Malaysia: Almost time!

fractal9091 did get out to sightsee, and he did make it back in time for the tournament registration party, but he's feverish and really quite sick. I hope he's getting a good night's sleep before the big day.

Here's how it works. In about 8 hours, he'll show up at the tournament site, then he and the others will get access to the cards from which to create their first decks. They'll play for three rounds, then make all-new decks and play for three more, I guess; at that point if he's at least 4-2 he'll get to continue in the tournament; otherwise he's out but can move on to other exciting activities over the weekend, like trying to qualify to play in Berlin in the fall.

At some point awfully soon, the Wizards of the Coast people should have the Pro Tour preview page up so I can start following along from home. They typically have page after page of tournament coverage. What's taking them so long?

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

R. gave me the Monarch of the Glen season 7 DVD, so I can finally see how things turn out (apparently Hector's ghost will return and assure his widow Molly that she should marry the ghillie, Golly, who has loved her all his life). He also gave me the book about the Archimedes Codex. D. gave me the Stardust DVD (and yesterday I'd bought myself the paperback, along with two Eddings books, two Discworld books, a Mary Stewart thriller, and a book by Hume).

In an hour we'll have lunch with D. at his school, a special event, though I can't say I'm looking forward to cafeteria food. I'm not sure what kind of Valentine's dinner we'll be able to have, either, given that D's at basketball practice then.

Malaysia: Fun, but not in the money

It's mid-afternoon in Kuala Lumpur, and fractal9091 just came back on his brief lunch break to give us an update. They've got 346 players, about a third of whom will advance. In his first round, play went too long, and they decided to draw (a mistake, a draw helps neither of them). In the second round, he lost two of the three games, and in the third, they were again tied but played too slowly, and he ended up conceding to give his opponent a chance to advance.

Thus he's now 0-2-1 (though he won three out of the seven completed games within the rounds). He'll have three more rounds of play with a new deck, but then he'll be out of the main tournament. There are lots of other events, though, and he's looking forward to FNM tonight and PTQ Berlin in the morning.

He says... he's having fun, he doesn't feel like he doesn't belong there (and in particular thinks he was probably better than the first guy), and (a comment for those of you who are familiar with the game) he's glad he knew he was eliminated in time to rare-draft in the second draft (he picked up 14/21 rares). He seems to be in a great mood, and didn't even mention that he's still sick. Good attitude!