First Gaming Tournament

I was at the mall, shopping and looking around, when I walked into a store called Gamefrog. This place is basically filled with big screen TVs, and every gaming console you could think of. It is not that expensive to play there, and you can use anything there for as long as you want. Well when I was leaving I noticed they were having a tournament in December for Halo 3. Halo had only been out for a few months, but I had played at every free moment I had during the day, so I had gotten pretty good at it. So, I played my $10 to enter, and went home and practiced. When the day actually came I was extremely nervous.

There were about 100 people there, all of which were just as good as me at Halo. The beginning of the tournament was 4 player free-for-all to 25 kills. The top player was taken from each round to continue in the tournament. I played 2 rounds and finished first in both of them easily, the closest any player got to me was 10 kills. This was done until the field was narrowed down to about 16 people. At this point I felt pretty good about my chances, there was only one person that I felt was better than me. But anyway, the tournament continued with one vs. one match ups to 15 kills.

The first round so to close for comfort. I was winning 13 to 8, when he started to make a comeback. I died 5 times in a row, but fortunately I came out the victor 15 to 13. The field kept getting smaller and smaller and I couldn't believe that I was still in the running. The next round was a piece of cake, winning easily over the guy. I wondered to myself how he had even made it that far. Now there was 4 people left. The next guy that I had to go against was the one guy that I feared could beat me. I was nervous, and wasn't not sure how I perform under this kind of pressure. The match was extremly close thorough out. It was a back and forth, heavyweight fight. It was 14 to 13, and I was losing. But luckily I picked up the sniper, and was able to get two headshots to finish him off, winning by one. I was really speechless when I won. Now with that guy out of the way, it felt like I really had a chance to win.

The last match was insane. There was two TVs back to back, with a crowd of people standing around. They introduced the finalist, and said where we were from. All I can remember was the guy's name was Jeremy, he had a few tournaments before, and was the local favorite. The match started off close, kill for kill, and then things took a turn for the worse. It was tied 10 to 10 and he got three kills in a row. I could feel the pressure in trying to perform well for the audience, and I think I let it get to me. I ended up losing 15 to 12, finishing second, and winning 75 dollars. To to bad for my first try, and this was just the beginning of my tournament career.

-Justin