The tournament began early -- 9am on Saturday, October 21st, 2000. Hawi and Mitch both showed up a little early in order to get some practice time in. Both players seemed on top of their games, despite this being the earliest time of day that Horseface had ever played foosball.
Roger Descheneaux and Mark Nutter showed up and chatted with Our Heroes. Roger and Mark are long-time opponents of Horseface. Their record against Horseface is probably a winning one, although the author of this write-up does not wish to check. Suffice it to say that Roger has a nasty array of shots he employs when on offense, and Mark, perhaps from practicing with Roger, has a solid defense. Despite the history of frequent losses to Roger and Mark, Horseface is on friendly (although competitive) terms with them.
Registration was held, and deserves no more description than that. Next was a "pro clinic", which really just amounted to an ex-professional foosball player talking very briefly, and then showing off a few shots. He had a few bits of good advice, but everyone was eager to begin the tournament.
Eventually they called out the first matchups. Horseface, and most other teams, had a bye in the first round. Soon enough they called out the matchup -- Horseface would play Big Game Hunters. Hawi and Mitch walked to the designated table, curious who our opponents would be. Much to our surprise, Roger and Mark showed up, revealing themselves as Big Game Hunters.
Hawi and Mitch weren't sure whether this was good or bad. On the one hand, Horseface had beaten them in the past. On the other hand, such victories were infrequent. Was it better to play a known but difficult opponent or face the unknown? Such speculation was pointless, of course, as Horseface had no choice in the matter. Gritting their teeth and exchanging jokes with Roger and Mark, Team Horseface got to work.
All teams began in the Winners' Bracket until they lost a match. When a team lost a match, they went to the Losers' Bracket. If they lost a match there, then they were out of the tournament. Matches in the Winners' Bracket are best of 3 -- that is, the first team to win two five-point games wins the match. Matches in the Losers' Bracket are a single game to seven points. Therefore, Horseface was playing a best of 3 game set against Big Game Hunters.
The first game was agonizing. Horseface took an early 4-2 lead, but managed to lose the game 4-5. Roger and Mark were tenacious opponents, and this loss did not encourage Team Horseface. Winning the first game would have given them some confidence that they could win one of the next two. Losing the first game meant that Horseface had to win the next two games in order to win the match. Against Roger and Mark, that was no easy situation to be in.
Nevertheless, Horseface fought back. The second game was a 5-1 Horseface victory. Hawi was making some very good offensive shots, and Roger was having trouble with his offense. Horseface began to think that perhaps facing Roger and Mark first was a good thing, because Roger had not yet gotten into his groove.
Game three was tense. A hard fought game, it eventually came down to a 4-4 score. The next point would win the game, and Hawi managed to score that point. Horseface had come back from their early defeat, and advanced to the next round of the Winners' Bracket. Roger and Mark moved to the Losers' Bracket.
Horseface did not have very long to wait before the next match was called. Horseface was to play a team called Foobars. Arriving at the table, it wasn't clear whether these would be formidable opponents or not. Clearly they had won their previous match, as they were still in the Winners' Bracket, but that was all that was known.
The first game began slowly. It still was difficult to tell how tough the opposition was. They had good defense, but they weren't scoring very quickly. The score was 1-1 when Hawi used his standard roll-over shot, but missed the goal. The goalie of Foobars complained that Hawi had spun his men more than 360 degrees. Hawi thought he might have done so, and gave possession of the ball to Foobars' goalie. Shortly thereafter Hawi used his roll-over again, scoring this time. It was pretty clear that he hadn't spun, but the opposing goalie complained again. Hawi agreed to not count the point, although this was just him being nice. The goalie then insisted that we call a referee over, to watch the game and make rulings on such shots. Horseface was in favor of this, otherwise the goalie would object to all of Hawi's shots. The entire manner with which the goalie dealt with the situation was rather abrasive, however, and Horseface was not happy with them. Once the referee arrived, Foobars summarily beat Horseface 5-1. The next game went even faster, 5-0. All of the complaining had taken its toll, but it was also the case that Foobars was a better team than Horseface. This made the complaining all the more galling.
Now in the Losers' Bracket, Horseface was assigned to play Parts Is Parts. Horseface had warmed up with this team earlier. They didn't seem like a particularly tough team, but evidently they had advanced this far. Now Horseface was to play them in a single game to 7 points.
The game started off badly for Horseface. Their goalie was somewhat weak, but their man up front had a shot that Mitch had a lot of trouble blocking. All too soon Horseface was in a 2-5 hole. Remarkably, though, Horseface concentrated on the game and scored five points in a row, winning the game 7-5.
It was at this point that Team Horseface began to wonder just how far they could go. The victory against Roger and Mark had given Horseface confidence, but the decisive loss in the very next round was disheartening. Here was another victory. Horseface knew some of the top teams in the tournament, so first place seemed unreachable. But just how high could Horseface reach?
Another 7 point game, this time against Pavlov's Dogs. Horseface met their opponents at the table. They'd never met over a foosball table before. Hawi and Mitch prepared to play as best they could, unsure of what they were up against. Hawi's shot was incredible. When the game was tied 6-6, most of Horseface's points had been scored by Hawi's phenomenal roll-over shot. The final point, however, was not scored by Hawi's roll-over. Hawi had the ball up front, on his three-man. He set up for his roll-over shot, paused, and then shot the ball straight ahead into the goal. The opposing goalie had not lined up properly, and left an opening right in front of the ball. Horseface rejoiced in their 7-6 victory.
Increasingly concerned about the level of their competition, Horseface's next opponents were Los Banditos. The game was a tough one -- their defense had Hawi's number and their offense was no slouch either. Despite a valiant effort, Horseface lost 5-7. They were out of the tournament, in 9th place (of 37 teams).
Big Game Hunters ended up taking 5th place, despite their early loss to Horseface. Mitch participated in the singles tournament as well, but was eventually knocked out. Interestingly, immediately after the final Horseface defeat, Mitch played the goalie of Los Banditos in a singles match. Mitch won 7-6, exacting some small revenge on Los Banditos.
Team Horseface made an impressive showing. 9th place out of 37 teams is respectable, and is much better than Horseface would have done a year ago. Hawi continues to improve his offense, and Mitch still never passes to Hawi. Horseface will enter more local tournaments in the future.
Take a look at the tournament flowchart which shows the overall doubles results.
Here is a link to more tournament info,
including top standings for both the singles and the doubles tournaments.
