S77 VHL Chess Tournament Playoff Recap

[N0HBDY 1,119]

Back once again for another VHL chess tournament and this time I’ve decided to write about it! Our last tournament winner was @Caboose30 after taking down @jhatty8 and upsetting the fan favorite @hedgehog337 in the semifinals.
 
The former champ did not participate in this season tournament but with new challengers entering the tournament there would be not shortage of talent and entertainment. 16 contestants, split into groups of 4, all competing for one thing, that is to be the VHL S77 Chess Tournament champion. 
 
In Group A was the fan favorite who’s playoff run was cut short in the semifinals last season and is back this season finishing at the top of their group with a perfect 6-0 record, @hedgehog337. Finishing second in Group A, making their first VHL Chess tournament appearance, finishing with a record of 2-2, @Berocka. Finishing 3rd in Group A, the reason you are all here, with a record of 1-3, yours truly @N0HBDY. Then finishing dead last, the tournament director, with a record of 1-5, @Ricer13.
 
In Group B, from placing as runner-up in last season’s tournament, leading the pack, back for revenge, a record of 6-0, @jhatty8. Closely following him In Group B, beating all other opponents other than hatter, with a record of 4-2, @ColeMrtz(JCole). Finishing third in the group, with a record of 1-4-1, being apart of the only stalemate of the tournament, MattO. Then finishing last in Group B with a record of 0-5-1 is @Ledge_and_Dairy(Ledge).
 
Onto Group C who for some reason all played an extra game than every other group. After losing in the Quarterfinals last season to the Champion, they came back with a very strong performance in Group C finishing 6-1, @Vat. Finishing second in with a very creative name, a record of 5-2, BobNutting. Third in the group with a record of 2-5, with the most points a 3 seed in the tournament has, @TheCHEESE(Cheese). Then lastly in Group C with a record of 1-6, @Alex_J32(Alex).
 
Then finally the last group, that being Group D. Finishing first with 5 games played and a perfect record 5-0, one of the WJC commissioners, my favorite person of all time, @bigAL. Secondly for Group D, after being eliminated in the semifinals last season by Hatter, not showing as strong of a tournament, and just clawing their way into the 2 seed with a record of 2-3, @TacticalHammer (Tac). Finishing third with only 2 games played and a record of 1-1, you wonder if they had just played more games if they would’ve clinched that 2nd seed, @RedSus. Then last in Group D and to finish all the round robin recap, with a record of 0-4, @Siddhus(Sid). Now that I believe everyone involved that I could find is tagged, lets begin!
 
We move into the bracket stage of the newly formatted tournament where there are two sides to the bracket, the A side and the B side. All this being given to us by a nice homemade, handwritten, and very lovingly detailed bracket by Ricer.
 
In the first matchup for “A” side is yours truly N0HBDY versus Ledge. The second Matchup is MattO and tournament director Ricer. Third matchup was Cheese versus Sid. The final matchup of “A” side being RedSus versus Alex.
 
Then on “B” side and in my opinion the stronger side of the bracket the first matchup was fan favorite Hedge versus Cole. Second Matchup being JHatty versus Berocka. Third Matchup was Tac versus Vat. Then the final matchup of BigAl versus Phil.
 
Now for the first round “A” side recap. A 30 minute battle between two 700+ rated players N0HBDY v Ledge. Ledge wins game 1 of the best of 3 series and then after a quick dinner break by N0HBDY. Ledge then takes the series in a 2-0 sweep to move onto the second round for “A” side. As for the other matchup of “A” side featuring MattO v Ricer, the tournament director stays humble and refuses to give himself any kind of advantage over others in the tournament, MattO takes game 1 and then proceeds to take game 2 two days later for another 2-0 sweep on “A” side. The third matchup of “A” side Cheese v Sid proceeds with Cheese taking game 1, Sid comes back to take game 2 and send the series into this season first three game series with Cheese coming out victorious. 
 
