Recapping the Summer Preview virtual tournament
It was our pleasure this past weekend to kick off the summer season of the Collins Coalition's online tournaments with the Summer Preview. A diverse field of 32 players from all over the globe competed in the 8-game event, which featured no shortage of drama in the race for the top spots. It took until the very last round for our first-place winner to emerge, and it was Nattapat Nak-in (Thailand), who finished with a perfect 8-0 record and a +758 spread. Well done, Nattapat!
Nattapat started the tournament 6-0, leading to a showdown over the final two rounds against Wasiu Hassan (Nigeria), who was the only other undefeated player at the time. Their first meeting in round 7 was a tight back-and-forth affair - Wasiu's bonus of UNDERBIT gave him a sizable early lead, only to see Nattapat respond right away with a bonus of his own, VISTAED. Later in the game, a similar exchange of bingos - Wasiu's REALNESS met immediately with Nattapat's LUNATION - brought the score to 333-326 in Nattapat's favor. The Q was still out in the late game on a board with no home for it, spelling serious trouble for whoever picked it up. After scoring well with HAWS, Wasiu to his misfortune drew the Q, and Nattapat was able to stick Wasiu with that Q and pull out a thrilling 390-375 win.
Going into the last round, there were three players still in contention for first - Nattapat and Hassan were joined by Brian Bowman (USA), who had rattled off six straight wins himself after an opening-round loss. To win the tournament, Bowman, who was about 200 spread points behind the two leaders, would need a big win in the final round, coupled with a close loss by Nattapat. Bowman did come through with a resounding 509-335 win over Brian Po, but Nattapat was not to be denied: Two early bingos (WEASELS and ESTIVAL) staked him to a big lead early against Hassan, who was unable to close the gap quite enough. The 429-361 final capped off Nattapat's undefeated day, and Bowman's big winning streak was enough to vault him into second place, with Hassan taking third-place honors. Coming fourth and fifth were Colin Northmore (UK) and Andy Kurnia (Singapore), respectively.
Some other highlights:
The only blemish on second-place finisher Brian Bowman's record was a 465-420 loss to youth player Bilal Asher (Pakistan). Quite an auspicious start for Asher, who finished a very respectable 5-3 in the tournament.
Quite a high-scoring walk-off bonus in round 8: Saranya Tunprasert (Thailand) went out with (Q)UEUINGS for 104 points and the come-from-behind win! Tunprasert, also one of the youth players, got some other nice bonuses down during the tournament, including BROADAXE and AZULEJO (making the blanks J and Z)!
Both Matthew Larocque (Canada) and Lear Jet de la Cruz (Philippines) landed nine-timers in late-round games: Larocque used his R(E)INLESS to power to a 503-444 shootout win in round 8, while de la Cruz found B(E)GUILER for 149 in his round 7 win.
We had one tie during the tournament, and it was a thriller, with Andy Kurnia getting his out play down with just two seconds left on his clock to close the game out at 457-457.
A sampling of other fun bonuses from the day: Zachary Dang's ISOBARIC, Steve Ozorio's ATTERCOP, Paul Park's NONKINS, Colin Northmore's OTITIDES, Mark Francillon's MOUNSEER, Brian Bowman's SWAPTION, Manaal Asher's TOREUTIC, and Wasiu Hassan's EELWORM.
I mentioned earlier that we had players from all around the world at this event. A special shout-out should go to our many players from Asia, including six youth players - for them, playing the Summer Preview meant staying up until the wee hours of the night. We really appreciate your dedication!
A huge thank you to everyone who participated - we really enjoyed meeting everyone, and we hope you all had a great time. Special thanks, as always, to everyone at Woogles for providing such a wonderful platform for online play. Tune in June 12 for the CoCo's next summer event, the Premium Swerve!