This past weekend showed the prowess of The World Series of Beer Pong™, as more than 20 players qualified themselves for The WSOBP™ Main Event by securing a tournament victory at one of the five World Series of Beer Pong™ Satellite™ Tournaments that took place around the country!
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Northwest Beer Pong:
We’ll start our recap tour in Kirkland, Washington, at Rose Hill Hideout where Northwest Beer Pong was slated to qualify a team for The World Series of Beer Pong™ XI! Participants were randomly matched against opponents for 6 preliminary games that would be used to seed teams into a double-elimination playoff bracket.
Former World Series of Beer Pong Champion, Matt White, teamed up with Brad “Moose” Mosdell and paid tribute to Chris Cash, a close friend of Matt’s that had recently passed away, by playing under the team name: “Cash Money’s Final Hand.” It’s to no surprise that a World Champion’s tournament dedication to a fallen friend would end in victory. White and Mosdell pulled through to claim the 1st place prize of qualified entry into The World Series of Beer Pong™ XI, complete with 4-night accommodations at Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino. Thomas Hoistad and Chris Sherwood were beat out on the final table, after fighting their way through nearly 20 teams, but didn’t exactly go home empty handed. Chris and Thomas pocketed a quick $200 for their efforts.
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SoCal’s BidFEST:
Next, we head a bit south and pick up on a ton of action at Johnny V’s in sunny San Diego. Ocean Grown Pong filled up the entire weekend with tournaments and handed out 14 individual bids (bid = qualified entry into The WSOBP™ & Hotel accommodations) via 8 different World Series of Beer Pong™ XI Satellite Tournaments! That’s over $5000 worth of prizes that OGP gave out at The 2nd Annual SoCal WSOBP™ BidFEST!
Friday’s event consisted of a Men’s and Women’s Singles (1v1) tournament, as well as, a 2v2 double-elimination tournament. Former World Series of Beer Pong™ Women’s Singles Champion, Brandi Wrathall of Nevada, took down the ladies tournament, while Nicholas Bland of California cashed in on the Men’s side of the singles tournaments. Former World Series of Beer Pong™ Champion, Byron Findley of California, teamed up with fellow Californian, Zakary Corsi, and claimed the last seat in the winner’s circle on Friday night via a victory in the 2v2 tournament.
Saturday’s schedule had 3 different tournaments on tap that all varied in format. The first was a multi-partner tournament, meaning each player participated with a different partner in two separate brackets with the winners of each bracket meeting in a best 2-out-of-3 final series. Ryan Smith and Scott Muller, both of California, came out on top of the multi-partner tournament. The 2nd of the trio of Saturday tournaments was a Co-ed tournament. Each team had to consist of 1 male and 1 female player. Ryan Smith collected his 2nd victory of the evening, as Charlie De Hoop, also of California, stamped her ticket into The WSOBP™ Main Event. Finishing off a day full of pong was a change of pace for most, as “House Rules” were implemented into a competitive tournament. David Diaz and Justin Herman, both of California, claimed the bid, elbows and all!
Sunday kicked-off the final day of BidFEST with another multi-partner tournament and finished with a tourney where an element of surprise was thrown into the mix as players were NOT allowed to pick their own partner! Each team was paired by randomly drawing names from the participant pool to complete teams. David Diaz finished the weekend and collected multiple wins, as he and Ethan Wald finished atop the field in the multi-partner tournament. Ethan Wald also walked away with multiple wins on the weekend as he doubled-up on Sunday and won the Random Tournament alongside Mark Pimentel.
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Texas Beer Pong Tour:
Continuing to the south on our recap tour, we pull into Old School Bar and Grill in Austin, Texas, where The Texas Beer Pong Tour awarded multiple players with WSOBP™ bids and cold hard cash!
3v3 was the name of the game in Texas! During 3v3 play, each team has 3 players per side and sets up an extra 5 cups. (15 cups in total.) 3 balls are shot per-side! Roland Ortiz, Adrian Damasco, and Mando Roman filled out the roster that took home the WSOBP™ XI Bids.
Texas also got a little tricky and mixed in a Random draw tournament of their own, which rewarded Robert Williamson with his qualified entry into The WSOBP™ Main Event. His partner Rob Dix cashed in on a $300 cash prize for his share of the random draw prize, as his ticket to the big show in Vegas was written long ago. Dix also picked up an additional win with his partner James Alanis while playing for qualified entry into The Spring Classic!
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Chicago’s HOME Satellite:
Just a “few” miles to the northeast, The Chicago House of Music & Entertainment was rocking with nearly 100 players from 11 different states, who partook in a Quad-Bracket World Series of Beer Pong™ XI Satellite Tournament.
Each player was allowed 1 entry into 4 individual single elimination brackets. Each player had to play with a different partner in each of those 4 brackets. The winners of each individual bracket met in a best 2-out-of-3 semi-finals series. The winners of the semi-finals squared off in a best 2-out-of-3 final series.
Brendan Dyelle of Rochester, Michigan, picked a couple of doozy partners from St. Louis and came roaring out of 2 different brackets, placing him in both semi-final series. The first semi-finals saw Dyelle and former World Series of Beer Pong™ Champion, Ross Hampton, take down Scott Frew and Andy DeCaluwe of Illinois to advance to the finals.
Dyelle prevailed again in the second semi-final bracket with Brent Saale beating out Johnny Fourdyce of Illinois and his partner Michael “Sunshine” Kloiber of Kentucky, to advance both of his teams to the final series. Wait what? (This means, Brendan Dyelle had already won the entire tournament without even having to play in the final series.) Dyelle kicked back and watched his two partners play 1v1 to decide who’d share his first place prize with him and who’d take a share of 2nd. Ross Hampton trumped Brent Saale 2-0 in the final series to claim his share of 1st place.
Dyelle took home a bid to The WSOBP™ and $375 cash. Hampton banked his 2nd bid of the season and $250 in cash. Saale walked away with $125 for his efforts.
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Michigan Satellite:
Last but not least, we make one more stop and travel even further north to Bay Lanes Bowling and Banquet Center in Bay City, Michigan, where Boozin’ Bob decided 3 days before the big weekend that he wanted to be apart of all the fun!
It’s risky business putting so much up for grabs with such little time for players to secure partners and make plans to play but Boozin’ Bob made it happen! He saw an opportunity with some of the best players in the state making the trip down to Chicago to open up the field for non-bid winners to finally scratch their names into the reservation book at The WSOBP™ for the first time, and he capitalized on that opportunity.
The format varied from all the others over the weekend. It was a double-bracket tournament; however, players were only allowed to pick their partners for one of them. The other side of the bracket was random draw. Brandon Juracek, better known as “Homeless” and his partner Clarence Johnson chalked up the Satellite Tournament win.
Being Johnson’s first bid win, he provided us with a quote where he unknowingly described a feeling he’ll now get around the same time every year, for the rest of his life…
“I’m hyped about Vegas! Not even gonna lie!”
Me too, Clarence. Me too.
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On behalf of BPONG™ and The World Series of Beer Pong™, we’d like to thank all the organizers who put so much time and effort into making these awesome tournaments happen! We’d also like to thank all the players who came out to play this past weekend!
If you’d like more information about The World Series of Beer Pong™, how YOU could potentially run a Satellite™ Tournament or anything BPONG™ related, please feel free to reach out to [email protected].
