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The First Round:

The Rules: There were two people running the tournament and they had to decide the rules. They did not use the built-in tournament mode because it's foolish and they made their own brackets. The biggest problem of course was the mention of stages, which brought immediate shouting causing panic and chaos. Personally, we almost always play Final Destination whenever possible because it is obviously and inarguably the fairest stage. After a while, they finally decided that we would have to choose random stage and the enabled stages for random would be Peach's Castle, Corneria, Fountain of Dreams, Pokémon Stadium, Hyrule Castle, Battlefield, and Final Destination. We were satisfied with these stages because they could have been much worse. The rest of the rules were items set to none (thankfully), pause off, stock set to 3, and time set to 3:00 minutes. I really don't like time, but it is necessary in a big tournament like this one, so you have to deal with it. Also, the way they chose opponents for the first round was top of the list vs bottom of the list, so the 4 of us wouldn't be put against each other (unless we were directly in the middle).

The Matches: Now, there's no way I can remember all the matches. But I'll talk about some of them, and ones I think are important to mention, and of course, our 4 matches. The first 3 matches were all Marth vs Marth. By the time it was the 3rd match, people were already yelling things like "Choose someone else." From all these Marths, I only saw one that particularly stood out, but not good enough to win the tournament. I think it was the person who won the first match, and was using the blue outfit. Watching bad Marths fight each other is hilarious because some of them were way too counter happy, but their opponents were horrible and fell for the counter 10 times in a row. Now I'll talk about all the matches that included a character that wasn't Fox, Shiek, or Marth. The first one I want to mention is the other Jigglypuff. I was surprised that there was another Jigglypuff, and naturally, curious of his skill. Well he got Final Destination, pretty much the best stage for Jigglypuff. But the whole match all he did was use Rollout (the attack where you hold B). Let me say this... I NEVER use Rollout because it is retarded and the only move that people who think they can play as Jigglypuff use. I wish Jigglypuff didn't have any move for the normal B button because then I wouldn't even risk accidentally pushing it and using Rollout. So this moron uses Rollout the entire match and gets 2 suicides out of his 3 lives. He loses horribly and gets laughed at a lot. The name of Jigglypuff is now disgraced. Soon after this, we all take a trip to the bathroom. There was another guy in the bathroom who insulted Jigglypuff (this is before my or any of our 4 matches happened). I can't really quote him, but I think he said something like anyone who plays as Jigglypuff shouldn't be playing Smash. We laughed and went back. Now here's what happened with the rest of the non Fox, Shiek, and Marth characters. The Luigi put up a fight, but he wasn't too good and lost. The Bowser person I think was a girl and you have to understand that people really like seeing unique characters fight. Whenever Fox, Shiek, or Marth were picked, no one really cared and they boo'd and said to choose someone else, ect. But when a character like Bowser, the worst character in the game, is chosen, everyone cheers like crazy for that person to win. So the Bowser person had to fight the Samus. The Bowser put up a surprisingly good fight, but the Samus wasn't that good either. Everyone cheered for Bowser the whole fight, but in the end lost a close match. From the Peaches, there was 1 guy who I noticed to be exceptionally good in the first round, and I think was the only Peach to get to the second round. The Yoshi lost too, he wasn't very good. From the Captain Falcons, there was 1 who got to the second round. I was looking forward to how the Ganondorf guy would do because Ganondorf could be a very good character if you can use him. However, I was sadly dissapointed because this player was terrible and lost bad. The same thing with Ness. He can be a very good character, but this guy was terrible and lost bad too. Pretty much the same thing with Pikachu too. This guy was too obsessed with Thunder (the down+B move) and lost. One of the Links was pretty good and he got to the next round.

Scott (Me) - This might sound a little dramatic, but here's how it went. By this time it must have been after 5:00 and all each of us had eaten all day was a piece of pizza at noon. I was really hungry, and for some reason the past few hours I had been feeling sick for no reason. I was also extremely nervous about my fight. So because of these 3 things I was like savagely shaking, ect. There's a possibility that all or several of our opponents from the first round were all friends too because of the way the matching was set up and I think people were cheering them on as they walked up to play. So I was expected my opponent to be pretty good. He was another Roy and I was Jigglypuff. The stage was Peach's Castle and I think people were definitely expecting me to lose, but I base that on nothing. Oh, another problem was the screen was way too big. It was almost the entire wall and we were sitting relatively close. It was just unnecessarily large, and I would have preferred to sit back a little. So as soon as the match starts, it's not me playing at all. I'm telling myself to push buttons, but it isn't working. I was playing 100% by my subconscious instincts. I was playing differently than I normally would, and I was being way too aggressive for myself. I also never took my eyes off of his character at all the entire match. It's like... attack, attack, attack. I think this gave me an advantage too. He probably wasn't expecting a psycho Jigglypuff at all. So as I was savagely beating his characters face, he was probably caught way off guard and didn't know how to retalliate. That's another thing about Jigglypuff... people don't know how to fight it because they never play against them. He was trying to do whatever he could to regain control, which made it easy to anticipate his moves, or maybe he was just horrible, I don't know. During this I think I heard people yelling things like "Go pink puff ball." But anyway, I annihilated his first life. Then I'm owning him some more and he gets an uber lucky forward smash on me that kills me at under 100% damage. It was an amateur mistake for me that should have never happened. And if it was on Final Destination, I definitely would have lived, but Peach's Castle likes to have the edge of the stage be really close. I come back and utterly destroy his last 2 lives. I win the match by 3 KO's with 2 of my 3 lives left and time to spare. On the way back to my seat, there was a room full of surprised faces and a bunch of hand slaps waiting.