While the first round of “A” side is going on, “B” side begins as well with Hedge v Cole. Both games being knocked out in under an hour as fan favorite Hedge sweeps Cole 2-0 to advance. The highly anticipated match JHatty v Beroka ends with beroka dropping out of the series due to uncontrollable issues happening in Beroka’s life, to which he was replaced by Zetterberg. But in the end the replacement wouldn’t make it any more difficult for Hatty, winning the series 2-0. With plenty of more chess the third match of “B” side, that being Tac v Vat. With neither giving out game by game scores there isn’t any real game by game recap but for the series and to advance to the second round Tac beats Vat 2-1. Finally the last matchup for the first round with BigAl v Phil. Again there were no scores given out by either competitor for this matchup but in Ricer’s bracket it concludes that Phil beats BigAl to advance.
 
Now folks this is where the bracket may become a little tricky to understand, but I will do my best in explaining it briefly here. If you lose in the main bracket you are not done, you would drop into a sub bracket where you would then fight against other loser for a chance at the 5th place game. If you lost another game in the sub bracket you would drop to a sub sub bracket where you would compete for 7th place. Now what I will do for the recap is explain from the bottom up if that makes sense, so that I can not only write more and claim this for more weeks, but to keep you invested and hold the best for last.
 
Now moving into the second round of the “A” side bracket we will start at the bottom as said before. The first match in the sub bracket for 5th place was between Siddhus and Redsus. Unfortunately Redsus dropped out of the tournament therefore making Siddhus the victor and moving him into the 5th place game. Siddhus’s opponent in the 5th Place game will be decided in a matchup between the tournament host Ricer and your very own N0HBDY. Ricer would pull out to an early start in the series taking game one, but then would lose game 2 of the series making it 1-1. After much anticipation the third game was held and the victor who would move onto the 5th place game to play Siddhus was Ricer, taking the series 2-1. Then I must also add that with the dropping out of RedSus there was nobody for N0HBDY to play in the 7th place game, therefore N0HBDY was awarded 7th place on “A” side!
 
Now we will move onto the “B” side’s losers bracket with a matchup featuring Vat v BigAl, the teacher bragging earlier about wiping the floor against the kids he teaches is beaten 2-0 by BigAl reporting the score as “Vat a lot - 0 BigAl.” Showing quite an upset ending to the series. Then with the other matchup supposed to be Zetterberg v JCole, Zetterberg drops out of the tournament and tournament director decides to give BigAl a “Redemption series” against JCole. BigAl seizes the opportunity, beating JCole with a vicious 2-0 series to move on and play the person that had just eliminated them, in the 5th place game on “B” side. Also another thing to add that due to Zetterberg dropping out of the tournament there was no opponent for JCole to play in the 7th place game, therefore tournament director Ricer officially awarded the 7th place finish to JCole!
 
Now we jump to the winner’s bracket quarterfinals, featuring “A” side bracket first. The first of only two matchups in this quarterfinals match features Ledge v MattO. This series being knocked out in one day had MattO taking game one, and then proceeding to take the series 2-0 to go to the championship and send Ledge to the 3rd place game on “A” side. The second matchup of the quarterfinals was Cheese v Alex but sadly no scores were given of this series so I can only tell you what I know and that is that Alex defeated Cheese to proceed to the “A” side championship and send Cheese down to play Ledge in the 3rd place match.
 
Now just hold on folks because the end is almost here, we’re at the “B” side quarterfinals. The first matchup and quite an exciting one at that featured fan favorite Hedge v Jhatty. Hedge starts strong taking game one over Jhatty but then game 2 of this series end with a stalemate making the series 1.5-0.5 in Hedge’s favor. If Jhatty could win the next game he could force the tournaments first ever game 4. But Hedge with ice in his veins he cuts Jhatty’s hope’s and dreams down by ending the series 2.5-0.5 advancing to the place he failed to go last year, that being the championship. With the last matchup of the quarterfinals in general now we had another exciting series, this time between Tac v Phil. With the first game of the series ending in a stalemate they would move onto the second match where Tac would come out on top and then proceed to take the series next match and move on to play Hedge in the “B” side championship.
 
