The Soul Edge Tournament

Last weekend I finally had the great pleasure of staging a SoulEdge tournament. This event was long overdue. I actually had invitations designed for the event about six years ago, but alas, it was simply not meant to be at that time (see The Stage of History post below).

With my beautiful SoulEdge arcade machine back in full working order, it was only fitting that I celebrate the occasion with a party and a tournament to see who among my friends would prove to be the ultimate SoulEdge champion. It was also a celebration of my birthday, my wife's birthday and our first anniversary, but that's beside the point.

Despite early concerns about the lack of serious players (with many of the original Newcastle contingent unable to attend), the turn-out was impressive and consisted of a mix of seasoned veterans, avid gamers and newbies. I devised a 'double-header' tournament structure that meant no-one could be eliminated in the first round. All the players who lost their first round battled on to eliminate each other, until the eventual winner of the first-round losers met the winner of the winners in the FINAL BATTLE. This proved to be quite a good method for keeping newcomers involved. As any arcade player can tell you, a button-mashing noob can be a real challenge. When fighting an experienced player, you can analyse their strategies and learn to anticipate their next move. When fighting a random button-pusher, you never know what's coming next.

Those in the know expected Mat Kelleher to take the gong. Despite not having played the game for years, he displayed a rapid return to form in the warm-up matches and was able to recall unblockable moves long forgotten by the rest of us. Mat's brother Dave and myself were also expected to perform well. It was with Dave K that I had originally spent so much time in the arcades playing SoulEdge back in the ninties.

Thanks to a competitive crowd and a lot of alcohol the matches were fiery and raucous. There were many upsets. Mat won his early battles as expected and the female contestants performed very well indeed. In fact the girls won nearly all the first heat battles. Mat was eventually knocked out of the competition by Anna (Dave K's gf) who played a mean Rock. Tara also put in a very solid psyche-out game. I was taken down in the opener in a third round ring-out by Robyn Chiles, and was eventually knocked out in the quarter final by the fluke-ridden style of Steve White. Despite being a self-confessed masher, Robyn beat Anna in the semi-final, before falling in the FINAL BATTLE to Dave K.

Joe, Loraine, Petras, Dan, Mick, Lucy and Emma all put in a good showing too.

The four finalists (Dave, Robyn, Anna and Steve) won lame prizes and the kudos and respect of the crowd. Anna was particularly pleased as she got to drink the champagne that Dave won as champion.

All in all, a great night.