R.B.I. Baseball & Tecmo Bowl tourney: Omaha Nebraska 3/30/2019

[nomaaa]

god speed, dee-nee & bo knows

[nomaaa]

also: a winner is you

[TbT]

Wow.  Lots of craziness went down with both tournaments.   

Mark Bridges who had won a RBI cotut in Chicago or Columbus(attended both, cant remember which he won) came up from Arkansas for this.  Omaha has a 2 time defending champ (Victor L.) who had gone 18-0 in 2 tourneys, including 2-0 (best of 3) semi-final sweeps of Mike Beales the last 2 years. 

Group play for RBI was wacky.  I win a 1-0 game vs returning champ Victor and also defeat last years 6th place to win my 3 group play games and get a top 4 seed.
Nate Nate Nate goes 3-0 and beats freaking Beales in group play.
Another group has last years 2nd (Judd) and 3rd(Curt) place guys play.  Curt is the guy I've played more RBI against than anyone, and Curt wins his group.
Bridges crushes in his 3 games.

So My 2 BFFs and I have seeds 2-4, and we get cake walk games in the opening tourney round.  However in the round of 8, Victor, Judd, and Beales will be in the mix.

Round of 16 & 8 are single elimination games.  Final 4 and championship are best of 3.

I play Victor in the round of 8.  He calls SF/MIN.  I take SF and shut him out for 8 innings, but give up a 3 run jack in the 9th....and of course I was 1 strike away from winning the fucking game.  I'm bounced to the 5th place bracket.
Nate loses to last year's 6th place in the round of 8.
Curt loses to Beales by 1 run in the round of 8.
Bridges slowly works over Judd(LY's 2nd place).       

[TbT]

Final 4 stage is set. 
Bridges sweep Beales, and Victor sweeps his opponent.

At this point its getting late and I begin the massive tear down process so I miss game one of Bridges vs Victor. Bridges win game 1.  In game 2 they go Houston vs STL.  The game goes 22 or 23 innings.  Victor finally pulls out a win.  I think he hit a 3 run jack.  Pitchers were throwing in the 20's!   

The venue is basically a restaurant in a bar and grill and setting.  They close at 10, and clean up till 11.  Typically not an issue, but due to an hour long game of RBI we're way behind schedule.  So about 10 of us go a couple blocks over to Bridge's hotel room, get the stream all set up and they play game 3 which was SF/Cal.  Bridges gets a 3 run jack mid game and adds 2 more runs to win 5-0.  Mark went 9-1 to take the championship.     

[Gantry]

Very nice!  Pretty sure Bridges won in Columbus, but could be wrong...

[TbT]

The event was streamed.  Heres the link 
Tecmo is first, then RBI.  Its a 12 hour stream!
We had players from 7 different states attend the tourney this year.

Only had 16 for Tecmo and 16 for RBI.  I was expecting to get back to or exceed last years 20 playing Tecmo Bowl, and get close to 20 for RBI.  Team Canada wasn't able to make it this year, as they would have played in both.  Omaha barely produced any random players for us.  I work my ass off with advertisements and promoting.  I dunno what the fuck else I can do. 

We have a solid base of players each year including many returning regulars so we don't need many locals to hit 16 though.  Could also be the fact that we have some of the absolute best players in the country at this thing each year along with a really strong/deep 2nd tier as well.  Its hard for the new guys to come in and perform well with such a good field.  Maybe that deters people from returning, knowing how much talent is here.     

As for the 5th place RBI bracket.  I lost to my buddy Curt, and Judd beat Nate.  Judd topped Curt in the 5th place game.  Judd and Curt played in the semi-finals last year, and shared a group this year.  They're accustomed to facing off with each other.       

[TbT]

Onto the Tecmo Bowl tourney.  Team Canada was out.  Derek was in Mexico a few weeks backs, and Cam and his wife have a very young baby.

At the top we had Mort, who is an elite TSB player, an d is really good at TB.  Mort got 2nd place in Omaha last year.  Nate Nate Nate was in the mix, and Ben Schwartz has moved into elite territory the last year or so. 
I rolled in as 3 time Omaha champ with 7 tourney titles total in a row in 5 different states looking for #8.

We all go undefeated and win our groups and get the top 4 seeds.   Mort and Ben play in the first semi-final.  Ben calls WSH/LA.  I think Ben won 3-0.  Mort had some chances late but got picked off a couple times in FG range.  Mort was going for the jugular and not playing it safe.  Played to win not to tie.  Mort is at a knowledge disadvantage with TB against us but plays balls out to offset it. 

I face off with Nate in semi-final.  This our 6th tourney together, and 3rd time we've faced off.  I'd beat Nate in Houston & Rochester MN championship games.  The other 3 times he didn't make it out of his side of the bracket.     