Now the stage is set, if you have read all 1600+ words so far, props to you. Both 5th place, 3rd place, and 1st place matches are set and I will begin with the 5th place matches and work my way up.
 
On “A” side the 5th place match is set between Siddhus and Ricer. After a not so strong first match by tournament host Ricer he gives up game one to Sid. After a brief period of time and a Canucks game, game #2 commences between Siddhus and Ricer. Another not so strong performance by Ricer will lead to his demise as he falls to Siddhus in the 5th place match 2-0.
 
Now to the “B” side 5th place match between BigAl and Vat again, with this series being possibly the most exciting of the entire tournament. Even after BigAl has openly admitted to cheating to get to this match he will play on and lose the first game to Vat. BigAl will quickly strike back in the series right after dropping game one by taking game 2 over Vat to tie the series 1-1. The two competitors move into their 3rd game of the afternoon right after which ends in a stalemate forcing the tournaments second game 4. They decided on waiting till the next day for the game to happen as to be best prepared and in game 4 of the “B” side 5th place game Vat would come out on top to win the series.
 
Now that the lower matches are finished it’s time to get to the matches you may be more interested in. I’ll start with the “A” side 3rd place match between Cheese and Ledge. Sadly as much as I would like to make this as dramatic as possible there was no single game score given, only a series score to report the winner, but I will make due with what I can. Game 1 between Ledge and Cheese I can only assume went in Ledge’s favor as well as the second game because Ledge sweeps Cheese 2-0 to take the “A” side 3rd place title.
 
With the last series before I get to the championship games I’m sure you readers out there are just dying to know who won. I will get to that very shortly but every match matters. The “B” side 3rd place match was held with Phil taking on JHatty. But yet again there was no single game score given each time but luckily there was no random order this series could have gone as Phil defeats JHatty 2-0 to claim the “B” side 3rd place title.
 
Finally folks the moment you have all been waiting for. The championship matches, with “A” side featuring Alex v MattO, and “B” side featuring Tac v Hedge.

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and finally

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for the 1st place match

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of "A" and "B" side

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the story is just one more click away

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in part two when released 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for reading this please feel free to critique my writing skills, it will get better in the future. Thank you to @Ricer13for hosting such an amazing tournament that I truly look forward to competing in each season.

Stay tuned for PT.2 of the recap!

 

 

2,174 Words - 4 week claim
 

Edited April 27, 2021 by N0HBDY

[Ricer13 2,796]

This was amazing. The only thing is that the A playoff was the top players from each round robin bracket and the B playoffs were the bottom two players from each round robin bracket.

[bigAL 2,176]

Damn son good stuff, I love it when we can make our little side games more legit! Just some feedback, be careful with people’s names. We have a Hatter and a Hatty, so you can’t call one the other. We have a Jhatty and a Cole, so I think JCole is ColeMrtz? Otherwise, great work NoOne!

[ColeMrtz 574]

11 hours ago, bigAL said:

Damn son good stuff, I love it when we can make our little side games more legit! Just some feedback, be careful with people’s names. We have a Hatter and a Hatty, so you can’t call one the other. We have a Jhatty and a Cole, so I think JCole is ColeMrtz? Otherwise, great work NoOne!

I mean I'll take being confused with a platinum artist any day of the week

[N0HBDY 1,119]

week 2

[Prout 373]

Good article! Great to see members doing things outside VHL together as it shows what this community can do. Good job tagging people and on spacing. Easy format to follow along and understand what all happened 

 

8/10

[Caboose30 152]

Sorry fam, just busy with life. Otherwise I definitely would have gone for a back to back title

[N0HBDY 1,119]

week 3

[N0HBDY 1,119]

week 4