiting for!

Game 1:
Chuck Duke Presents: Hairbags vs. SILF

Hot diggety! Centre Court was jam packed with people and the aroma of great times! I got there early and I was still late. That's how excited people were. There were about fifty folks lining the court when I arrived (I'm usually the first) and another ten or fifteen showed before the game started. Holy cats! That's a lot of tension! Jcho even brought his wife and dog for moral support. This was unprecedented attendance.

SILF cruised through the Winner's Bracket with nary a scratch, an underdog the entire way. Hairbags dropped to the Loser's Bracket after their first game and had to play flawless pong to get this far, every game an elimination game. Yeah!!

Kane was back from a successful tour of the UK and he was desperate to dig himself out of a shocking monetary hole. He was in the red up to this point and that would not sit. Waving money around and taking nearly every bet that came his way (Who wants action on, "Morgan will not roof the ball"?), he'd be headed to the Poorhouse if things didn't go just right. It seemed that every bet went through him, which is nutty. Nobody wanted to bet with anyone but Kane. That's some heavy action. I think I saw some French School kids wander over with fives.

By the time the game started, the crowd was fully warmed up and ready to go. The table was absolutely engulfed in a dense crush of noise. You could see the players squinching against the physical pressure of it. Morgan would admit later that he had to consciously tighten his sphincter, lest he poop his pants. It was that intense.

It was a fantastic game throughout, with Hairbags finally pulling away at only the very end.

Chuck Duke Presents: Hairbags: 21, SILF: 17

On to Game 2! The Final Elimination!

We couldn't have asked for more drama. Game 2 of the Championship Round is always a rare treat and this one proved to be one of the best of all time. This game went down to the wire, neck and neck the entire way. To make things even more regrettably unbearable, Jance broke! Our Official Scoreboard broke at about 5-serving-6. Or was it 6-serving-5? Or 4 serving-7?!? Jance said one thing and the crowd said something else! Now?!? In the final game?? This is not the time to malfunction! Once he was recalibrated, we thought everything would be fine, until a few points later when someone demanded an update and Jance replied, "I have no idea what the score is." All the air got sucked out of the area as the crowd collectively gasped. My tiny mind raced with notions and schemes about how I was going to get out of Centre Court alive once the scene degenerated into torches and pitchforks. Thankfully someone knew the score and we just kind of continued on, pretending that nothing horrible almost happened.

Point after point, rally after rally, slam after slam, the scores stayed close and the excitement escalated. 11-11. 14-15. 17-17!! SILF took a bit of a lead at 20-18!! Point game with two to give! SILF?!? Could it be??

20-19! Holy fuck!

Deuce!!!

If memory serves, this had happened a couple of times before. Maybe only once, I don't know. Deuce in the final elimination game? Can you imagine a more ridiculous scenario? I can't, and my wet undies were a testament to that, as were the soiled undergarments of Jess, John K, Clemens, Yasmin, Brian, Voss, Kane (with stacks of green on the line), Ross (desperately hoping through a haze of tears that his image stabilization was working as he tried to document the proceedings on film), Chris Muffins, and a host of other folks who decided that this would be the first time they would come down to watch pong. The entire courtyard would have to be cordoned off and the HazMat team would have to be called, but it could wait. We were fully contaminated already.

Now...

Deuce.

There are four options when things go to Deuce. Either it's tied and you can try to breathe, you're up one and go for one last point for the win, you're down one and do all you can to hold it together and re-tie and go back to Deuce, or the game is over. That's it. Every point is a do-or-die, for the most part. No coasting at this point. So...

First serve:
Advantage SILF!

Second serve:
Deuce!

Third serve:
Advantage SILF!

Fourth serve:
Deuce!

Fifth serve:
Advantage SILF!

Sixth serve:
Deuce!!

Holy @#$!! Three chances to win, all blown! I personally had six heart attacks (This could have been worse - heart attacks are best in even numbers, because the second of each pair actually restarts the heart. If you have an odd number, well, sorry. Game over.). I was ready to expire. Surely they wouldn't get another golden opportunity to win this thing.

Seventh serve:
Advantage Hairbags!

See?? This thing is over....

Eighth serve:
Deuce!!

What the @#$?? Apoplexia had consumed the crowd. Ears were split, chests exploded, minds shattered, and David Gibson turned to a quivering mass of jelly.

Ninth serve:
Advantage SILF!

Another chance!!

Tenth serve:
Deuce!

You've got to be @#$ing kidding me!! I think Austin Eddy clinically died for two or three seconds.

Eleventh serve:
Advantage Hairbags!

JesusMaryJoseph...

Twelfth serve:
Game over!! Game over!!! Game over!!!

Chuck Duke Presents: Hairbags: 27, SILF: 25

Had I tried to write a compelling script for Championship Wednesday, I could only hope that it would have turned out like this. What an exciting day. Fantastic, fantastic fun.

Thanks to everyone who played and everyone who participated. Wow.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Reading the last entry got my heart racing again. My ulcer returned. And I'm back at the moment. Very surreal how everything was like a blazing fleeting dream. Adrenaline is a high.

Have to shout out some thank you's:

Thanks Dan for executing this awesome event (the bloodbath pong kumite)

Thanks Brian/Kane for stirring up Tippett's economy

Thanks Morgan for being born and being my pong partner in crime

Thanks SILF for being unparalleled competitors and making us fight to the death

Thanks to Amy and Remy for making the long trip to watch me engulfed by the mad seething crowd of Tippett. Your support is priceless.

Thanks for all Tippett folks (boo-er's and cheer-er's) for making this tourney experience an unforgettable one. With out your hot sweaty bodies, and blood filled screaming heads, this tournament wouldn't live up to it's name: Tippett's Pong Tournament.

Thank you all!

Until we meet again, keep practicing and training, cuz I'm gonna FIGHT to defend my title...................

Jcho