| 16 February 2010
GRANADA HILLS - It was one of those tournaments where I had an idea how things were going to go, but once it started I really didn't know how it was going to go. The format for the LA Riots III qualifying tournament had been drawn out and explained a few times prior to Monday night, but I really wanted to see how it was going to play out.
It turned out alright. As I mentioned in the pre-game show, I thought only five players were going to get out to the bracket round, all with one loss. I was one person over. From there, the final eight competitors took part in some really good matches. Justin Wong and Mike Ross captured the two qualifying spots for the LA Riots III tournament.
There will be one more qualifying tournament, and I'm being told it's going to be much harder than Monday night's tournament. It will likely be the same format, but the players that enter should expect to run a much tougher gauntlet.
As for Monday night, it was entertaining. Let's get to the recap.
Title match result
Justin Wong 2, Mike Ross 0
Match breakdown
Rounds won: Justin Wong 4, Mike Ross 0
First-hit win percentage: Overall 75.0 percent, Justin Wong 100.0 percent (3/3), Mike Ross 0.0 percent (0/1)
Lead changes: 0
The title match was over when ...
... Justin Wong won a slow-paced opening round. That was the trend in the remaining four rounds.
Player of the tournament
It'll be two guys: Hugo101 and OnlineTony213. They were the only two players out of 19 that won both "gatekeeper" contests.
Other notes
Justin went 4-0 in the tournament, but the only time he swept a match (plus-4) was in the finals against Mike. And oh my goodness, I hope you all get to see the video where somehow Justin busts out an ultra a split second after Mike does a torpedo, from close range. This wasn't an across-the-screen move; it was almost point blank.
Also, I looked at Keno's run during the gatekeeper round. He lost to OnlineTony213 then Hugo101. After that, Keno played six more matches, swept them all 2-0 and got a perfect round ratio of plus-24! That is insane.
Mike and Keno went a combined 32-6.
After the tournament, I caught up with Mike to talk about qualifying for LA Riots III, and his final match against Justin.
