Wildcard Tournament Series Aggregate Scoreboard (includes WCQ #1 and #2)

[ChrisP]

Here are the current standings for the Wildcard Qualifier series, inclusive of both tournaments.

As you all know at this point, there are 8 spots set aside for players to start on Saturday at the Kong Off 3 (Round 1 of the Wildcard Division).

All players who do not earn one of these 8 spots will have to qualify live on Friday.

Anyone already in the Twin Galaxies Top 12 is noted accordingly, and will get their own machine.

I have listed 6 "alternates" due to the fact that not all of the 8 wildcard spots will necessarily be claimed by players who earn them. In fact, 4 players among the current 8 have already stated that they may not, or will not, attend the Kong Off, or will adbicate their spot if they do attend.

There is also the possibility that one or more of the Top 12 will not attend the KO3, which could upgrade one or more of these qualifiers to the Top 12.

6 might seem like a lot of alternates, but life has many random elements.

However, it should also be mentioned that one player (Dave McCrary) is at risk of being pushed out of the Top 12, and has pre-qualified for a wildcard spot, which he will take should he lose his Top 12 ranking. Dean Saglio, Steve Wiltshire, Jeff Willms, and Robbie Lakeman are also pre-qualified, but it is either unlikely (Steve, Robbie) or impossible (Dean, Jeff) that any of them will lose their Top 12 status by the Kong Off 3. (It is also worth noting that there are no more than perhaps 3 or 4 currently-active DK players with both an arcade machine and a desire to submit to TG who have also displayed the skill set to potentially break into the top 12 by the October 25th deadline. I predict no more than 1 Top 12 newcomer by then.)

Also, making this table didn't take as long as it looks. I have learned to be very efficient with Excel!

Rank	Player	Best	In	WC Pos.
1	Dean Saglio	1,087,500	WCQ#1	(Top 12)
2	Philip Tudose	1,051,600	WCQ#1	1
3	Jon Mckinnell	1,019,800	WCQ#2	2
4	Steve Wiltshire	1,016,100	WCQ#2	(Top 12)
5	Ben Falls	1,012,700	WCQ#2	3
6	Jeff Wolfe	997,800	WCQ#1	4
7	Eric Tessler	966,000	WCQ#2	5
8	Corey Chambers	964,500	WCQ#1	6
9	Dave McCrary	934,000	WCQ#1	(Top 12)
10	Chris Psaros	893,100	WCQ#2	7
11	Jeff Willms	865,500	WCQ#1	(Top 12)
12	Robbie Lakeman	851,300	WCQ#1	(Top 12)
13	Daniel Dock	839,300	WCQ#2	8
14	Timothy Sczerby	725,000	WCQ#2	9 (Alt.#1)
15	Ethan Daniels	690,900	WCQ#2	10 (Alt.#2)
16	Daniel Desjardins	688,600	WCQ#1	11 (Alt.#3)
17	Mike Groesbeck	685,700	WCQ#2	(Top 12)
18	Hans Kollinger	685,600	WCQ#2	12 (Alt.#4)
19	Shawn Robinson	680,300	WCQ#2	13 (Alt.#5)
20	Jeff Harrist	678,200	WCQ#1	14 (Alt.#6)
21	Brian Allen	637,800	WCQ#1	NA
22	Shane Mosher	637,400	WCQ#1	NA
23	Jeremy Young	590,500	WCQ#2	NA
24	Matt Douglas	519,600	WCQ#2	NA
25	George Riley	471,900	WCQ#1	NA
26	Todd Lalonde	464,900	WCQ#2	NA
27	Eric Martin	454,300	WCQ#1	NA
28	Aaron Rounsaville	441,700	WCQ#2	NA
29	Dustin Myers	440,600	WCQ#2	NA
30	Jason Nugent	420,800	WCQ#2	NA
31	Melkon DomBourian	384,400	WCQ#2	NA
32	Ken House	383,900	WCQ#2	NA
33	John Salter	326,600	WCQ#2	NA
34	Allen Staal	311,600	WCQ#1	NA
35	Jonathan McCourt	302,100	WCQ#2	NA
36	Chris Benn	301,500	WCQ#1	NA
37	Jason Corey Brittain	288,400	WCQ#2	NA
38	Dustin Pease	268,200	WCQ#1	NA
39	Matthew Ziolkowski	243,800	WCQ#2	NA
40	Nick Sheils	226,300	WCQ#1	NA
41	Craig Ziegler	217,600	WCQ#1	NA
42	Anthony Trujillo	211,700	WCQ#2	NA
43	Don Rubin	176,000	WCQ#1	NA
44	Steve Grunberger	172,400	WCQ#2	NA
45	Mystery player	151,200	WCQ#2	NA
46	Andrew John Purkett	122,300	WCQ#1	NA
47	Ky Staal	120,700	WCQ#1	NA
48	Mariano Velasco	115,000	WCQ#2	NA
49	Daniel Day	99,300	WCQ#2	NA
50	Stan Trazka	84,700	WCQ#1	NA
51	Katie Young	69,500	WCQ#2	NA
52	Katherine Williams	40,200	WCQ#2	NA
53	Michael Stastny	31,500	WCQ#2	NA
54	Jeff Pickles	21,900	WCQ#2	NA
55	Cody Crouch	18,500	WCQ#2	NA
56	Eddie Tessler	17,200	WCQ#1	NA
57	Chuck Vess	14,800	WCQ#1	NA

                              

[xelnia]

I guess I need to be shooting for a high 900k killscreen then if I want to be in the Wildcard 8.

