My 8-ball team ended up 1st place in the standings in the Tuesday night league pool league at Fox and Hound for Summer of 2013. As a result, we are automatically entered into an end-of-session tournament called Tri-Cup a.k.a. the Big Money Tournament. At this tournament, the winners of each of the 8 leagues across the city of Tucson play against each other in a single elimination format. Each team only plays up to 2 matches against randomly selected teams from leagues outside of your own. If you win the first match, you qualify for the annual City Tournament (that is ultimately a qualifier for nationals). After the first round, 8 teams remain and you play a second round that if you win your team wins $1000 in prize money! There are 4 winners at Tri-Cup, which basically means you can only win $1000 and so it's not a winner-take-all deal.
Anyway, my team played in this tournament today, our second attempt since we've started pool league. The first time was back in the Spring, but two key players (myself and Chris) were out of town, so we sent to the tournament whoever was available but not our strongest lineup. We ended up winning the first match, which qualified us for City, but we lost the second match and didn't win any money. :(
This time around, we had everyone available to play. The first match we sent up Chris and Anthony who both won. The third match I sent up Erica against the other team's sole 6 skill-rated player. She won the first game, but immediately following after had a panic attack and couldn't play anymore. :( Don't worry, she is fine now, it was just too much caffeine and an adrenaline rush from playing! But fortunately, it turns out the other team only had 4 players and given the scoring format that I won't go into detail, they were forced to forfeit and ultimately could not win the match. Erica winning that one game allowed us to advance to second round!
The second round we were against a full squad of players. However, Anthony, Tyler, and Chris all won their matches, so it was over by the 3rd game. Yep, yours truly wasn't even needed today and The Dollar Menu ended up taking 1000 dollars in winnings, woohoo!!! :P Almost one year ago I could've only imagined this team - of friends I assembled whom nobody knew of - would have become so successful and strong as we are today! I'm quite proud!
