Not one of my better tournaments, so I’m going to go through it very quickly and summarize most of what I remember. TL;DR: I only lasted four rounds, meaning I avoided a strike in only one round; the rest of the tournament also went by fairly quickly.

Round 1 was Charlie’s Angels with Matt Rodon, Holden, and Fred Revnew (I would play first). We were playing this title as a two-player game since there were issues with the fourth player score display. On this game I’ve put up scores well into the hundreds of thousands on this game before, and even rolled over the score counter a couple of times. All of that meant jack spit this evening as I would put up a truly cringeworthy 36,610. Matt would put up a more respectable 205,420. Holden would put up a rather lacking 109,250, and Fred would seal the deal with a 327,910, most of it on one ball. So that’s strike one.

Round 2 would send me over to Star Wars with, Fred Revnew, Kevin Tooley, and Holden (I would be playing third). I never really had much of a chance. I was able to put up 84.7M+ after two balls, but Fred and Kevin signed off with 478.6M+ and 291.0M+, so my third ball would have needed to be a minimum of 207M and change for me to possibly be safe. It wasn’t, in fact, it was a real turd and I’d sign off with 98.4M+ good for third place and strike number two.

Round 3 would finally drop a bit of better luck on me. Holden, Dillon Neal, and Alyssa would be my opponents (I would play second). I was a bit worried at the start of ball 3 as it was a fairly close game. Holden had already wrapped up with 74.1M+, which could be no better than third. Dillon had 89.2M+ for the lead at that point, and Alyssa was way back with 21.0M+, both with a ball still left to play. I would call it a wrap with 132.8M+, Dillon would put a lid on it at 172.4M+, leaving Alyssa, who I had never seen play in a tournament prior to tonight, though to that point she had been the weak link in the group. I got a bit nervous, but finally got to exhale as she signed off with only 49.5M+.

Round 4 would bring on Game of Thrones, with Josh Merlet and Hunter Reed (I would play third). Hunter ran away with it posting a 288.4M+, Josh had put a lid on it with 17.4M+. I would start ball 3 with 7.2M+, not a high score by any means, but it should have been fairly easy for me to dodge a third strike here. Emphasis on “should”. I’d end the night with the third strike here putting up only 15.1M+ and give Josh another round that arguably, he didn’t earn (though he would bust out the following round anyway).

My finish: ninth place of 12 players. You’d think after the previous tournament I would have done better than that against many of the same players.

Eventually, Fred and Jack Revnew would agree to split first place after eight rounds, as it was getting late and they were the only two players left. I’d hang around and put in a few more games. Quick summary of the (better) non-tournament games that night:

• Frogger: 17,290
• Charlie’s Angels: 1,441,590 (where was this during the tourney?!)
• Guardians of the Galaxy: 109.7M+
• Centipede: 34,857
• Twilight Zone: 291.7M+
• Tri Zone: 212,960