Tuesday, November 07, 2006

[GTT6] Looking at round 2

The second round for GTT6 is in the books. Not the best round of tournament play in e-fed history, but that's what happens when you get wholesale no-shows like we got in this round. I can honestly say I'm aghast, but I can also say I'm pretty glad that I got a live one for my match.

Real life happens. I think I've stressed that in this blog more times than I care to recall, and there were some cases of real life happening. Sean Williams' alleged sexual encounter while at a convention here in the Greatest City In These United States is one thing. He entered the tourney assuming he'd have time, but this convention came up. Shit happens.

But then, you've got people who entered the tournament and they claim they didn't know what the committment was going to be all about. I have to ask, how could you not? I mean, the two RP minimum for an early round can be off-putting. I can see that. It almost prevented me from being eligible to advance with my work schedule having me commute back and forth between here and Baltimore for the last nine weekdays. But I knew that there was going to be a demand for RPing in this tourney, and fortunately, I met it. How did I know? Well, remember last year, the efforts that folks like Sean and Andrew Delling and Andy Hewitt put forth to make it as far as they did weren't trivial. They put up multiple RPs of great quality to make it as far as they did. In years' past to my knowledge, there was more of a demand for number of RPs. How could you sit back and say you didn't know you had to put that much effort in? I don't know.

As for the results, there were some huge shockers, like Earth-shattering. In the first round, while Sage over Rollins and VJ over Tchu were pegged upsets in the most techincal term, most people would agree that both those results were no surprise. Then again, the one upset that happened wasn't all that shocking, at least to me and folks who've followed AWC over the last year. Jack Murphy beat The Illustrious Face-Eater in a match that most people didn't see coming. Those in the know, though, would remember back in the springtime when the same Jack Murphy upended the only-slightly modified character Adam Dick for the AWC Transatlantic Championship. The other upset... well, looking back at it, maybe it's not much of an upset either, but still, even if it's Vangelus Olsig taking out Dr. C, it's still someone you wouldn't have thought would have taken out Dr. C.

All of this just goes to show that GTT is often a time when unknown talents come out and shine. We pump up our favorites and in turn create artificial shock whenever they lose. We're in the stage where everyone left deserves to be here.

Finally, I'd like to note that A1 has done itself proud by getting three people (myself, Dan West and Jeff P.) into the third round, all after losing in the first round and gaining play-ins. Hopefully, we can be the story of this year's GTT by continuing to do well and putting people on notice.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If we end up with half a dozen new stars, then who's going to remember the high proportion no-shows in an early round? Perhaps people with too much time on their hands :) I remember GTT3 had 80 no-shows out of 256 entrants in Round 1. Most people these days who remember it associate it with Angelo Deville kicking ass and taking names, and rightfully so.

So, if my reasoning for the way I do things is sound, then we should have very few if any for the rest of the tournament, and thus it will have been worth it.

On the other hand, if my reasoning is out of touch with reality, then we will no doubt be hit with a repeat performance.

Pass me those dice!

R.