[ChrisP]

If you take out 3 of the guys I mentioned (Phil - not going, Jon - not going, Ben - planning not to take the spot), the score to beat at this point is only 688,900!

That's an almost-best-case scenario though, and there are several people capable of putting up a monster in the final tourney. Ross isn't even on here yet!

High kill screen is a smart target.

I'm in 7th position right now (effectively 4th if you take out the 3 players I mentioned, even 3rd if Corey doesn't go), but I still consider myself very much teetering on the bubble. I would not be too surprised if my 893K didn't hold up.

Lots of factors in play!

[danman123456]

Yeah I'm still in 8th overall still! I feel 900k is probably safe tho consider the amount of people who arent going.

Time will tell!

[ChrisP]

The truth of the matter is, it's not a huge deal to miss out on one of the auto-qualifier spots and have to play the live session.

By the time you get the Top 12 and the top 8 online qualifiers out of the way, that's 20 players gone, so you won't have to get a huge score on Friday to make it to Saturday. Anybody could probably bink it with a solid 600K game on Friday.

Saturday is when it will get hard!

I said it right after my game, but if I didn't make it, I would be happy to play for the spot on Friday. Pre-qualifying would be cool just on principle, but live is cool in a different way. I'm fine with it regardless.

[JCHarrist]

Then there's still the question of how alternates for the Top 12 will be picked if one or more of them don't go to Denver. Will it be from the top wildcards or will they just go to the next person on the TG arcade list?

[danman123456]

Well I do think regardless of all the back and forth with mame vs arcade and sat vs friday if I somehow get pushed down to 9th and have to play Friday if I DONT qualify for Saturday that is on me.

I'm still a little sketchy on how the Friday play works out for the Wildcard but hope that will be clear soon. I know there is concern of last coin drop and all of that so the "Top 12" can pick out machines but will those also include the WC machines or will those be separate?

I currently think its not and that  you get to play from like 11am - 2pm (one real session with last coin drop at 2pm). Stop at 5pm let the pros pick out machines for time. Then resume play until midnight to qualify for Saturday?  Unless I get a dedicated cab I seriously think I will need to play on Friday as I have just had too many issues lately with my laptop and internet that streaming SUCKS. I honestly don't have the time (or perhaps its resolve?) to try and fix it all because its just donkey kong not some 1080P HD game. Grrrrr.

I fixed some of them I think but its been a real pain in the arse to have 1 or 2 deaths every game due to your controller screwing up or x-split dropping framerates like mad. Otherwise ALL IS WELL!

[ChrisP]

Yeah, I thought about that possibility JC, and it's actually a really interesting question because the wildcard scores are getting so high in these tourneys that they actually outrank people in the Top 12, let alone 13th and lower.

It would be weird if, say, 3 main lineup players couldn't make it to KO3, and Eric Howard (who will be TG #15 when Robbie gets verified) got in again with 957K!

Meanwhile Jeff Wolfe, Eric T., etc., all have higher scores, and on arcade machines to boot, but they aren't TG verified!

This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds either.

According to Shaun Boyd, there is a very real chance that he will not be attending KO3. Hank said he isn't even a sure thing (possible his schedule won't allow it). Billy not showing is always a possibility. So that's 3 of the top 12 right there. To be fair, Hank and Billy not coming is significantly less likely than Shaun not coming, but anything can happen within a group of 11 people, so let's just say those two "represent" the rest of the group.

Then you get into the alternates: Estel (#14) seems to have moved on from DK so maybe count him out, then Eric Howard (#15), and some guy with 907K in 16th! 

Boy would that be the ultimate reverse-bubble!

They also seem to have picked up another DK cab, according to Jourdan a few weeks ago. How does that change things? Will it be a wildcard cab? Another "main lineup" cab? I don't know.

The last tourney is gonna be intense...

[JCHarrist]

and some guy with 907K in 16th! 

Haha, yeah, as things stand now, I actually think I have a better chance of getting into the Top 12 than getting a wildcard spot . 

[ChrisP]

LOL. Love eet.

[JNugent]

Oh yer!

[mikegmi2]

Yea I chatted breifly with Shaun on Sunday during the 2-3 games I played and was surprised when he said he may not be going this year.  Actually there's a lot of 'what ifs' pointed out above that will be interesting to see play out over the next 2 months.  I don't really feel safe personally, and regret being busy and not getting to play much during the last couple WCR tourneys.  Right now it only takes a leapfrog and a newcomer to bubble me completely out.

I'm trying to remember, when did they create that billboard thing with the top 12 KO2 competitors last year?  I believe it was before the 1 month cutoff, but nobody put up a huge score and forced them to change the billboard.

[ChrisP]

Mark Kiehl wasn't even on the list on the KO2 website! 

http://the-1up.com/kongoff/players.html

[xelnia]

I think it might be time to bump this topic now since Jeff Wolfe put up a top 12 score. Obviously a lot will change in the next month with top 12 bubble players pressing hard and a whole WCQ left to play. But if I'm reading this list correctly, then the #8 WC spot could actually be Hans Kollinger's. If Phil, Jon and Tim aren't going to the KO3, and Ben doesn't take his WC spot, then the 8 spots as of today are:

Eric Tessler        966,000         WCQ#2         
Corey Chambers      964,500         WCQ#1         
Dave McCrary        934,000         WCQ#1       
Chris Psaros        893,100         WCQ#2         
Daniel Dock         839,300         WCQ#2         
Ethan Daniels       690,900         WCQ#2     
Daniel Desjardins   688,600         WCQ#1
Hans Kollinger      685,600         WCQ#2   
        

[mikegmi2]

Is Ben not going to the KO this year?  I keep reading that he isn't, or may not take his wild card spot?