I call Denver/Chicago.  Nate takes home, and I get Chicago.  He drives down to my 5, but settles for a FG.  I get a big Gentry KR, and eventual TD.  He blocks the pat, I lead 6-3.  Our rules allow for FGs attempts vs the slow LB position player, but allow anyone to try and block PATs.  Keeps FGs as a viable scoring option that way.  I add a FG, and he adds one and its 9-6.  I stop him on downs at like his 40 to get the win.  At that point the clock was working against him. 

Sets up title game with Ben vs I.  Last year we met in the freaking round of 8.  4 vs 5 seed game, which I won 13-7, and Ben eventually cruised to 5th place.  I had beaten Ben in 2016 in the final 4 as well, and he finished 3rd. 

[TbT]

I throw out Dallas vs Indy for the championship.  Ben takes home, so I take Indy.  I get in a 3-0 hole, but eventually put together a couple drives for FGs and lead 6-3 going into the 4th.  I threw a couple picks along the way that prevented me from getting out far enough ahead.  I think both were just in his territory.   

Early 4th Ben stops me at about his 45 with a minute and some change to go and I punt.  He puts together an epic late drive for a TD with little time remaining, and Ben wins 10-6.  I played really well on defense despite screwing up on offense so much.  When you give away TOP and have drives result in TOs, you've made it hard to win.  Most everyone at the bar knew my resume so they were cheering against me like crazy!   

Of the 8 tourney championship games I've been in, this is only the 2nd time that I had shoddy offensive play.  The other time I managed to play a flawless 2nd half and win 10-6.  In the other 6 I don't think I threw a single INT.  You have to be a perfect machine to win these big games.  I made some uncharacteristic mistakes yesterday, and Ben played flawless. 

2nd place sucks, but you can't win every big game.  With all the shit that went wrong I was still in position to put him away or hold on late.           

[TbT]

Ben has followed one of my facebook pages for a long time, and we'd message through there.  He made a 3 hour drive to Omaha for the first tourney back in 2016.  We played in the semi-final, and eventually became good friends.  He moved to a town only 2 hours away, and our kids play together on occasion.  Best thing to come out these tourneys. 

I have felt bad when I beat Ben or Nate in a tourney.  I know the amount of hard work they've put into Tecmo Bowl to get where they are.  The Canadians are great guys, but I don't feel bad at all when I've eliminated them in semi-finals or beat them in championship game.  They had their time to shine back in the day. 

One play that I would love to have back was a 4th down conversion I got early 4th qtr.  On Indy's pass 1, you got the bottom D-end that's rushing free at your QB.  You have to decide to evade him by rolling up top, or roll down, engage him, then throw him off, then figure out who to throw to.  Engaging can be a hectic situation.  Pat Beach was out in the flat just short of the 1st down line.  I don't recall if I engaged the D-end or not, but I couldn't throw to Beach immediately becasue there was a CPU controlled defender right down there by him.  So I have to run down towards Beach to get that CPU drone to make a run at my QB.  If he does, then I don;t have to worry about him making a diving tackle on Beach.

Ben was cheating up to try and stop the 4th and short.  Keeping an eye on those 2 defenders, I didn't notice that Ben came in too far, and I could have bombed it over his head for a big gain.  Then Ate clock, hit a FG and get the win.  Despite the 2 INTs I threw, that was the play that would have won the game.  I got the first down there with Beach, but Ben picked my play 3 times in a row I believe and I had to punt.  That would have been the fucking dagger that I usually stick in my opponent in the big moment. 

[Shooty]

Don't worry TBT.  You just need a good training montage and you'll be back on top next year.   

[nomaaa]

i'm sure doc lewis is free these days

[TbT]

Don't worry TBT.  You just need a good training montage and you'll be back on top next year.   

I'm actually pretty stoked to get back to some serious training and make a run at the next tourney title.  Winning 7 titles in a row in 5 different states and getting up to 48 straight wins in public tourneys was nuts. The problem is that the streak kind of takes on a life of its own.  At some point it almost becomes more about preserving the fucking thing and less about the thrill of victory.    

I'll still be the hunted regardless of who shows at the next tourney, but it's a good reset.  I'm glad I at least went out in the title game.  I always figured it would end with a quarterfinal loss against one of the big dogs in a 4 vs 5 game, and I'd end up with 5th place.  That would have been an embarrassing end to the run.

One guy that would be great for the competitive nature of the next tourney is the Canadian Derek.  I've got a H2H championship over him in 2017, but he's the scariest and most aggressive Tecmo player I've met.  He takes chances in spots that no other elite player does.  He's only been to one of these tourneys.  The other Canadian (Cam) is as fundamentally sound as anyone you'll play, but he's also pretty vanilla and I've beaten him twice in semis and finals.  The only thing missing from my resume IMO is another big win or two over Derek at these tourneys.  I've got 2 big wins over Ben, Nate, Cam. 

Getting team Canada down here with Ben & Nate really gets me pumped up thinking about it.  Its a huge opportunity to take down ALL the big dogs!