WROCLAW "The Meeting Place"

Good to hear that all worked fine this time

Congrats to all, especially for the organizers. Keep up your passion for the best feeling to play our beloved game...

OFFLINE RULEZ!!!!

Tournament report

Friday, 4th of April:
Sensible World of Drinkerzzzz...

After Bomb, Micha and me were driving out of Berlin we had a relaxed travel on the freeway until we were stopped by a 15km long traffic jam (horrible accident).
After 1 hour delay the journey went on.
Getting to Wroclaw s train station was very easy and we got ourselfes something to eat (McDonalds, what else? ). Foka, his wife and Lobo were picking us up and we drove behind them to the location. It is an old station building with interior from the 60ies which created a charming atmosphere for a hardware-zombie tournament like SWOS (Amigas, Win95 Pcs).
After we took our things to the sleeping places (myself at Foka s and Micha Bomb at Olo s) everybody was preparing for the pub-party evening.
Dior, Noel, Lord Pablo and few others were already there, the mood was brilliant and the beer flooded our throats. After we got bored of beer Lobo ordered Polish Vodka...
Maybe it was too much for Lobo himself as he lost the abilitiy to speak fluently... But not only him! ;D
At around midnight we decided to have a walk through the center of Wroclaw to make some sightseeing. It s a really beautiful place there and the architectal structur of the main buildings is really worth visiting this town.
On a sidenote: The computer game we went to Wroclaw for was never a subject of conversation on this evening which is remarkable enough and expresses the difference between us SWOS players and other computer gamers.
Noel was eager to go to some disco but as everybody was tired from long trip we decided to go to bed by 2 am.


Saturday, 5th of April:
Sensible World of marathon...

Prior to this event Micha and myself were concerned about the organisation and how it would be handled (PC AMiga, same day, 40 players, DIY leagues etc...).
And our concerns got even bigger because until the computers were all set up it smelled a bit like chaos to be honest. But obviously it wasn t...
Group drawing ceremony was fine and everybody was getting excited. The DIY leagues were quickly started and as the first matches kicked off it went like a clockwork...
On one side of the room was a table line with 5 Amigas, on the other side the PCs. So you could always walk between the stations . The switching from Amiga to Pc and back wasn t a problem for anyone. It gave this tournament its special note (and Foka is eager to continue with the same-day-tradition).
Thanks to Dior and his mass-production of perfect keypads there were nearly no controller issues.
And believe it or not, the PC DIY leagues were finished before the Amiga ones. That alone is prove enough about the straight playing-business.
At about 4 pm very tasty food was served and nobody had to worry about anything. The organizers did a brilliant job. Drinks, food, coffee, tea... Absolutely fantastic.
And on top of that Micha, Bomb and myself were always ask about our condition and how we would like it and if everything was fine. The hospitality of the Polish SWOS team was generous and gentlemen-like.
After the groupstage was done a huge amount of pizza was ordered and suddenly there was this kind of hungry-eating-silence and it made us smile! Nobody screaming, nobody celebrating...just silence. This was very good and made everybody relax right before the KO-rounds.

As there were so many impressions I can only comment on three things:
- Semifinal vs. Marty on PC:
Marty had a perfect day and was just better than me and anyone else. He played absolutely brilliant and underlined ambitions for the Sensible-Days PC title with his victory in Wroclaw.
- Semifinal vs Bomb on Amiga:
Controller drama... Bomb and me are both playing with a Gravis PC pad on Amiga, using an adapter. But mine broke right before the tournament. Until we met each other it was no problem as we could share it. But know it was up to Bomb, because only his adapter worked. He offered me to share it, 1st leg him, 2nd leg me or vice versa.... I appreciated the offer but I had to refuse it because it wasn t Bomb s fault that my adapter broke. So I told him I would play with Competition Pro joystick. Furthermore I knew that he was also eager to win the tournament and he really had a good day.
What seemed like a physical advantage for Bomb turned out to be a psychological disadvantage. I really had to fight and nearly broke my arm while defending with this joystick. But somehow Bomb was out of order and I scored the ugliest goals you can think of (Jigga style etc...). I just couldn t do anything with that controller and fought my best.
0-0 and 2-2 (equalizer in 83 min). I won the replay 2-0...
- Final vs. Foka on Amiga:
After this controller drama vs. Bomb and Foka s dramatical victory over Lobo I was expecting a really tough competition in the race for the title.
But again, it came different. I can t even say much about the final. Just that Foka seemed really nervous and playing below par. I made 3 easy counterattacks after some mistakes from him and this was about the deciding factor. 3-1 and 1-1.

Tournament ended at 3.30 am!!! The marathon was over.
The winner ceremony was nice and everybody was getting at least a small prize to take home. We thanked each other and already look forward to meet again.


Sunday, 6th of April:
Sensible World of car driving...

Getting to Berlin (2,5h from Wroclaw, freeway) and dropping Micha at his home was no problem. Getting to Bomb s home at the other end of Berlin was a problem because the inner city was completely closed due to a Berlin marathon competiton (not swos, but running... ). Aaaargh.... It took us about 1,5h to find our way to the other side of this huge world city...
All over it took me 9 hours to be home at last.


Acknowlegdements:
Sensible World of gratitude...

Thanks again to everybody who made this tournament possible and everybody who participated.
- Foka his wife
- Lobo
- Olo (thanks for driving service and sleeping places)
- Dior
- Dzem
- Noel (next time I join you to exceed the night in a disco)
- Looooooooord Pablooooo ;D
- Bobbiebobras (nice joystick )
- All Polish SWOS team members
- Marty for waking me up on PC
- GEO and Karlos for running gags
- Tom Cruise....eeeehm. Tom Plus
- ....


Most embarrising moment:
Sensible World of blunderheading...

- Bomb stumbling over the electricity cable and ripping it out of the plug to stop nearly all Amigas from working.
(sorry, Max, couldn t resist...)


Alright, lads, so far... CU!

Tournament report
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Great report, very nice to read. Seems it is one of the tournaments i plan to come the next time (if i just can match it with other dates ...).
And now you need a new adaptor Maybe you can explain in an mail what is broken..

one of the best offline competitions I ever participated: superbe hospitality, atmosphere and fun!
The boot-camp elmichaj, playa and me did thursday night before wroclaw was a very good practice; the best training partners you can have
especially in pc-swos it helped me a lot...

some vocabulary I learned (dont know how to spell it properly): kurva! aleeeeee bramaaaaaaaaa!

next tournament is comin...

(@hairfu and yoshi: I need a second adapter... dont want to see such a situation as in the half final again)

OMG i would give a lot to see Playa playing with joystick HAHAHAHA

Ok, how much does a lot mean to you?

it was so great and funny

and it was nice to see how marty beats da playa ^^

everytime, when its possilbe, i will come again to this place !!!!


it was very good advertising for swos offline


there was only one negative thing, and that was the first part of the autobahn ^^

picasaweb.google.pl/WroclawOpen/WroclawOpen2008

Wow, thanks for that album, Paczek. 293 photos... that s some material... and nice that there were more pictures taken on Friday pub night than I can remember...