EPTOk, so where were we? Ah yes, we were still in the practice/warm-up stage of Day 1. I was bouncing around from table to table introducing myself to the players and wishing them luck. I saw Painuser get up from a practice game and start to stretch, so I went over and told him this joke that I prepared specially for him.
After another 30-45 minutes of warm-ups, all the players were asked to please get up and follow the head PC tourney admin, Ryan/MLG_Ryu upstairs to the SC2 players' meeting. Nobody really knew what was going on though, as evidenced here.
Since I wasn't invited to the meeting, I just took this time to walk around the venue, get a nice Dr. Pepper, and relax for a little bit. I'd been standing for about three hours straight at this point and took a quick breather in the lobby upstairs, waiting for the players to emerge. Then suddenly, when I looked up from my phone I spotted a huge line of SC2 players with their backs against the wall, so I went to investigate.
As you can see, everyone headed back downstairs to resume their practice time and make sure all their gear was in working order. Around 4 'o clock, we still had no idea what the brackets looked like, and the players were getting hungry so I tagged along to lunch. Before we could get out of the venue though, this happened while waiting for the rest of our group.
Finally, we were able to head upstairs and enjoy some delicious sub sandwiches, and I got to gossip with the players a bit.
As far as I know, nobody had anything outright stolen at the event, though a couple of headsets and earbuds did mysteriously vanish at some point or another over the weekend. Around 5, the brackets were announced and everyone was voicing their opinions on the Machine vs. iNcontroL round 1 debacle, but nothing was done about it, so all the players sacked up and sat down for their games.
Round 1 went off pretty smoothly, with all of the seeded, invited players manhandling their sign-up counterparts. All of the series in round 1 were 2-0, except for Silver vs. Elparamedico in which Silve dropped his first game but rallied back 2 games to none to advance. The skill difference was rather apparent in most of the matchups, but iNcontroL vs. Machine was a bit of a surprise to many of the players there, as well as the ajtls vs. SeleCT series, where a lot of the players had no idea who was favored or who would win.
Between rounds 1 and 2, players were scrambling around trying to find out who they played next in the winner's bracket, and I foolishly decided to look online (on my phone) and tell everyone what I found. Gotfrag.com had the incorrect brackets for most of the day, and there was just a ton of confusion about who was going to play who. Of course, it eventually smoothed out and the MLG admins even printed out an extra bracket for me to keep and show the players if they had questions.
Upper bracket and lower bracket games continued all night without too much commotion. When upper bracket round 2 was wrapping up, I went around checking to see how everyone did so that I could update my bracket printout. I found Agh, who I was rooming with, and asked how he did against Tyler, fully expecting the first words to be "I lost," but instead, Agh just sighed, shrugged a little, and said "2-0." Based on his lack of excitement, I of course took that to mean that Tyler had won the series, 2-0. I said something like "Ah, it's alright man, at least you get to keep going." His reply this time was quicker, and with a smile: "No man, I 2-0'd him." Wow. This guy Agh, who I'd never heard of (and I watch and cast a shitload of SC2) 2-0'd Team Liquid's fighting chance in the tournament in a PvP! In round 2! Crazy. I told him he did a great job and I was suddenly excited to see how far he'd end up going.
The lower bracket rounds were played as well, and that was where iNcontroL managed to deal the killing blow to Tyler's chance at the championship. Machine vs. CatZ resulted in Machine being the first Zerg hope eliminated, leaving SLush and CatZ to try and do what they could for the underrepresented race. The last games of the day were the Winner's Round of 16, with games like Painuser 0-2 ajtls, Agh 1-2 Nadagast, and finally wrapping up with Masq 0-2 SLush. Both of my roommates were now in the Lower bracket, which is kind of a sucky thing to happen right before going to bed. Agh and Masq both told me the next morning that they were replaying their Ro16 games in their heads and constantly thinking of things they could have done differently.
Either way, the Day 1 games were now over, and we were allowed to go to sleep! Masq, Agh, and I headed to our hotel at the Sheraton. I checked in at about 12:20 at night, but we got to our room on the 14th floor without any problems. I transferred all my media off of my camera and tried to do some uploading overnight, but the wireless in the hotel was pretty dismal and my uploads kept cutting out. Hence this not-so-live blog. =)
Join me again for Day 2 coming soon! Keep your eyes here for a mash-up of all the other footage I got on Day 1 that wasn't long enough or substantial enough to be a video on its own.
EDIT: Here's the mash-up video!
Or, go check out my photo album thread here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=148628
