#17 The Struggles of a Cyber Athlete

February 10th, 2017, 5:00 A.M, Rockford, Illinois. A lot of people call me crazy by doing this, but those people don't understand. My name is Ross Robert. I’'m 18 years old and I'’m a competitive Super Smash Bros player for Unrivaled Tournaments. I go by the tag “L” in the Smash community.

Right now I’'m driving to Chicago for my first event of 2017. So after a suprizingly short two hour drive to the venue, I walk into the college gym where the tournament was being held, with my jacket, and a backpack with my phone, charger, cables, GameCube controller, 3DS, and wallet. “

"Round 1 Pools will be starting in 1 hour, please register now.”"

I went to the registration desk told them my name and what pool I was in, I was able to skip round 1 due to my ranking. Well, while you're here, I might be able to tell you what this game is first. Super Smash Bros is a fighting game with characters from games like Mario, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, etc. The goal--unlike most fighting games--isn'’t to deplete a life bar, it is to knock your opponent off the stage twice before your opponent. Each hit you put in your percent gets higher, the higher your percent, the faster you get launched. There are a lot more intricacies in the mechanics and strategies that can have your opponent not get back on stage.

"“Round 1 pools have begun please report to your pool”," says the TO (tournament organizer). I went, even though I skipped round 1. I was analyzing the play of my first opponent; it was mostly kinda obvious who was going to win due to the character matchup. The first guy I faced in pools was a bit difficult, but other than him, pools were easy. Now comes the hard part: actual bracket matches.

I start up the bracket against Zinoto, a Michigan Diddy Kong player, who is currently ranked number 2 in the midwest. I play Bayonet, due to the nature of Diddy Kong's defensive playstyle. I always have a difficult time with this character; as you can guess, I got 3-0d in a best of 5 set. I had to make the losers run of the century. If I win this tournament, right after that, I had to face JJRockets--another Diddy Kong player, this time from Chicago.

We start out game one on Battlefield, a stage with three platforms two parallel from each other and one above and between the other two. I start applying offensive pressure on him and manage to take the first stock, and then punish him for using risky attacks and secure the second stock. Game 2 was the same; games three and four I got bodied, like so horrifically bodied I can hardly recall what happened.

Then Game 5... This game was a repeated sloberknocker of blows and plays of who managed to win and then I looked at the timer. (A timer is used in game so tournaments are not held back by overly defensive players.) I was playing so well, both of us were unable to secure a stock. JJ had the damage lead, so I lost the set.

Salt sucks, not like table salt, post-loss salt. I was just watching the tournament pass by and see JJ destroy his bracket. Then he went against Zinoto in Top 16 in the ditto, which is a match where both players play the same character. They’re close games, but Zinoto made it out on top. By then, the salt had cleared out and he sat down next to me and said, “Hey, good games.”

“Thanks," I said.

“Do you want to play some games?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.

So we practiced until the tournament ended, and then we became friends after that.