My first game was against Kieran, who was freshly deflated from losing the final place in the CheX finals. Against the person who regularly drew with me I got an early break and ran away with the win in the end 24-9. It was not as bad as Steve's first round 76-11 loss to Greg, though. On another machine, the two Jacobs fought out a great game, with Jake Martin running away with a 23-18 win in the last 20 seconds. An upset on the other side of the lab, with out-of-form Quin beating tourney fave Scotty 23-17 in their opening game of the comp.
The second game was to be the most difficult for Steve. Up against Scotty, he didn't even turn up and forfeited. Jacob Lucas had yet another thriller, and lost yet again, this time to Kieran, 21-18, bowing out of the double elimination tourney without a win. Jake Martin managed to keep Greg to 17 points (after 76 in the first round) while winning with 20 of his own. Not bad for someone who hadn't played for about a year. Reigning champ Danno fought off his practice game yips against Quin to beat the previous champ 20-14.
Danno's fixturing program's randomness had a rematch for Scotty and Quin, with Quin bowing out with two consecutive losses against previous winners, this time losing on the last point 11-10 in a low scoring affair. Danno stopped Jake's undefeated run with a 24-14 thrashing, and Kieran was eliminated by Greg 16-9 in another low scoring game.
I was into the final! But who would I play? The wait would be long and labourious, because there were still games to decide who would face me. Jake was up against Greg, with Scotty sitting out the bye. It was an even game, so even in fact, that it ended in a 20-20 draw! So neither was eliminated from the comp - my fixturing program again made those two play off. Again, the game was close, ending with Jake being edged out by Greg 21-19.
While Jake was out, Scott and Greg played off to see who would meet "Overall Slime Victor" Danno (source: 2002 Honours student votes) in the marathon final. Greg decided his middle name was Steve and was promptly demolished by Scott, 41-6.
The final was played on Friday. Whereas the previous games were all four minutes (plus time on), the final was drawn out to 10 minutes. It was all square at half time, though Scotty was under the pump in the first half, doing everything in a long rally to prevent me turning into super slime (by winning 6 consecutive points). I came out firing in the second half, jumping out to a handy lead of a few points. However, it was cut back at about the three and a half minute mark by a run of 5 by Scott, who probably would have ran away with the game if he had won that ccrucial sixth point. However, it was not to be. He lost it and the momentum, which I carried through to victory by 3 points. and I was the champion again! All that was missing were the "back-to-back" t-shirts for me and my medical crew, who fixed my collapsed lung suffered in qualifying on Wednesday. Well, maybe due to some other incident.
Stats from the final:
| Danno | v | Scotty |
|---|---|---|
| Richmond | Team | Fremantle |
| 46% | Possession | 54% |
| 460 | Touches | 501 |
| 26 | Points won | 23 |
| 9 | Winners | 8 |
| 6 | Aces | 3 |
| 8 | Clangers | 8 |
| 0 | Super Slimes | 0 |
| 5 | Longest Streak | 5 |
| 1 | Collapsed Lungs | 0 |
Apologies to Clive :P (this is a rip off of an email he sent out to everyone detailing his fantastic victory in an AI tournament, thanks to my AI throwing an exception after being undefeated ):