Toc's of old... - *memories*

Since "TOC fever" has probably gripped a lot of you... I thought I'd open up this little discussion for those of us who've been honored enough to participate in the past TOC tournaments (all over a year old by now).

TOC II

I found this game too late to play in TOC I, but I still remember the first comment on the opening screen when I did. Something like: "Our latest tournament winner, TarkanX will now have acess to a new character and a new helper that only he can chose! Congradulations to him!"

After that I knew I'd have to find out about when the next tournament was..

So.. I trained like crazy for TOC II, averaging out at 20+ fights per night (somewhere around 50 on the weekends). And then before long... came the big day itself.

I made sure to join early... about an hour before Zing79 started taking registrations. When he did start up, there was quite a commotion of people running around going "Zing, Zing... sign me up!" And that bastard Randy~Moss going "wwwwwaaaaazzzzzzuuuuupppp" constantly. I didn't call him out though... just waited until he asked me for my email (or whatever the specs were...can't remember).

And then... about 2 hrs. later, my first fight was against Airlock (and sadly, not in rank order, as had been advertised). I had seen the guy in the topscores... he was ranked higher then me and had few losses, but not by much and had few games fought at that... so I thought I could beat him. As can be derived from this... I hadn't checked out the old topscore lists or much of the forum.

Since Airlock was ranked higher, he hosted first (after excusing himself to go practice for about 2 minutes first because he had "just woke up"). And... he beat me. Fairly solidly the first round, but a close 2nd. Then it was my turn to host. 1st win to him, second to me, 3rd to him... all very close matches (the last he won by a time-out which appeared that we had even health on). A pretty crushing defeat from what so much anticipation and training was put into, and afterwards he told me "I don't know how it decided that one", and "I havn't had such a close match in a while..."

If I'd only knew then what I know now... I might have known that was a pretty big compliment. *sigh* However, I stuck around to see who won... I believe Airlock had to leave for work at 4:00 pm. (depriving me of the chance to see if there was a good reason for why I lost in my... 1st round?!?! when that kid I'd already pounded before manontherun won?!?).

Anyways... I didn't train much for about a week, then started up again for TOC III.

TOC III

After my defeat in TOC II, I decided to train even harder for TOC III, making sure not to just fight anybody, but as many high ranked people and well known forum users as I could find. After a while (sometime in Feb.), TOC III registration began, and about a week and a half later, Zing79 emailed the rules to everybody.

I saw some comments in the rules that said:
[quoteost_uid0="Zing79"]
5. I must receive an email from the *winner* with the final score by midnight of the scheduled playing day, otherwise BOTH of you will be eliminated! Example: that means for the first round you have to send me an email by midnight Wednesday