So, here's the low down on the results of the fundraiser. I apologize for taking so long to update you all but we still had donations coming in as late as last Wednesday and I wanted to give you all a good estimate of how we did.
For those of you who don't know me, here's a quick introduction:
My name's Matthew Fink. I'm a 23 year old quad amputee from Minnesota and I'm a disabled gamer. For the past 8 months, I've been travelling on a Watson Fellowship exploring the global Starcraft community and searching out disabled gamers (http://www.watsonfellowship.org).
"The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship offers college graduates of 'unusual promise' a year of independent, purposeful exploration and travel -- in international settings new to them -- to enhance their capacity for resourcefulness, imagination, openness, and leadership and to foster their humane and effective participation in the world community."
My Watson Project
+ Show Spoiler +
My Watson project was to travel Europe and Asia, train Starcraft 2 with the goal of someday reaching a professional level of play, and to seek out disabled gamers around the world to see how gaming and technology are changing their lives. I've searched lan centers, live events, and even schools accross at least 9 different countries and three different continents for disabled gamers and I made a TON of great and lifelong friends along the way.
This trip was only possible because of the continued efforts of the community in helping me plan my trip, make the connections I needed to make it a memorable and complete experience, and giving me the encouragement I needed to follow this crazy dream of mine. Ultimately, that's what watson is all about: having an adventure. And boy was it an adventure.
My Watson project was to travel Europe and Asia, train Starcraft 2 with the goal of someday reaching a professional level of play, and to seek out disabled gamers around the world to see how gaming and technology are changing their lives. I've searched lan centers, live events, and even schools accross at least 9 different countries and three different continents for disabled gamers and I made a TON of great and lifelong friends along the way.
This trip was only possible because of the continued efforts of the community in helping me plan my trip, make the connections I needed to make it a memorable and complete experience, and giving me the encouragement I needed to follow this crazy dream of mine. Ultimately, that's what watson is all about: having an adventure. And boy was it an adventure.
About the Fundraiser
Because of my disability though I must travel with an aid at all times and, unfortunately, the Watson only provides enough money for one person's travel. I covered the expenses of paying an aid and their travel expenses out of my own pocket for as long as I could and when I ran out of money I decided to to turn, once again, to this incredible community for help. We ran a great event with an awesome star studded tournament including the likes of Tt.White-Ra, FXO.Leenock, TSL.Revival, Empire.Kas, and TSL.SymboL. We also had some awesome guests including Mouz.Kaelaris, Moletrap, Mr.Bitter, Temp0, and the guys over at StarCast!
Fundraising Results
Now, for the answer to the question everyone has been asking: how did things turn out?
Over the course of the three day long event we made over $3,500.00 U.S. which is no small feat. It was far from our goal of $15,000, which is what it would have taken to finish paying the cost of having an aid with me but it was enough to get myself and my aid home to the United states safely. We even had a person donate a place to stay in Las Vegas so that we could go to IPL4 on the way home so here's a huge shout out to Julie! Given the very limited timeframe we had to put everything together, I'm actually very happy with how things turned out and I'm thankful for every dollar the community was willing to give!
If you would like to continue to give, you still can at http://www.anniefink.com/collections/matthew-look-no-hands-fink or directly though paypal @ finkm@carleton.edu The Annie Fink Designs link will stay active for at least another week.
Tournament Results
Here are the results of the LookNoHands Fundraiser Tournament:
1st Place: TSL.RevivaL - $250.00
2nd Place: Empire.Kas - $150.00
3rd Place: ImbaFXO.HappyZerG - $75.00
4th Place: TSL.Inori - $50.00
2nd Place: Empire.Kas - $150.00
3rd Place: ImbaFXO.HappyZerG - $75.00
4th Place: TSL.Inori - $50.00
+ Show Spoiler +
The tournament was filled with zergs and star power. Originally we had a commitment from IMMVP and IMNestea to come play, which was really exciting, but due to GSTL-related issues, they had to back out. Luckily, at the last-second , we got TSLInori, TSLRevival and TSLSymbol to fill in the bottom half of our bracket. Not only did we get 3 Code S level players, but because they all went to the bottom half of the bracket, the tournament essentially had a European bracket and a Korean bracket. In the first round, Kas showcased a dominant 1 rax 3 orbital TvZ build against Slivko which became an omen of games to come, as he won the series 2-1. White-Ra advanced in a surprisingly close match against open bracket winner Suppy, TLO beat Bly in a ZvZ, and to round out the top half of the bracket, Slavik beat open bracket runner-up vVvRuff 2-1 in a set that featured a 3-rax all-in, a blue flame hellion rush, and in the final deciding game, a ridiculous 3-starport banshee build that nearly let Ruff upset the favored zerg Slavik's solid playstyle. In the second round, we again saw Kas showcase his TvZ against TLO, winning 2-0, while Slavik earned an unfortunate walkover over White-Ra due to travel issues related to White-Ra's participation in the Lone Star clash in Texas. This set up another TvZ showdown for Kas against Slavik in the semis. The exciting games featured Kas' heavy terran macro style against Slavik's big-battle micro style. In outstanding clashes, we repeatedly saw Slavik miraculously save big-money units like infestors and brood lords in engagement after engagement, but never with quite enough advantage to push into terran territory, and in 4 games, Kas' amazing macro helped him prevail 3-1.