Angelo - Angelo was after me, and he said he was nervous, which is funny because of his gargantuan stature and usual not being nervous about things. I told him he had to win with 2 lives left just like me. Then I told him to intimidate his opponent with his size. Angelo went up and chose Falco, and his opponent chose Fox. Immediately people started yelling things like "Oh shoot... Fox vs Falco." The match started and anything could happen. I think it was Fountain of Dreams (but that could be completely wrong). I don't really remember how this match went but Angelo definitely had the upper hand. At some point I think someone yelled "Yeah not so tough without your ship are you." This was referring to an earlier fight where a Fox was fighting on Corneria and the Arwing came and shot his opponent. When this happened someone, possibly the same guy, had yelled something like "He's cheating with Falco's help." The only problem with the new statement at this time was that he said it while Angelo was kicking the crap out of his opponent, giving it little effect. Angelo dominated the fight and won with 3 KO's against his opponent, 2 of his 3 lives left, and time to spare. It was better than I hoped.

Adam - Right now would probably be a good time to mention that Adam has never lost a one on one match as Fox. As he was going up I told him to hide his true skill. Adam was Fox and his opponent was Shiek. I don't remember the stage because it doesn't really matter. Adam completely embarassed this guy and walked all over him. I bet he was laughing the entire time. Adam won the match by 3 KO's against his opponent, with 2 of his 3 lives left (he probably died because he was so cocky), and time to spare.

Thus concluded the first round with 3 of us going strong with confidence into the second round.

The Second Round:

The Rules: The rules stayed the same as the first round, 3 stock and 3 minutes.

The Players: After the first round, many people that had been sitting in the room had left. The remaining players were now quite different from the start. To my annoyance and dissapointment, there were few characters left that were not Fox, Shiek, and Marth. At this point there was a good deal more Shieks than Foxes and Marths. The only non Fox, Shiek, and Marth characters left were 1 Peach that was probably good, 1 Captain Falcon that was okay, 1 Samus that beat the Bowser, 1 Link that was good, 1 Roy that beat Richard, 1 Falco that was Angelo, and 1 Jigglypuff that was me.

The Matches: I'm pretty sure the first match was a Marth vs Marth since the winner of the first 2 matches of the first round had to be Marth. And I think the Marth I mentioned earlier won this fight, but who really cares about Marth. The Peach got another victory this round. The Captain Falcon faced a Shiek, and hit his opponent with 2 Falcon Punches (B attack) on Battlefield, but still lost. The Samus plainly lost. I think the Link won this round too. And the Roy also lost. Most of the Foxes and Marths were eliminated this round by Shieks.

At this point, I want to mention that there was a lot of sudden deaths in this tournament. And every single sudden death that involved a Shiek, the Shiek won, and won using the running hit. So try to tell me that sudden death doesn't give a huge advantage to Shiek when that move clearly dominates sudden death.

Scott (Me) vs Adam - Yeah you heard it right. What better way to continue the second round that by having me fight Adam. Best thing that could have happened to me right? Well as soon as we walked up, I asked the guy running the tournament if he could change our opponents. He said he couldn't. Now I had to make the decision to throw the match. Now, I've played Adam many times, and like I said, I've never beaten him one on one when he was Fox. So when I say throw the match, it's not like I had the option to win or lose sitting in my hand. I'm saying that as Jigglypuff, I stood no chance of beating him. If I wanted to take the chance to beat him, I could have played as somsone like Falco, Peach, or Shiek, and possibly won by extreme luck. But I knew that Adam would have a much better chance of winning the whole tournament than me, so I chose Jigglypuff and threw the match. We also chose Final Destination, because we can. We started like we were fighting, but then just did random things and taunted, ect. On my last life I used rest (down+B) as I fell down into the abyss. There ended anyone seeing the skills of a true Jigglypuff player further.

The end of the second round was much sadder because we only had 1 player left, and Adam had taken a free win.

The Third Round:

The Rules: Now the guy running the tournament changed the rules for no reason. Instead of being 3 stock and 3 minutes, he changed it to 2 stock and 2 minutes. I guess since there was a lot less people now and they had plenty of time for each match, they made the matches shorter?

The Players: A few Foxes and Marths, a bunch of Shieks, 1 Peach, and 1 Link.