In the "Korean" half of the bracket, GSL finalist FXO.Leenock took on EG.LzGamer in the first of a series of clashes that would see Koreans dominate American opponents. TSL.Inori dispatched of open bracket winner vVv.SeoHyeon, Symbol took out open bracket runner-up swilson, and Revival defeated Machine in a series of one-sided matches, setting up an all-Korean round of 8. Inori pulled off the upset against Leenock with very strong 2 base timings, and in a teamkill, Revival managed to out-ZvZ Symbol to set up a PvZ showdown in the semis between teammates Inori and Revival. Inori wasn't able to duplicate the magic against Revival, and Revival was the Korean champion, advancing 3-1. In the underwhelming third-place match, Slavik beat Inori 2-0 in a lag-plagued pair of rush matches; Slavik held off Inori's blink timing in game 1, while a missed force field cost Inori game 2 against Slavik's early roach speedling attack.
The finals match between Revival and Kas, on the other hand, was everything we hoped the finals would be, pitting the aggressive 2-base style of Revival against Kas' massive macro attack. Moletrap casted beautifully as we saw Revival show us how strong infestor ultralisk late-game compositions are against Terran, and Kas showed us his trademark multi-pronged midgame aggression off 3 bases. Ultimately, in an series of iconic TvZ clashes, Revival took the series in 6 games. Our only disappointment was that Kas couldn't quite take the series to the full 7 games, so we could see another game in this amazing series. Congrats to all our players, but especially our two finalists for dominating all tournament!
In the "Korean" half of the bracket, GSL finalist FXO.Leenock took on EG.LzGamer in the first of a series of clashes that would see Koreans dominate American opponents. TSL.Inori dispatched of open bracket winner vVv.SeoHyeon, Symbol took out open bracket runner-up swilson, and Revival defeated Machine in a series of one-sided matches, setting up an all-Korean round of 8. Inori pulled off the upset against Leenock with very strong 2 base timings, and in a teamkill, Revival managed to out-ZvZ Symbol to set up a PvZ showdown in the semis between teammates Inori and Revival. Inori wasn't able to duplicate the magic against Revival, and Revival was the Korean champion, advancing 3-1. In the underwhelming third-place match, Slavik beat Inori 2-0 in a lag-plagued pair of rush matches; Slavik held off Inori's blink timing in game 1, while a missed force field cost Inori game 2 against Slavik's early roach speedling attack.
The finals match between Revival and Kas, on the other hand, was everything we hoped the finals would be, pitting the aggressive 2-base style of Revival against Kas' massive macro attack. Moletrap casted beautifully as we saw Revival show us how strong infestor ultralisk late-game compositions are against Terran, and Kas showed us his trademark multi-pronged midgame aggression off 3 bases. Ultimately, in an series of iconic TvZ clashes, Revival took the series in 6 games. Our only disappointment was that Kas couldn't quite take the series to the full 7 games, so we could see another game in this amazing series. Congrats to all our players, but especially our two finalists for dominating all tournament!
Thank You's and Acknowledgments
We had a great event thanks to all of the wonderful people that helped out. Thanks to Mouz.Kaelaris, Moletrap, TG.docspec, and Temp0 for their awesome casting. Thanks to the guys over at Starcast for all the awesome content that they provided. Thanks to vVvSpectral for the awesome showmatch! Thanks to Mr. Bitter, Ultravisitor, and JethroSC for the interview and all the help as casters. The event couldn't have happened without the help of Doomsville and the guys over at Z33K and all of the awesome players like White-Ra, Kas, Leenock, and all the guys over at Team TSL. Finally, a huge thank you to Amoureux, TG.Mtndu, Ravager, 8mmspikes, FragRaptor, Samscraft, and Chany for all of the graphics, streaming, planning, and moderating help!