The Matches: That Peach guy quickly picked up another win, holding my attention after 3 wins. If that Link player did make it to this round, he lost a good fight.

The Fourth Round:

The Rules: The rules were the same as the third round, 2 stock and 2 minutes.

The Players: Not many players remained now, and the room was getting empty. All the Marths were gone now, and only one Fox remained, which was Adam. There was the Peach guy, and all the rest were Shiek.

The Matches: The Peach guy got another easy win, playing so good like his opponent shouldn't be in the fourth round. Now I don't remember if this fight was in the third or fourth round, but the Shiek that beat Angelo in sudden death had to fight another Shiek. These 2 guys got down to 1 life each and it went to sudden death while the other Shiek (the one that didn't play Angelo) had like 50% lower damage than the Shiek that beat Angelo. The one that beat Angelo in sudden death then beat this Shiek in sudden death, even though he was losing before time ran out. The other shiek was clearly better, but this dude went to the final round anyway.

The Fifth and Final Round:

The Players: The Peach guy, the Shiek that beat Angelo, and Adam as Fox.

The Rules: They only had 3 players left now, and the guy running the tournament had to decide what to do. I guess he watches too much WWE wrestling, because he took the idea straight from there. Three players, why not make the most important final round a 3-way free for all? Things can't be much worse than that. Oh wait, then he put the damage ratio on 1.5x. It was also 5 stock, 5 minutes, and on Final Destination.

The match: I was disgusted that it was a 3 person free for all. I think everyone knew that the Shiek was going to lose, I mean he should have lost 2 matches already. It's like he shouldn't even have been there at all. The match progressed with no one distinctively winning. But then the strangest thing ever happened. Right in the middle of the match, Adam gets a SUICIDE. I can count on one hand the number of legitimate suicides Adam has gotten ever. In fact, I can't actually think of one other time offhand. I just hoped it wouldn't matter, and it didn't seem to slow him down either. He was bashing people into the background at every chance with the up smash, while the Peach guy was cheaping everyone up with his down smash, and the Shiek guy was just getting in everyone's way with needles (B attack). Eventually the Shiek guy was eliminated, and in that moment everything was decided. As soon as the Shiek was dead, Adam and the Peach guy were left with 1 life each. The Peach guy had 0% damage, and Adam already had some low damage on him (remember it's 1.5x damage ratio). The Peach guy didn't hesitate to attack Adam and knock him off the stage with one attack. This put Adam in a bad position. He had to jump back on, right into another attack from the Peach guy that sent Adam across the stage and off the edge on the other side. This may have happened a few more times, but the bottom line is that eventually Adam could not make the jump back and fell to the demise of all our dreams.

As soon as the match ended and Adam stood up, I told him to challenge the guy to a rematch. But they were already putting the Gamecube away and I think Adam was really confused and shocked, ect.

Conclusions:

The people running the tournament really didn't want us to win.

Going into this tournament we had no idea what to expect because we mostly only played against each other. We weren't sure if people were going to be as good as us or better or worse. In this tournament, almost anyone who was not Fox, Shiek, or Marth was really bad and lost horribly. Many of the Foxes and Marths were bad too. All of the Shieks were either bad or average to my standards, I didn't see any exceptionally good. Out of all those other people, I would call 3 of them decent players and 1 of them a challenge. The first Marth I mentioned, the Link who won a few rounds, and this one Fox player (he had a hat on) were all decent. The challenge was the guy who won the tournament, the Peach. Everyone else there was pretty bad. I have more friends who play Smash but didn't go, that I can match up their skills to. My friend Jose is very good with Marth, and I think he could definitely beat the best Marth player at this tournament. My other friend Jeremy (Alfonz) is very good with Shiek, and he could probably beat the best Shiek player that was there. I also think I could have beaten the Peach guy who won and really wish I could have challenged him. I just hope he goes back next year and I get the chance to play him. And I know Adam could have definitely beat the Peach guy one on one. I mean I know he's good and he won the tournament, but I know Adam, and he would have beaten him one on one.
For a few last thoughts... I didn't see this but Angelo said that starting at my match against Adam in the second round, the dude running the tournament started recording matches with a digital camera. I don't know what he did with whatever he recorded and I was hoping to see them on the Connecticon site, but that never happened. And finally, if the only character you can play as is Marth, don't even bother being in a Smash tournament. Marth is a very good character and I know some good Marth players, I'm even pretty good with him myself. But Marth has a huge disadvantage against Fox and Shiek's speed. Unless you are some unnaturally uber Marth player, you won't win a tournament that has good Fox and Shiek players in it.
So now I have this to say... Connecticut, where are your Smash skills??? I hope you guys practice for next year. And if you live in CT and didn't go to Connecticon this year and think you're good, then please try to go next year. We like to lose. We thought the best players of CT would be there, but we were mistaken.

As soon as Adam lost, he fell on the floor crying and we never played Smash again...

If anyone knows about any other Smash tournaments in or around CT, please tell me at [email protected] or in my guestbook or forum.